Retreat Centers
Your Zen Yoga
Your Zen Yoga was a small yoga business in Guanacaste run by teacher Dori Matthews Thomsen, known for private classes, custom group retreats and early stand-up paddleboard (SUP) yoga. It no longer operates in Costa Rica, and Dori now teaches in Jacksonville, Florida; we've kept this page for the record.
Update, November 2026: Your Zen Yoga no longer runs in Costa Rica. Its founder, Dori Thomsen, moved back to Jacksonville, Florida, where she co-founded Soluna Yoga + Spa in 2014; her teacher profile says she still leads some trainings and retreats abroad. We've kept this article for the record.
Your Zen Yoga was run by Dori Matthews Thomsen, a yoga teacher who lived in Costa Rica for about 5 years and taught in Guanacaste. She offered private and small-group classes, custom retreats for groups who brought their own people, and stand-up paddleboard yoga; her teacher profile calls her an early SUP yoga teacher in Central America. She was also trained in Thai massage.
How she taught
Dori built her classes around the student rather than a fixed sequence, mixing hatha, vinyasa and restorative yoga with meditation and breathing practice. Her hatha classes opened and closed with restorative poses and put the more active work in the middle. Her flow classes linked each movement to the breath.
SUP yoga
Stand-up paddleboard yoga takes a normal class onto a wide, stable board on calm water. Balance is harder, so poses are simpler, and falling in is part of the fun. It's easy on the joints and good for core strength. In Guanacaste, it works best in sheltered bays on calm mornings, before the afternoon wind picks up.
Yoga in Guanacaste today
If you came here looking for classes in Guanacaste, there's plenty on offer: Nosara, Tamarindo and Sámara all have daily drop-in studios, and Vajra Sol runs yoga retreats at Playa Langosta near Tamarindo. For open centers across the country, see our guide to where to do yoga in Costa Rica.
[Updated on: 4 November 2026]
