April Ritchey

Contact Information   
Santa Monica, California
United States
Email: april_ritchey@hotmail.com
Phone: (301) 428-0658
Website: www.facebook.com


Schedule  
City Yoga, LA 
1067 N Fairfax Ave
W Hollywood, California 90046

Aanand Saagar 
1318 2nd St #21
Santa Monica, California 90401



Events  
No events found.


Professional Background  
At the University of Cincinnati, I studied English, writing, journalism, and then finally getting a degree in art history and French. Art history, and an amazing teacher, Jo Ann Face, sparked my interest in all things mystical in art and performance. Kandinsky, Dada, John Cage, and other modernists brought me philosophy and an alternative understanding to looking at life.

Then, studies in Pre-Columbian art, and Native American art taught me about shamanism, peyote pilgrimages and other-worldly phenomenon.

Next, I went to grad school at Ohio State, to study contemporary art and philosophy. Kant,Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Lyotard and an influential essay by Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of a Work of Art." I see a video exhibition and a huge installation of an artist's work that would set my course toward yoga later on.

On to Arizona State where I flipped my focus from Native American art of the Northwest Coast back to contemporty art. I studied video artist Bill Viola (www.billviola.com) for my Masters thesis and followed his interest in Buddhism, Rumi, the Vedas, and many ideas relating to eastern philoshophy.

I worked for museums, galleries, public arts councils, curated my own art exhibit until my heart led me to teaching yoga.

Bio written 2008:

In the summer of 1998, a friend took me to a little studio in an old elementary school site in Scottsdale, Arizona. The teacher, Desiree Rumbaugh, was warm and bubbly with an insatiable laugh and smile. Her light was so radiant and heart so open that I wanted to know more about her and her yoga. I kept returning to a weekly class and then wandered into a three hour Eye of the Tiger class where I watched mostly, trying to do what ever I could. Most of my understanding came from watching her move and contort, always amazed by her radiance. Desiring to have this lightness in my heart, I began my path not knowing why, just knowing there was something in this that was calling me toward this indescribable thing.

Then one day my teacher got a call from an all women's gym asking if she knew teachers she could hire. She approached me and encouraged me to do it. With only the training I had from my classes, I began to teach from my heart.

Later, I met my teacher's teacher, John Friend, at an evening workshop at Scottsdale Community College. Before, I would only hear stories of workshops and gatherings in Tucson. I'd see the preparation for his presence and see the aftereffects and feel the energy of their experience.

My heart called out to what it wanted: trainings, workshops, teaching. Then a baby, in the middle of my own birth as a teacher, and a husband's expanding career, which took us to Maryland. We landed near Tacoma Park and an Anusara kula where I found form to my understanding of this yoga. With every pose that my teacher preformed etched in my mind's eye, I learned how to define the method in words and let go of my attachment to the past and opened my heart a new understanding of this method of yoga.

When I flew to Tucson for teacher training 2(TT 1 taken with Des in AZ), I was unprepared for the experience of spending the week with John Friend. Always feeling he was my teacher's teacher, I had never expected to feel a powerful connection to him or his teachings. He told us, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." So at that moment I knew he had really been my teacher all along.

Many more workshops with John, and lots of home study while my baby napped, I grew deeper into tantric philosophy and its connection to Anusara yoga.

Missing the light of the sun and the natural wonders of the west, we moved to Santa Monica for an even more challenging adventure. I am blessed to have found a wonderful opportunity in teaching to moms with small children and mothers-to-be at YogaCo. To bring yoga to women in service to their families is an honor and pure joy.

It has been an amazing 11 year journey and I've only begun to grow. I would like to thank my inspirational teachers, John Friend, Desiree Rumbaugh, Kate Miller, Moses Brown, Chris Chavez, Marc Holzman, Noah Maze, and Douglas Brooks.
Nameste



Yoga Background  
April is a poet, a love activist and a believer of truth in goodness within each and every person. A long time devotee of Anusara yoga, 13 years...as long as the system has been established...she has seen it evolve and grow into an international phenomenon. Now practiced in over 100 countries, Anusara yoga has revolutionized the way yoga is being practiced, taught and including how teachers are trained. April's primary teacher is Desiree Rumbaugh, who is considered a pioneer in therapeutic yoga and a trail blazer in and of herself. She met John Friend, the founder of Anusara yoga and was completely taken with his vision and mission. Noah Maze is also one of her teachers and she considers him an inspiration and is grateful for his strength and wisdom to the practice of Anusara Yoga and its teachings.

April loves teaching students new to yoga and is a therapeutic and restorative yoga specialist. Her classes are infused with the Anusara's Universal Principle's Alignment, the Tantric yoga philosophies based on the brilliance and interpretation of Douglas Brooks. April mixes in inspiring heart themes to help move her students to closer to the truth of who they are and to assist them in having a happy and more fulfilled life.

April has many influences that have moved her along her spiritual path and one of her very favorites is the poet David Whyte. From his poem, Sweet Darkness, a quote that sums up the purpose of one's life:

"You must learn one thing....The world was made to be free in."


Questions and Answers   

Q: What other hobbies do you have aside from yoga practice?
A: Chanting, playing with my daughter, hiking, walking on the beach, kayaking, skiing, camping, reading, writing, loving and being in service to my community

Q: What is the title of a book that you have read recently that you could strongly recommend?
A: The Yoga of Sound: Tapping the Hidden Power of Music and Chant by Russill Paul

Q: What is one of your all-time favorite movies?
A: My Dinner with Andre by Louis Malle

Q: What is one place that you would like to visit in the world? Why?
A: New Zealand is a remarkable country with landscape so diverse and amazing that I want to drink in all its natural beauty and feel the power of divine energy.

Q: What's your favorite color?
A: Toss up between sage green and indigo

Q: What award in high school should you have won?
A: The most improved for track and field

Q: What is one of the funniest incidents that occurred in one of your yoga classes?
A: While my students were in savasana, I walk out of the studio to get some water and when I came back the door was locked! I had to knock to get someone to let me back in.