teacher biographies

Natalie Rousseau
Natalie Rousseau is an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher with the Yoga Alliance at the 200hour level and is currently finishing her Advanced Teacher Training (500hr) with the South Okanogan Yoga Association. She has been fortunate to study with many amazing local and international teachers and holds certificates in Hatha, Vinyasa, Ashtanga, and Pre-Natal Yoga. Her personal teaching style has been greatly influenced by teachers Fiona Stang and Julian Deck, Tim Miller, Shiva Rea, Donna Farhi, and Shakti Mhi.

She continues to learn daily through her commitment to personal practice, as well as from her many wonderful students. When not studying or teaching she is walking the dog or playing with her partner and son in the garden that is her island home.

Katie Fornika
Katie Fornika is a Yoga Alliance Registered Yoga Teacher at the 200 hour level and has completed her teacher training in the Yoga Works method which is based on the Krishnamacharya lineage, specifically blending the Iyengar and Ashtanga traditions. She has recently certified in Pre Natal yoga and is seeking to continue her studies in the Anusara style. All of Katie's classes aim to balance precision alignment, attention to breath and flow.

Sometimes Katie thinks her journey to yoga must have been conspired in a previous life. As a child she was a whirling dervish with a love of movement, a knack for candle gazing and sitting quietly with eyes closed amongst the trees. She would move around her living room spontaneously going from Sarvangasana to Padmasana and convinced her sibling to partake in partner yoga on a regular basis. Throw in a mother and grandmother who took initiation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the early 60's and it seems her destiny was set. Her formal study of yoga began in 2003.

Katie's approach to practice is that of "Lila", a sanskrit word meaning "game" or "play". Lila is used as a way of describing all reality as the outcome of the creative play of Life in all its phases and forms. With gratitude and a smile, Katie looks forward to the opportunity of sharing the transformational powers of yoga with her students.

April Woods
April Woods is a Yoga Alliance Registered Yoga Teacher at the 200 hour level, and has been trained in the Hatha, Ashtanga, and Yin methods.After attending her first yoga class she became instantly compelled and inspired by the practice, and after six years of personal exploration she was drawn toward teaching as a way to deepen her studies while enabling her to share her dicoveries with others.

Growing up in the wilds of Clayoquot Sound April always felt a strong connection to the earth. The practice of yoga has drawn her even more deeply into the interconnectedness of the universe, and brought her in touch with the vastness around her and within herself, it is this experience of connection that she most wants to empart through her teaching.

She is thrilled to have found such a content, joyfull way of living and finds new insperation through her daily journy of being both a teacher of yoga as well as a student.