Instructors
Donnell Ritz, CYT500, RYT200
Donii has her CYT 500 through Yoga Alliance International and her RYT 200 through Yoga Alliance. She completed her first 200 hour Hatha yoga teacher training in 2016 locally at Shakti Yoga in Geneseo, NY and began teaching immediately. Her second 200 hour yoga teacher training was based in the Iyengar tradition with Francois Raoult of Open Sky Yoga in Rochester, NY in 2022. Donii is certified in Judith Hanson Lasater's Level 1 Relax and Renew® Restorative Yoga. She continues to attend various trainings and workshops as part of her ongoing CEU's. Donii is trained in trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness by James Fox through The Prison Yoga Project and has been teaching the incarcerated population voluntarily since July 2017. She has also co-designed and taught a yoga and mindfulness residency program for grades K-4. Her studies have been with Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, Dr. William Mahony, Barrie Risman, Ellen Saltonstahl, Sonam Targee, Christianne Asper-Contant, Dr. Edwin Bryant, Mirabai Mosca, Carla Anslem, Michael Amy, Meg Ruby and Josephine Vittoria. Donii understands the great healing and wisdom latent in ancient yoga philosophy and her passion is sharing with others how to apply it to our modern times. She founded Ritz Mountain Yoga in 2017, offering community classes and events in the Livonia, NY area on a weekly basis. Donii resides happily in the country setting of Conesus with her fiancé and 2 teenaged sons. She is currently pursuing a degree in Respiratory Therapy at Genesee Community College.
Carrie Ruffner, P.T., RYT200
Carrie is a physical therapist with over 25 years of experience in physical therapy, craniosacral therapy, and energy medicine. She is a graduate of the University of Buffalo with dual degrees in Physical Therapy and Exercise Science. She began studying Tai Chi in 1998 to learn how to improve her patients balance and quickly began to experience firsthand benefits of blending Western medicine with Eastern healing arts. Intrigued, Carrie went on to obtain a black-belt in White Crane Kung Fu, became a Reiki Master and a Yoga Alliance Certified 200 Hr. Yoga Instructor. She continued on to study Ayurveda - the ancient healing art of yoga - with Dr. Vasant Lad and Sonam Targee, and became a certified instructor in Vishoka Meditation through the Himalayan Institute.
Currently, she is a member of the International Alliance of Health Care Professional (IAHP) and trains with The Upledger and D’Ambrogio Institutes. She is the founder of Carrie Ruffner Body Balance LLC where she treats clients in the Gardeners Cottage of the Sweet Briar Estate in Geneseo, NY. Outside of that, you can find her paddle boarding on Conesus lake, hiking in nature with her daughters, or enjoying a good book.
Amber Mastin, RYT200
Born into this world feral and free range, Amber would often lose herself in the wooded acres behind her childhood home in Honeoye. Completely immersed and fully present, curiously observing the ways of nature lead her to an education in science and creative arts. When she became lost in the hustle and bustle of the world, turned away from her true self, searching for something meaningful and real, she discovered yoga.
What started as a relaxing morning fitness routine on public broadcasting turned into an insatiable desire of the soul to gain more wisdom of what just felt right. Amber was introduced to the philosophical and historic aspects of Ashtanga and Anusara Yoga through Shakti Yoga studio in Geneseo where she gained her 200hr teaching certification. She went on to study trauma informed Kundalini Yoga and Ayurveda at Yoga Farm Ithaca where she received her 300hr teaching certificate.
Fascinated by the union between ancient traditions and the neuroscience of yoga, Amber focuses on moving subtle energy with the help of sound waves using a multifaceted blend of healing frequencies and mind taming mantras.
Linda Dyckman Mehlenbacher, RYT200
Linda is retired from a career in education. She has been a yoga student for 6+ years and believes strongly in the physical and psychological benefits of yoga for the aging. A Conesus Lake resident for 22 years, she now divides her time between summers on the lake and winters in Florida. Taking her passion for yoga to a new level, she became a Yoga Alliance Certified Yoga 200 Hour Instructor. She continues to study yoga and Yin and its positive effects on quality of life.
Holly Kubrich, RYT200
Holly is a lifelong student and teacher of the Yoga practice. She is professionally certified in teaching Health, Physical Education, Vinyasa Flow Yoga, and Special Education. Holly currently teaches in the Dansville Central School District and previously owned and operated Anuva Yoga in Lakeville, NY. Holly is passionate about Yoga, especially her chosen discipline of Vinyasa Flow and looks forward to resuming her teaching practice at Ritz Mountain Yoga Studio and helping her students, whether new to the practice or veteran practitioners, feel stronger and more balanced.