Annie founded Circle Yoga and Budding Yogis to bring the practice of mindful yoga to children, families, and adults in the DC area. She especially enjoys weaving mindfulness practices with yoga postures and creating more mindfulness and compassion for our bodies. She trusts in the ability of these practices to bring balance and ease into her own life and she joyfully shares their gifts with her students.
Annie discovered meditation when she was a confused teenager, and mindfulness meditation became the center of her life in 1999 when she began studying with her main teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. In addition to Thich Nhat Hanh, her main dharma teachers are Pema Chodron, Jack Kornfield, her four children, and the monks and nuns of Plum Village. In October 2009, Annie was ordained into the Buddhist Order of Interbeing.
Annie is an Anusara-affiliated yoga teacher– although her first hatha yoga love was the Ashtanga yoga of Pattabhi Jois– and currently studies Mindfulness Yoga with Anne Cushman and other teachers at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. Her main hatha yoga teachers have been John Friend, Kate Miller, Rod Stryker, Gail Harris, and Marion Griffen. Annie completed her first teacher training at Willow Street Yoga Center with Suzie Hurley, and is a Registered Yoga Teacher through Yoga Alliance.
Annie has a strong interest in using mindfulness yoga to help people with emotional and psychological struggles, and teaches a workshop on “Yoga for Addictions and Compulsions” regularly. She also has taught many children and teenagers with anxiety related disorders, such as OCD, anorexia, and bulimia. She initiated a Therapeutic Yoga program at Circle Yoga in order to provide yoga to all people regardless of their personal struggles.
Annie has also very gratefully learned from Marshall Rosenberg (the creator of Non-Violent Communication), Mary O’Malley, Janice Gates, Tias Little, Sarah Powers, Frank Jude Boccio, Stephen Cope, Sharon Salzburg, her mother, and many many other wise beings that she has encountered during her life.
Winner of the 