Annie Carpenter
M.S, 500 EYRT
The Teachers’ Teacher
My yoga journey began when I was just 16, and it has been my constant companion ever since, evolving alongside me through my dance career and into my life as a teacher.
I've been fortunate to learn from incredible masters across various traditions, from Swami Satchidananda to Ashtanga's Pattabhi Jois, each shaping my practice in unique ways. These diverse experiences led me to create SmartFLOW Yoga, a method that honors traditional wisdom while encouraging innovative inquiry.
Discipline + Love
My body has always been my source for refuge, with singular being a clear language since my youth. I was lucky to have dance training early on, and a trip to DC when I was a teen to see the Martha Graham Dance Company dialed my focus in.
The Graham technique felt like another way to “speak”; it felt like movement as expression rather than expression tacked onto movement. It was deep, honest, clear, and strong physical motion. My NYC years were lit by studying and teaching at the Martha Graham Center, while practicing Yoga at the Integral Yoga Institute downtown kept me grounded and sane.
Lineage
Annie, born in Virginia, fell in love with dance and yoga in her teens. She moved to New York to study, and eventually teach and perform at the Martha Graham Studio, appreciating Graham's view of "the moving body as an expression of the soul." Annie balanced her dance career with yoga, finding solace at Integral Yoga's ashram under Swami Satchadananda.
In her thirties, Annie taught dance at Butler University while studying therapy. She created movement rituals for people healing from illness and trauma, combining yogic principles with movement. Annie studied Iyengar yoga and gradually shifted away from dance towards yoga.
In the 90s, Annie moved to LA to study at Yoga Works with Maty Ezraty and Chuck Miller, and Lisa Walford. She also studied with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois in the US and India. Annie lead the Yogaworks Teacher trainings from 2003 - 2009, helping to train many of today’s top teachers. Over the years her teaching evolved into SmartFLOW Yoga, combining her dance and deep anatomy studies with essential and beloved yoga principles.
After teaching at YogaWorks for 15 years, Annie moved to Exhale Center for Sacred Movement in Venice, CA, where the principles of SmartFLOW flourished: mindfulness coupled with inquiry, which inevitably leads to spiritual development and light-heartedness. SmartFLOW Yoga guides you to know your true Self. With the knowledge of the true Self comes compassion, peace and appreciation for all life.
Annie now teaches SmartFLOW classes and conducts trainings internationally, with a primary focus in the San Francisco Bay Area, including at Nest Yoga in Oakland and HAUM in San Francisco. Annie continues to teach for the Online platform Glo.com. She is known for being both direct and clear, as well as compassionate, playful and loving in her teaching approach.
“Annie brings the same level of dedication, integrity and open heartedness to meditation that she does with yoga – with a beginners mind”
Trudy Goodman
