Our Teachers
Mary Angela Buffo is the owner/director of Ananda Yoga & Wellness Center in Southampton N.Y. She thoroughly enjoys both teaching classes to groups and working privately with individuals. She offers workshops based on the Law of Attraction, Chakra balancing and more, as well as and retreats around the world.
Mary has studied with many teachers (Angela Farmer, Todd Norian, John Friend, Eric Schiffman)and continues to learn every day. She is a Certified Hatha Yoga teacher through Todd Norian, Kripalu yoga teacher, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist and an ordained minister.
Mary has also worked as a mental health counselor for over 12 years. Her classes are physical with a challenging vinyasa flow while staying conscious of the emotional and mental experiences. She has a loving approach to her teachings, creating a safe environment for all students. Her intention is to bring people back to their bodies so that they can empower their lives. Mary Angela has been studying and practicing yoga and meditation for over 15 years.
Contact Mary directly for private sessions in Yoga or Spiritual Counseling at (516) 702-2921.
Ann Harmon began practicing Yoga in 1989. Her love of Yoga has grown since then. What began as strictly a physical practice, gradually became a spiritual practice. She was certified as a Yoga teacher by Yoga Shanti in a 500-hour program. She has also taken workshops with Beryl Bender Birch, James Murphy and Mary Dunn, two esteemed Iyengar Yoga teachers, Anna Forest, Mark Whitwell, Angela Farmer and Victor Van Kooten and Rodney Yee. Ann is inspired by these teachers and many others who have crossed her path over the years. She remains open to all kinds of teachings and takes what she feels into her teaching.
Ann has had experience teaching beginners, seniors, as well as more advanced students. Her class is about teaching her students to be present in their bodies and then learning to take the physical practice off the mat and out into the world as they live their lives. Ann tailors her class to be invigorating as well as relaxing. She finds the most inspiration from her students .
Hilary Herrick Woodward
Hilary Herrick Woodward has practiced meditation since1976 and became a certified Forrest Yoga Instructor in 2005. Her yoga and meditation practice inspire her to become awake, aware and alive to all that life offers each day. Forrest Yoga emphasizes breath, strength, integrity and spirit. Other teachers who have inspired her are Desiree Rumbaugh, Caroline Myss and Stephen Cope.
Hilary brings to students joy, humor and a passion for the transformative effects of yoga. Through careful instruction of pose sequences, students learn to awaken the senses and bring vitality to every cell of the body. She teaches the students to listen to the true teacher within through tapping into breath and the intelligence of the body. Guiding her students to mindful yoga practice helps them take these qualities off the mat into everyday life.
Hilary has a BS in Education. She specialized in early childhood and taught for 12 years. Her expertise in teaching draws from extensive professional experience including classroom teaching, school directorship, choir directing, dance calling and knitting instruction. She is mostly found these days in her organic garden, her kitchen, knitting, writing, on her bicycle, and on her mat, but not all at once! She lives in Southampton with her husband Eric. They have two grown daughters, Lucy and Emma.
Marcia Tumpowsky has been involved in the 'Healing Arts' for ever 30 years. She is a Certified (500 hour) Professional Kripalu Yoga Teacher. She is certified in Restorative Yoga and Pregnancy Yoga. She is a NYS Licensed Massage Therapist, Certified Healing Touch Practitioner, a Polarity Practitioner and has recently been certified in Positional Release Therapy. YOGA ON THE BEACH in Sag Harbor N.Y. was started in the summer of 2000. She has been teaching meditation since 1988, privately and in group settings. She combines all of her teachings in her classes and her bodywork.
Sohini Patti Carbone Wellen is Certified in Amrit Method Yoga Nidra and Kripalu Yoga and has been teaching on the East End for over 12 years. She embraces the Amrit Method of Yoga for its transformative qualities, and its cultivation of conscious awareness and inner stillness. Also known by her Sanskrit name “Sohini”, Patti continues to train directly with Yogi Amrit Desai in the deeper practices of Yoga.
She holds over 700 hours of professional training including an OAISIS Certification in Yoga for Recovery, and the designation of RYT500 from the Yoga Alliance. Patti offers Yoga classes for all levels, as well as Yoga Nidra classes which include a discourse on Yogic philosophy. She leads workshops in Amrit Yoga, Meditation, Japa Mantra, and Yoga Nidra throughout the year.
Previous to teaching Yoga, Patti worked as a Chef out in the Hamptons since 1980, which she still maintains seasonally. She has blended her love of food, cooking, and Yoga into the practice of Ayurveda, and offers her expertise to those who wish to incorporate Vedic meal planning into their daily life.
Leslie Pearlman’s relationship with yoga began over 25 years ago when she stumbled upon her mother doing yoga in her nightgown on her bedroom floor. Leslie was hooked immediately. She used to tag along with her mother to her weekly yoga class and experienced her first yoga retreat at age 12. Leslie continued to practice yoga and in February 2000 decided to teach and study yoga full-time. Leslie completed her first Teacher Training in 2000 (Sivananda). In 2002 Leslie had the great fortune of meeting Ana Forrest, who has become her most influential teacher. Leslie has completed both the Forrest Yoga Teacher Training and Advanced Forrest Yoga Training and is honored to be a Senior Assistant to Ana Forrest. Leslie also has over 15 years experience as a fitness and movement instructor.
Prior to teaching yoga full-time, Leslie was an attorney at Brooklyn Legal Services where she provided legal assistance to domestic violence survivors. It was through this work that Leslie saw first hand the power of healing the spirit. After studying Forrest Yoga Leslie was able to take the knowledge of her many worlds and to help people apply that to fulfilling their lives. Leslie encourages her students to go deeper and to go explore the myriad benefits of yoga.
Doreen Corwith Eckert, M.Ed., has been studying and teaching aspects of holistic health for 19 years. She received her 200 hour certification as a Hatha yoga instructor from the Himalayan Institute of Yoga Science & Philosophy in Pennsylvania in 1998 and has been teaching ever since. Currently, she is working on her 500 hour certification.
Before returning to her Water Mill roots in 2000, she spent 11 years in Vermont teaching yoga classes, providing Massage Therapy, managing a state Health Education Resource Center and her own Evanya Wellness Center.
Doreen teaches classical Hatha Yoga which includes physical postures to purify and regain health in the body; Conscious breathing, philosophy, deep relaxation, sense-withdrawal and mind-quieting techniques. Doreen’s approach has been described as “warm, sincere, respectful”. She infuses classes with scientific details, inspirational readings and suggestions for daily life applications.
She teaches basic and intermediate level classes as well as specialties such as Seniors, Gentle, Pre/Postnatal, Restorative & Christ-centered Yoga.
Kara Billingham
Kara teaches Kripalu style yoga at Ananda and in her home studio in Hampton Bays. Her yoga journey began in 2001 to alleviate sciatica pain while pregnant. A friend introduced her to her first class at the Ananda Yoga & Wellness Center in 2002. Mary Angela Buffo was Kara’s first teacher at Ananda and has been one of the most influential people in Kara’s yogic life. Her personal yoga practice grew and in 2005 she decided to train to become a yoga teacher. By the end of 2006 she received her 200 hour YTT from Kripalu center for yoga & health, where she studied with Steven Hartman (Devarshi) and Nancy Buttenheim (Megha). This experience transformed her yoga into a much more spiritual practice.
Kara’s passion for yoga goes hand in hand with her love for working with individuals with special needs. She was previously the Director of the Southampton Fresh Air Home, a local camp for physically challenged children, and continues to volunteer her time teaching yoga to the staff and campers there each summer.
She feels the most influential people along her path have been the students who attend her classes. Kara is particularly proud of the sense of community her classes bring, inspiring all to honor themselves and those around them….not only on the yoga mat, but in life. Her passion is to bring yoga to as many people as she can and to spread a message that we are all in some way connected! Find out more about Kara’s classes at www.KaraYoga.com
Mary Broidy believes in the transforming power of yoga. She started on her yoga path as a method of healing from the loss of a family member and the tragedy of 9/11 and to seek relief from “fibromyalgia”. Having had more than one “wake up” call, Mary made several life changes including leaving her 16- year Wall Street career. She thanks Mary Buffo and the Ananda Studio for the gift of yoga.
Mary is trained in Ashtanga yoga, a deeply purifying asana practice that emphasizes “vinyasa”, the coordination of breath and movement. She is certified in Ashtanga Yoga with Beryl Bender Birch Hard and Soft Yoga Institute. She is also certified by the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center of Neyyar Dam, India. She has been trained by Lino Miele, Richard Freeman, Sri K. Pattabi Jois, Sharath and Saraswati Ragaswamy. As a teacher, Mary emphasizes control of the breath and the bandhas, movement and postures that surrender the ego as a means to unveiling the giant spirit within. She teaches yoga as a joyful, therapeutic practice and especially believes in the uplifting power of mantra, meditation, and chanting.
Abby Vakay RYT
Registered Yoga Alliance, and Certified Vinyasa, Tranquil Space in Washington, DC, followed with Shiva Rea, Fluid Power, at Kripalu, with ongoing study rooted in Krishnamacharya lineage,and her creative personal practice. Abby has been living and breathing yoga since age 6, lining up her mates to perform headstands and splits and giving them reportcards, yikes. These days, Abby guides students to breath and move in Fusion Flow Yoga.
What is Fusion Flow?
Fusion Flow is a merging of many rivers of inspiration, ongoing, always changing, where form follows function, cyclical as in nature, circular like malas, a real fluid freedom flow!
This yoga is for all. We begin as we are, where we are, however we are, as perfection, already realized and living our yoga in all ways.
www.AbbyVakay.com
Isabelle Cote-Cohen began practicing yoga as a way to divert the stress of operating her restaurant. Her love of yoga blossomed to a point where she decided to pursue certification so she could share the greatness that yoga brings to the body, mind and spirit.
Isabelle became a certified Kripalu teacher in 2001 and has since earned her 500-hour Professional Level certification. She also earned additional yoga teacher training certificates in Prenatal and Pregnancy, Children's Yoga as well as Thai Yoga Bodywork.
Isabelle’s classes integrate influences from many different yoga traditions. She especially takes great inspiration from her background as a dancer as well as her vinyasa studies with Shiva Rea. With all of her training Isabelle has captured the true essence of yoga and brings power, exuberance, caring and love to her classes.
Jennifer Nicolau is a certified childrens yoga teacher, and became one to share her love of yoga with the little ones.
Phone: 631-204-1219 Email: