USA YOGA Nationals 2017 Half-Spine Twisting Pose Ann C Profile
OHYA Approved Teacher Bikram Yoga Hot Yoga

Ann Chrapkiewicz

Founder and Owner, Senior Teacher

Ann started practicing yoga in 2003 in Ann Arbor, MI. Ann Chrapkiewicz completed her initial 9-week, 500-hour hatha yoga training and certification (Bikram Yoga Teacher Training) with Bikram and Rajashree Choudhury, Emmy Cleaves, and Craig Villani in Los Angeles in 2004.  Since that time she has taught over 10,000 hours (and over 7000 students). Before opening BYCA in 2013, she taught at nearly all of the Bikram Yoga schools in Michigan.

Ann is known locally and internationally for her impeccable attention to detail, encouraging teaching style, her ability to give individual coaching to every student at their level, and ability to weave traditional yoga principles into the smooth flow of traditional Bikram Yoga dialogue instruction.  She regularly mentors yoga teachers around the country and the globe.  She is a Level 3 Teacher (the highest available) and Continuing Education provider with the Original Hot Yoga Association.

Prior to opening this yoga school, completed degrees in Literature and Media Studies (B.A. 2000, Duke U.), Asian Studies (M.A. 2006 UM-Ann Arbor), and Medical Anthropology (M.A. 2010 MSU). She has studied exercise physiology at the graduate level (MSU) and supports Dr. Brian L. Tracy’s physiology research on Bikram method hot yoga at Colorado State University.

Her yoga practice background also includes:  Ghosh Yoga Practice week and workshops (2016-2019), Mary Jarvis’s Yoga Shapeshifting (since 2018), immersive initiation programs with Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev (2006 & 2018) and Shibendu Lahiri (2010), as well as the Isha Hatha Yogasanas beginning yoga program (2017). She practices the Isha Yoga kriyas daily.

Ann placed 3rd overall in the 2017 USA Yoga Midwest Asana Championships and was the Michigan representative to the 2017 USA Yoga National Championships at the State Games of America, where she placed 31st.

Ann regularly participates in continuing education with Gil Hedley via his 6-day and 10-day Integral Anatomy workshops.

Ann enjoys working with youth & elderly alike, coaches, athletes, pregnant women, and those with limited mobility, chronic pain, paralysis, or injuries.

In 2020 she completed a co-researched and authored a book project – with BYCA student Jennifer Lane – about the effects of Bikram Yoga on autoimmune diseases.  You can find the book Hope for Autoimmune Disease: 15 Personal Stories of Living Better with Bikram Yoga on Amazon here.

As a supplement to and extension of Bikram Yoga, she highly recommends Mary Jarvis’s Yoga Shapeshifting, and Sadhguru’s complete Inner Engineering Program.