20/09/2026
17 years ❤️
Yesterday I was reminded that it was the anniversary of Astanga Yoga Studio.
17 years ago, in late September 2009, Robin and I opened the doors to our beautiful, spacious studio on Blegdamsvej. A lot has happened since then.
So many students have walked through our doors. So many wonderful people, friendships, teachers, practices, conversations and experiences. There have been amazing years, and there have also been very difficult ones.
In 2017 we had to leave Blegdamsvej, and I took a chance and invested everything I had into building the studio we have now in Fensmarksgade. I wanted to make sure there would still be a place where we could continue to practice and pass on Astanga Yoga the way I always understood it should be.
Since then we have been through Corona, months of being closed, losing a huge part of our community, inflation, rising energy costs and all the other challenges that all of us have experienced throughout the years. It has required the kind of persistence that the practice cultivates in you, to insist on trying to keep a small independent studio alive. By grace, community support and grit, 17 years later, we are still here.
For me, there has always been a deeper reason to keep going beyond simply running a yoga studio. I wanted to both offer and preserve a place where Astanga Yoga could be practiced and taught in the way I learned it. A place centered around the Mysore method, and the idea that this is something you learn gradually, through practice, repetition, perseverance and time.
Of course traditions change. They have to. They can be questioned, developed and taught in different ways. With that in mind, it makes sense to look after the basic structure and knowledge that has been passed down by my teachers, to still be guarding the tradition. Otherwise, little by little, it can simply disappear or become something completely different.
Yoga in general, and this particular way of practicing it, has given me a lot throughout my life. And I have witnessed what it has given so many of my students, practitioners, friends and colleagues around the world as well. I believe there is something genuinely valuable in preserving a place, a sanctuary, a sangha, where people can come together, learn and practice this way.
We are still a small, strong community of people doing our best to look after body, mind and spirit through the practice. We show up. We practice. We try again and again, learning a little more about ourselves along the way.
And places and practices that anchor us in ourselves, that require us to be more aware and attentive, matter even more in a world that seems to change at an ever increasing speed. Tradition, history and practices that have been carried forward over generations can give us something to anchor ourselves in.
I like to think that our studio is one of those places. A little oasis of breath and movement in the middle of the city.
So congratulations to all of us. 17 years and still here ❤
My plan is another decade or two. But not alone. I am soon launching an apprenticeship program, where I will share my many years of teaching experience with a new generation of interested and dedicated people, who can carry the torch forward, and hopefully do an even better job at it. Stay tuned for that.
