Practice in Real Life: Minna

Minna’s life is full.

Alongside her day job working with legislation, she volunteers as the head of an art school and spends much of her free time painting and exploring other creative crafts. Animals and travelling are close to her heart, too. At home, she shares her life with four cats and an aquarium, although she says that all animals are important to her.

Art, animals and travel form the landscape of her life outside yoga.

Astanga became part of Minna’s life when we met at a retreat in Bali in early 2023. After the retreat, she considered different ways of continuing her practice and decided to reach out to me.

“I really liked Heidi’s way of teaching and moving the practice forward, one asana at a time. It felt natural to continue my Ashtanga journey with her guidance.”

For Minna, practice is a moment to pause in the middle of everyday life.

She practises at home and also joins retreats and workshops to deepen her understanding of the practice. Her intention is to do at least one longer practice each week, alongside shorter ones. She has noticed that having a teacher and a group helps her maintain continuity. Left completely on her own, practice can easily be pushed aside by the many other things life brings.

What draws her back to the mat, even during busy times, is the experience that time somehow slows down there.

“There is permission to simply be with my body for a moment. Every practice reminds me that when I pause, breathe and listen instead of rushing and performing, things begin to settle into their right places.”

Online practice has made this possible in a very practical way. There is no time spent travelling to and from a studio, and practice can continue even while travelling or away from home. It also makes something else possible: a community that extends far beyond one place.

Without online practice, our group would not include people from different parts of Finland and beyond. Minna feels that this diversity enriches the conversations and the shared journey.

One of the things she has discovered through practising online is the value of staying on her own mat.

“There is no need to follow what is happening on someone else’s mat. Online practice has taught me to listen to my own body even more carefully.”

She has also learned that a teacher does not always need to be physically present for guidance and connection to happen.

What surprised her most was exactly this:

“How well teaching works, even when the teacher is not in the same room.”

And perhaps this is one of the most beautiful things Minna shares about our online group:

“Rarely have I experienced the same kind of acceptance and atmosphere of kindness as in our online group. Even though many of us have never met face to face, there is a real feeling of community and of doing something together.”

When asked to describe her experience of practising with us in three words, Minna chose: Community. Shared purpose. Acceptance.

This is practice in real life: finding a way to pause, breathe and return — in the middle of work, creativity, animals, travel and everything else that makes up an ordinary, full and beautiful life.