Annika Isterling

Twenty-Three Years In, Still Adapting

Annika Isterling has practised yoga for over twenty-three years, and still sits to meditate first thing every morning, the one part of the day she won't move. Everything else bends: some weeks it's jump rope and Pilates with NOYA's resistance bands, some weeks long Yin holds, some weeks the gym. She doesn't think any single practice fits everyone, or fits one person for a whole life. For fifteen years she's run retreats around the world, built on that same idea, stay open to what the body needs next.

Where do you practice, and what does that space look like?

"I travel a lot, so my space changes constantly. I'm an outdoor person by nature, but for a focused practice I'm indoors, one hundred percent. I'll improvise with whatever props are around, but I never travel without my own mat."

What does a typical session look like?

"The one thing I never move is meditation, first thing in the morning. After that it adapts to how I am and what I'm working toward. Right now I jump rope twenty minutes a day and do about twenty-five minutes of Pilates with NOYA's resistance bands, with a short yoga practice at the end. When I'm meditating a lot, I'll do longer Yin holds, they support the sitting. Other days it's only yoga, or the gym."

What drew you to the kind of movement you do?

"Yoga first, always, twenty-three years now. I started Pilates around the same time, just for myself. In the last five years I've added functional training, because building muscle got harder through my usual practices, and the rope jumping is for my heart. I try a lot and feel what it does to my body. I don't think one practice fits everyone, and definitely not for a whole life. As we get older we need different things. Stay open to that."

What does consistency mean to you?

"I do something every day, even if it's only ten minutes. Movement matters that much, especially on the office days, when sitting is the posture you're stuck in."

What's always with you when you move?

"My yoga mat. I love a quick stretch, or to squeeze in some core."

On the retreats

For over fifteen years, Annika has run seven or eight retreats a year, from silent weeks on a Portuguese mountaintop to a villa in Brazil. They gather under annikaisterling.com

What made you start organising retreats?

"I modeled in the nineties and travelled constantly, I wanted to keep that going when I started teaching. It's been over fifteen years now, seven or eight a year. A retreat gives people the room to look for longer than 60 minutes at what isn't working anymore and actually change it, with the body along for the ride."

How do you choose a location?

"I love finding new places, and I have a weakness for boutique hotels. The space has to fit the retreat. A Vipassana needs somewhere genuinely quiet, with a team that knows how to hold a silent week, a mountaintop in Portugal, or somewhere shut off by the Nordic sea. Move. Breathe. Connect. is almost its own small festival, with teachers from my platform and a full programme in a boutique hotel in Mallorca. In Brazil I rent a whole villa and bring in samba, capoeira, incense-making, the feel of the place. I also run retreats in five-star hotels that give my people good rates, so they can use the spa, the concerts, the things they might never have booked otherwise."

What does a day look like?

"It depends on the retreat. Some have two sessions a day with plenty of time to rest and explore. Others run from eight in the morning to ten at night."

What do you hope people take home?

"Every retreat is built around one theme. What I want people to leave with is that theme and the map for how to find their way back to it on their own."

Anything you'd want people to know?

"Just come. You don't need to know anything or be good at anything first, every level is welcome. Honestly it's my favourite kind of holiday: good company, good food, you move more than usual, and you come back somewhere better."

Follow along Annika on Instagram and thedeepconnection.de.