18: Anja Torrika

This week I’m talking to Anja Torikka.
Anja is a Finnish yoga teacher and a creative who now lives in the heart of the welsh countryside. Her businesses are Anja Yoga and Blue Van Lady so as well as teaching yoga, Anja can be found creating things like beautiful journals, pretty eye pillows and fairies…yes, fairies! Growing up in Finland, Anja was always fascinated by spirits in the forests so we’re going to find out more about this during the podcast, as well as how her love of crafting developed. I’m hoping she can also explain what the Scandinavian word Hygge actually means! Anja is also passionate about sustainability so I’ll ask her about how she weaves this into her creative business.
Going back to yoga, Anja, like many of us, has made the move to teaching yoga online so we’ll find out how that is going, especially since she usually loves to teach yoga in the outdoors! Anja is also hoping to run a couple of retreats this summer to so we’ll talk about how it’s been planning those events in the midst of what we are facing right now. As well as yoga, Anja teaches Qigong so we’ll find out that that is and I’m also interested to know what brought her to the UK from Finland.
When I’ve met Finnish people in my previous career they have been generally pretty quiet people…even my Finnish opposite number at my old work didn’t talk much and he joked that he was known as a chatterbox! So I’m going to explore what the typical Finn is like with Anja, what it’s like to live in a different country, what she does (and doesn’t) miss from her native Finland and whether she has any plans to return in the future.
I’m delighted to welcome Anja Torikka to That Yoga Woman’s Podcast - I very much hope you like listening to our conversation.
Listeners, you an contact Anja through her email address: hello@anjayoga.co.uk and check out her new website at www.anjayoga.co.uk. Please let her know what you thought of the podcast and if you’ve got any questions for her I’m sure she’ll answer them for you. Support Enjoyed listening? Then please rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. If you’d like to support That Yoga Woman’s Podcast you can donate via www.paypal.me/thatyogawoman
About Your host is Jules Buchanan, a British yoga teacher in her forties. Married (without children, but with a gorgeous Labrador called Diesel), she’s Brummie born, started teaching yoga in Bedfordshire, but is now based on the Northumberland coast and has been teaching yoga for about 4 years.
Find out more about Jules by visiting www.thatyogawoman.com Check our her range of organic cotton, yoga inspired tops at www.thatyogawoman.com/shop Follow her on Instagram @thatyogawoman Like and follow her Facebook page @thatyogawoman
If you have any feedback or know a yogi, teacher or studio owner that you think would be a great guest, then email me: info@thatyogawoman.com
The next episode is out in a fortnight.