Lee Hyori brings dream studio 'Ananda Hyori' to life; singer reflects on yoga as self-care

Lee Hyori is opening 'Ananda Hyori' in Seoul's Yeonhui-dong, her label confirmed on social media, situating the project as the latest chapter in a career increasingly defined by intention as much as influence.

The studio's identity leans on "ananda," a Sanskrit term for bliss, reflecting a narrative that has threaded through moves from Jeju back to Seoul and a steady embrace of slower, interior rhythms in parallel with pop stardom.

Why yoga took hold

Years ago, Lee spoke candidly about the burdens of being a household's primary earner and the ache that arose across her shoulders. She described yoga as a way to meet pain with structure and breath. The practice began as relief for chronic shoulder strain, yet soon offered a steadier ground than the turmoil of fast-paced public life, a space where difficulty felt clarifying rather than crushing.

That evolution mirrored a wider view she has shared in media: yoga as more than exercise, a sustained training of attention that reshapes mood, posture, and self-regard in daily routines beyond the mat. The framing rejects spectacle and treats repetition as a kind of refuge, a lesson that carried from island's quiet back to city cadence.

From self-care to teaching

Before the studio, Lee taught small sessions in Jeju and led classes for colleagues, indicating a gradual passage from personal discipline to communal practice. Those encounters set a tone of approachable rigour, a style that privileges alignment and breathwork over performance, and that treats instruction as shared study rather than celebrity clinic.

Public glimpses of her guidance-posture demonstrations, adjustments, and brand-hosted sessions have shown a teacher comfortable translating fundamentals while signalling that consistency, not novelty, is where change accrues. The emphasis lands on embodied calm: standing tall, breathing low, and letting repetition do quiet work.

The meaning of 'Ananda' now

As an alter ego, 'Ananda' once gave audiences a name for a quieter current running beneath fame; as a studio, it fixes that current to a door and a neighbourhood. The choice underscores a belief that identity can be practised into being, that joy is not an affect but a technique, and that a day can be reordered by how one stands, inhales, and pays attention.