What is Yin Yoga?

Yin yoga is a slow deliberate yoga with a focus on long holds to stress the deep tissues, ligaments, tendons, fascia, of the body.

I am a 200 hour certified yoga instructor as well as a 100 hour certified meditation instructor. While going through my teacher trainings, I read about several different yoga styles. My own journey brought me to yoga first with power yoga, then with vinyasa yoga. What ended up calling to me during my training and after was Yin yoga. The question I had to answer for myself was why?

So much of modern life is active, or yang. Western society, I cannot speak for other societies since I have never experienced them, enforces this belief that you always have to be "on". You have to always be "hustling". It is seen everywhere. In tv and movies people that choose not to live the "hustle life" are depicted as lazy, retired, or some weird outcast. So, you internalize this message and you go go go. Society praises people who work through their illnesses: I have never missed a day of work even when I had pneumonia. The lack of sleep is seen as a point of pride: I only sleep 4 hours a day because I am so busy all the time. You hear, "I don't have time to exercise" and "I wish I had time to read" all of the time.

The universe demands balance, even if you don't want to give it. If you force your body to be on the go all the time, eventually that will catch up with you, whether it be a heart attack at 35 or suddenly you lose vision in one eye at 60. The universe will make you stop.

Most forms of yoga, through a rapid evolution that started to occur about a thousand years ago when gymnastics and yoga started to intertwine, are also yang. They involve muscle activation and lots of movement. They are fast, hot, and intense.

Yin yoga is a slow, deliberate form of yoga. Instead of moving your body with each breath, you settle into the posture once you have found your edge of discomfort and just stop. You still your body, calm your breathing, and with that you turn inward. Yin yoga asks that you take your time getting into the postures, in a way that works for YOUR body. Yin wants you to adjust, only as needed, to find the area where you are supposed to feel the stress. Yin is uncomfortable, both physically and mentally. Though pain is never acceptable, if you find yourself in pain, back out of the posture and make adjustments. Once you have found your edge, that point where you definitely feel the discomfort, without forcing a posture, you settle in for up to 20 minutes. You may, or may not, go deeper as your body opens and invites you to. However, Yin asks for stillness. Just be there noticing your body, noticing your feelings, noticing your emotions that may arise.

This stillness works your deep connective tissues that would be damaged through more active yang style exercise. Through long holds these more rigid tissues slowly open, not much, but they do. Oxygen and blood flow more freely into these areas as they open with slow, gentle pressure. You may discover areas of the body that you have never actually felt before.

Yin yoga also works your mind. You are forced to face discomfort in a safe, nurturing environment. As mentioned above, you live in an extremely active society. Your mind is constantly receiving stimulation from the surroundings. Western society doesn't prepare you to be mentally comfortable with stillness. Yin yoga demands that you become comfortable in this discomfort. Depending on the teacher, some Yin classes play soft music so the mind has something to hear, others don't use any music at all, forcing you to adjust to the sound of silence.

In a Yin yoga class, it becomes obvious that the mind will want to give up before the body. The long holds in a Yin class help you increase your mental endurance and are also great for meditation since you are forced to turn inward during the longer holds and focus on what your body is telling you. You are responsible for your body and how far it wants to go into each posture. How much discomfort can your body and mind tolerate at that moment? While the postures may not appear difficult to the casual observer, simple pressures and long holds require mental toughness.

The stillness of the body leads to a stillness of the breath. As your body and breath soften, your mind will start to calm. As you're holding the postures, you will notice that you become more and more aware of the discomfort in the targeted area. Take a full deep breath in, then let that full deep breath out. Your mind will soften and let go of the discomfort. Yin teaches you that you are stronger than you know. You discover that when faced with a difficulty you can stop, take a breath, and get through it.

Much like with meditation, often times emotions are released during a Yin yoga session. These are usually old emotions that you do not realize are stored in your body. They are perfectly natural. Again, as with meditation, do not focus on the emotions as they happen, just let them happen. You do not need to analyze them, that is not the purpose of Yin. Yin is just being. So let the emotions be.

This stillness, this mental toughness, this calm through discomfort, balance out the yang in your life.