It is no wonder with all of the different styles of yoga being advertised, that you may wonder what exactly is Yin yoga. To understand Yin yoga it is necessary to have a small understanding of Yin and Yang. If you're interested in trying yoga, find your local yoga practitioner.
Foundations of Yin Yoga
In layman's terms, Yin & Yang, coming from the Taoists believe system, speaks to the balance of masculine and feminine energy present in all things. Yang is normally identified with all things masculine: hard…strong…hot. Things of a Yin nature are identified as being of the feminine: soft…flowing…receiving. For there to be a balance Yin and Yang must come together, one supporting the other.
Anatomy of Yin Yoga
In the aspect of yoga, Yin is considered to be a practice in response to the overly Yang dominated asanas primarily found in most studios. The majority of yoga being practiced today addresses the muscle tissues of the body. Yin yoga attempts to focus on the soft tissues of the body, in specific, joints and ligaments and tendons. Yang yoga can often stress the Yin tissues through repetitive motion, unconscious activation and overexertion. By balancing your practice with Yin yoga, you are assuring your muscular-skeletal system the best chance at staying healthy.
Yin Yoga as Asana
A Yin yoga class will consist of a handful of asanas, which will be utilised for longer amounts of time than normally practiced. While in a posture, Yin yoga practitioners often use props like bolsters or blankets to allow them to fully rest, relax their breath and focus. This gives the defense mechanisms present within the tendons confidence enough to let go and reprogram the limits to which they will allow a stretching muscle to release. This promotes balance within the tendons and ligaments, creates proper movement patterning of the joints, and prepares the body for a much more open and natural state of movement.
Energy of Yin Yoga
On an energetic level, which the school of yoga is essentially trying to cultivate, spending time in a Yin yoga class increases the divine feminine within the practitioner. In this modern patriarchal society, where the majority of our actions circum-ambulate around masculine principles, an hour and a half of a Yin yoga class is the perfect cold cocktail to take off the sharp edges of our stressful life. It is said that the Tao is found at the center of Yin and Yang. As the popularity of yoga runs like a wildfire through our modern world it is necessary to take a centralizing Yin approach to yoga before things get out of control, and like many principles in this post-industrial age, we allow the masculine to lose sight of the nurturing feminine that we all so need.
Yin yoga has come from a memory of what once was. It is not a new style of yoga. It is a reintroduction, a remembering of natural balance. Yin yoga is the Tao opening up, receiving the Yang, caressing it, redirecting it and sending it back out into the masses in the healing and balanced way that it was supposed to be all along.
