WHAT’S YIN YOGA?
What’s a Yin Yoga practice like in a nutshell…
This is a deeply restorative and nourishing practice meant for relaxing your whole body and mind. Imagine soothing music gently brushing away any thoughts and grounding poses held for 3 to 5 minutes, until any tension in the body is dissolved. You will leave the class feeling a sense of deep inner and outer serenity.
Where does the name come from?
You’ve probably heard of Yin and Yang. “Yin” is characterised by a feminine, moonlit, cooling, grounding, earthy, introspective, reflective, cosy energy. “Yang” is its opposite, characterised by a masculine, bright, heating, striving, determined, activity-focused energy. The world needs both to create harmony and balance. “Yin” Yoga is therefore a grounding, restorative, deep healing practice - the perfect complement to our Yang-heavy lifestyles.
Today, we live in quite a Yang-dominated world. We spend hours working, doing, going, making, thinking, striving, completing… and repeating this cycle. There isn’t all that much Yin to balance out all of that Yang. But I’ve found Yin Yoga to be the perfect antidote.
Benefits of Yin Yoga that I have experienced:
Stress melts away
You might arrive on your mat with your mind still running, a bit out of breath and your body tired, but after a few minutes, Yin Yoga’s magic begins to happen. This practice asks you to remain in each pose for 3 to 5 minutes. After a few moments of stillness (which may be the only moments of stillness you’ve encountered all day!), the calming effects begin to show. How relieving it feels to slow down, to give your body and mind permission to relax and to allow stress to melt away with serene surrender.
2. Tension dissolves & flexibility improves
Science shows that when the body holds poses for over 90 seconds, it begins to stretch into the deeper connective tissues and fascia. As you tune into the sensations in your body, you’ll notice a release when this happens. It feels like your body surrenders and lets go of the tension it was holding on to, allowing you to melt deeper into the pose. Not only does your body feel lighter, it also has the benefit of increased range of movement and flexibility.
3. Wisdom becomes absorbed and manifests in us
During long-hold poses, Yin Yoga offers the perfect opportunity to share insights and wisdom from Yogic and other Eastern philosophies. This ancient wisdom offers a treasure trove of timeless techniques for managing stress and leading a fulfilling life. In this meditative state, this wisdom becomes absorbed deep in our minds, stimulating profound shifts and transformation.
4. Mindful breath awareness has the power to soothe us
In the stillness, we focus on the breath. We notice that by mindfully tuning into each and every breath, each breath becomes calmer and softer and our mind becomes still. Just by placing our attention on the breath, we create a deeper state of meditative relaxation and learn how to soothe ourselves both on and off the mat.
5. Increased presence in day-to-day life
By attuning ourselves to the breath, we also become more present to the quality of each breath and to the moment-to-moment sensations we are experiencing in our body and mind. In Yin Yoga, we learn to listen to the cues from our body so we experience the optimum degree of stretch that our body is asking for. By practising more presence on the mat, we learn how to cultivate more presence in our day-to-day lives, helping us make wiser, smarter and more ethical choices.
6. Reconnect with our innermost selves
In these moments of deep stillness, we become very sensitive to the sensations in our body. Our attention shifts away from the outside world and turns inward, into our vast and often unexplored inner world. Along this journey, we pass through multiple layers of stillness. Over time, we come to reach a deeply meditative and purely peaceful state, as we find connection with our innermost Self. Each day, the terrain and landscape of our inner world is different, each journey is different, is unique and is transformative in its own way.