As founder and director of the first of very few studios in the Cleveland to offer weekly Yin Yoga classes, I was thrilled to learn yesterday from some students that the latest issue of O: The Oprah Magazine features an article on Yin Yoga. Yin Yoga is an incredibly beneficial system of yoga that is just now coming into popularity in these parts.
What is Yin Yoga? It is one of two aspects of Taoist or Chinese Yoga, the other being Yang Yoga. Taoist Yoga is influenced by yoga from India (the Yin aspect) and by the Chinese practices of T’ai Chi and Chi-Gong (the Yang aspect). Whereas Yang Yoga benefits muscles and nervous system, Yin Yoga works on other aspects of the body.
O: The Oprah Magazine quotes my Yin Yoga teacher, Paul Grilley, who describes the benefits of this rising system of yoga like this: “The [Yin] poses work your joints in a way similar to how other types of exercise work your heart.” In a nutshell, Grilley states, “Yin Yoga is joint rehabilitation.”
There are two general reasons I welcome and teach Yin Yoga as an important addition to the yoga family tree and why I tout it as a practice that as many people as possible should undertake. First, our bodies need it. And second, our minds need it.
There is an anatomical need in all of us to experience what Yin Yoga offers. Whereas our muscles, the body’s Yang aspects, stay healthy by heat and repetitive motion found in activities such as spinning, walking, dancing, and vigorous yoga (e.g., Ashtanga, Power, and Vinyasa), a rather large part of our physical construction—skeleton and connective tissue—is Yin and does not respond to heat or repetitive movement at all; rather, the Yin body responds to simple, long-held floor yoga postures, which comprise the basis of Yin Yoga.
Yang exercise can’t help or heal the Yin body, which is specifically made up of bones, fascia, bursa, tendons, and ligaments. What’s more, Yang workouts done to an extreme and without a Yin component can injure the Yin body.
As evidence of this, consider that when we are injured from sports or other physical activity, it is rarely a muscle tear that creates a long healing process but rather an injury to a joint or a tear in the connective tissue that truly sidelines us. To see this from another perspective, look at the aging human body. It’s not our muscles atrophying that cause us to feel and act old as we age; usually, it’s our backs and joints that give out first, drying up and shortening, reducing our stride, balance, and confidence. Yin Yoga treats the body parts that scientists know age more quickly and heal much more slowly than muscle.
On the physical realm, then, Yin Yoga complements Yang activity, counters the wear and tear of too much Yang, and can provide relief from the natural aging process.
Second, there is an important mental benefit to Yin Yoga.
We live in an ever-accelerating, technology-driven culture that favors constant motion. Even if we are not athletes, our world is filled with, and we fill our lives with, much more Yang than Yin: overdoing it at the gym, overbooking ourselves, eating quickly, living with stress, countering stress in unhealthy ways, and engaging in multitasking, Yang activities that can be dangerous, like texting while driving. Yin Yoga is an antidote for much of this.
Left to ourselves, Yin Yoga asks nothing more of us than to go inside, to hold poses for several minutes and notice what happens when we do. What typically happens is a relaxed, more flexible body and a freer mind. Yin is, quite literally, in.
Yoga master Rodney Yee writes that the two most important things we need to bring to our yoga practice are our bodies and our minds. Training our minds takes as much work as training our bodies, and Yin Yoga is the perfect backdrop for both, for while we are deliberately working in Yin to make our connective tissue healthy from the poses, we are simultaneously working on quieting our fast-paced minds.
In my next post, we’ll meet some students who take Yin Yoga classes at my studio and learn how Yin Yoga’s benefits are transferring positively to various aspects of their lives.
At Pink Lotus Yoga, we offer two Yin Yoga classes a week: Tuesday from 7:15-8:30 p.m. (held outdoors beginning May 22nd) and Friday from 4:30-5:30 p.m. Yin-Yang classes explore both quiet and dynamic exercise and take place on Monday evening from 7:15-8:30 p.m. and Wednesday evening from 6:00-7:00 p.m. Check our studio for rates. All our outdoor classes are by donation.