Why Yin is “In” – Yoga to Keep Us Elastic Instead of Plastic

We all know the Yin-Yang symbol. The balance of light and dark, equal on both sides with just a touch of the opposite on each side. Yin is the darkness while Yang is the light. They are opposing forces that compliment each other and do not find balance without the other, soft to hard, cool to hot, feminine to masculine. Most of us spend much of our time engaging in Yang activities when it comes to moving our body even if we are practicing yoga. Yin yoga is the exception, offering us the opportunity to slow down, soften, and find the balance that we are not aware our body is longing for, especially as we age.

Yin works the connective tissues in our body the bones, ligaments and fascia. These tissues do not require nor desire the repetitive quick motion we get when working our muscles. The fascia is the sheath that covers and encase our muscles and organs. It requires stretching to keep it elastic instead of plastic. This becomes even more important with age. We start in a state of, literally mush, as we enter the world unable to hold our heads up and leave at this world in a state of stiff rigor mortis. With a regular Yin Yoga practice, the goal is to maintain an optimal range of motion. Who doesn’t need more of that?

My introduction to Yin began when I did my 200 hour yoga teacher training. The studio I trained at offers Yin classes every Friday evening and required it as part of my training. There is no better way to end the week and start a peaceful weekend than this relaxing practice. I rush from work, fighting traffic and search for parking until I know I am surely going to be late. Rushing in with my heart racing, I lay out my mat and find corpse pose. With the cool calm of the studio, the relaxing music, I quickly remember to leave my frantic state at the door. This is my time to come into the present space and focus on me.

Most poses in Yin are supine (on the ground) and focus on the lower body. The muscles are relaxed and the stretch is a reach without over extending. As you stay in these poses for several moments, your body starts to ease into a deeper stretch. Practice will typically start with a meditation, pranayama, and intention setting.  From here you will start to move into several of the roughly 30 poses found in Yin, familiar from your Yang yoga practice but with different names such as Reclined Butterfly instead of Supta Baddha Konasana or Snail instead of Plow or Halasana.

Each poses is held 3-7 minutes for a string of mini-mediation moments.  After working your way through theses poses, you will end your practice with Savasana or corpse pose, a restorative pose that helps your body recover from the work you have done and will seal in your practice.

This is an exercise that definitely feels like work but does not feel like the sweat breaking, body pumping, ritual of hitting the gym.  While this may seem foreign to some, even inconceivable as effective in being beneficial to our bodies, I encourage you to give it try.  Most yoga studios offer it in their schedules or if you want to do it in the comfort of your home, YouTube offers many Yogis that will walk you through this elegant, intentional practice.   There is no doubt you will see the change in your body, mind, and spirit.

When you do give it a shot, let me know how you felt about the experience in the comments below.  I would love to hear about your experience.