The Principles of Yin Yoga - Philosophy & Practice of Yin Yoga

Transcript

[Music] Hi everyone. Thank you so much for stopping by my channel. My name is Cassandra and today I wanted to do a video where I introduce you to the three principles of yin yoga. I absolutely love yin yoga and I teach a lot of yin classes on my channel, but I realized that I don't really have any videos that explain what yin yoga is and what the philosophy and the application of yin yoga is actually like. So I thought this would be a perfect introduction to start with the three principles of yin yoga because these principles are really what make yin yoga such a different style of movement from hatha or power or venyasa or kundalini yoga. These three principles were first coined and defined by Sarah Powers who is one of like the founding teachers really of yin yoga and she really helped to make yin yoga popular in the west. So her and Paul Grilly really brought yin yoga to the western world and made it what we know today. So the first principle of yin yoga is finding your edge. Now what do we mean by that? Finding your edge means that you are not pushing or forcing your body into any specific shape and you are not going into a pose to try to get it to be the most intense version possible. Those of you who might be like me, I have a background in dance. If you have a background in dance or in gymnastics or any kind of competitive sport, this principle of finding your edge is like completely foreign to you most likely. So, I know that for me coming from a background of dance, I was really used to always stretching to the most intense that I possibly could, right? You're always trying to push yourself a little bit further, always trying to do a little bit more. And when I first started practicing yoga, I would do venyasa flow. And I just kind of transferred that mentality into my yoga practice. So I was always pushing myself more, more, more, a deeper stretch, a stronger pose, a deeper version of a pose, always trying to do more. And then I started doing yin yoga. And guess what? In yin yoga, that is not at all what we are trying to do. And that took me a long time to respect that. So, I always tell people when it comes to finding your edge, imagine that you're looking at an intensity scale where an intensity scale of 1 to 10, where one is you feel absolutely no sensation and 10 is you feel pain. In yin yoga, when you're coming into a pose, you kind of want to just stay at a four or a five. Even though you could probably go at an eight or a nine or a 10, if you have a really high threshold for pain and you're used to stretching a lot, you might be tempted to go higher up on that scale and just go to your limit and just go right until you can push it until it's almost painful. What we want to do in yin is learn to back off and to really learn what intensity should feel like in our body. There should be a little bit of discomfort, just enough that you're actually creating a change within the physical structure of your body, but not so much so that it causes you to tear anything or be in pain or have to contract and compress your body. So, you really need to learn to back off a little bit. And I can say from personal experience, I was really hesitant about backing off at first because I thought that I wouldn't be able to improve my flexibility that way. I was used to always pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. And I thought that's how you increase your flexibility. And it wasn't until I actually learned to back off a little bit that I actually saw amazing changes within my flexibility. So the first one is finding your edge. And then the second principle of yin yoga is being still. So we are not fidgeting in a yin yoga pose. Once you've gotten yourself settled and comfortable and you found your edge, you don't move anymore. When we are in a venyasa or hatha or a power yoga class, it can be really easy to uh distract ourselves, right? We'll look around. We'll fidget and pull on our clothes. We'll grab for a water bottle even if we're not thirsty. We rush through the poses and rush through our transitions just so we don't have to sit in the discomfort of the pose. We don't really have that option in yin yoga because we're in the pose for, you know, extended period of time for a few minutes and we want to resolve to be still. This is why props are so important in yin yoga. So, if you've done any of my classes, you know, you'll notice that I use blocks and bolsters and straps because this is what's going to help you and allow you to be still once you are actually in a pose. I like to use the props to fill in the gap between me and the floor. Otherwise, it's a little bit harder for me not to move because I actually need to use muscular strength to hold myself in the shape in the asauna that we are in. So, the first principle is finding your edge. So, don't push yourself too far. Honor your body's limits. The second principle is once you found that limit, be still. Don't clench your jaw. Don't fidget. Don't readjust. Just let yourself sink in and hold the pose. It's a lot harder than it sounds. It also means that you don't want to be contracting your muscles. Yin yoga is all about the joints. And when we tense up and contract our muscles, the emphasis of the stretch or the stress really moves away from the connective tissues and away from our joints and moves a little bit more into the muscles, which is not what we want. So not only do you have to be still but while you're still you have to be soft and you have to relax as much as possible and that's really where most of the challenge lies. So the third principle of yin yoga once you found your edge once you are still in a pose you need to hold it. So yin yoga asas are practiced for a much longer time than most as in a yang form of yoga. We can be in a pose anywhere from 1 minute if it's a very very intense one or if you're a beginner or sometimes you can go up to 10 minutes in the specific pose. On average, you'll probably find a hold time of 3 to 5 minutes, especially with my classes here on YouTube. But you can really hold a yin yoga pose anywhere from one all the way up to 10 minutes. A pose is going to feel really different from one minute to the next. And anyone who's practiced yin yoga for a while knows this. Pigeon pose in the first minute and pigeon pose in the fifth minute feels completely different. And this applies to the asas that we do in yin yoga. Now the length and time isn't something that a teacher can really impose on the students. When you are holding the pose, you need to do it in a way that honors your body. Beginner students who have a little bit more tension and a little bit more tightness might not be able to hold pigeon pose for eight minutes. But if you are working with more flexibility and you are a little bit more experienced and you've used your props in a way where you found your edge and you're able to be still, some of the poses can easily be held for longer periods of time. The reason that we hold poses for so long in yin yoga is because we are trying to affect the deep connective tissue of our body. So we are trying to affect the joints. We are trying to affect the ligaments and the tendons and the fascia that surrounds and kind of goes through our muscles. And this is really what's going to create lasting structural change in our body. This is how you actually improve flexibility in your hips, improve flexibility in your lower back because we are slowly but surely letting the pressure sink in so that we can open up. So stress and pressure in yin yoga is not a bad thing. It's only a bad thing or feels like a bad thing if you've gone past your edge. But applying stress to your joints is actually what you want to do. So, it's important to honor your body's limitations. And whenever you are doing a yin yoga class, whether that's with me on YouTube or even in person, just remember that what the teacher is telling you, those are just suggestions. At the end of the day, these are the three principles that you need to honor. And at the end of the day, only you know how something feels in your body. So, even if a teacher is telling you to hold a pose for five or six minutes, if that doesn't work for you, you need to be able to know this and back off. So, you need to be able to see the warning signs that you've pushed yourself a little too far. And those warning signs for me normally are me clenching my body or wanting to fidget or move or just feeling like the sensation is a little bit too high. So, that's when you need to back out. I hope you found this helpful. I'll definitely be sure to make more little videos that discuss the topic of being in yoga and help you learn a little bit more about it. Thank you so very much for watching. . I put out a new yoga class every single Thursday. And if you're interested in going on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure with me, I'm hosting a yoga retreat in Iceland July 30th to August 5th in 2017. And this is going to be a great mix of yin yoga and a little bit of slow flow venyasa yoga and tons and tons and tons of adventure in Iceland. So, you can get all the information down below in um the description of this video. I hope you'll come with me. Thanks so much, guys. Bye.