Yin vs. Restorative - What's The Difference?

Transcript

is yin yoga the same as restorative yoga
and if not what's the difference between those two styles these are questions I
get all the time and I honestly can't believe it's taken me so long to make a
video to address this but I wanted to give you a quick explanation today so
the short answer is yin yoga the same as restorative yoga no it's not however
there is a big overlap between the two styles so yin yoga and restorative yoga
are mainly different in two ways number one they have different origins and
number two they have different intentions now yin and restorative do
have ways in which they are the same they are the same or have pretty close
similarities in their poses there's a big crossover there and they also are
the same in the sense that they mainly practice passive poses held for an
extended period of time so let's go over the differences first
and then I'll go over the similarities and explain that a little bit further so
the first thing that's different about yin yoga versus restorative is the
origin restorative yoga comes from hatha yoga which is the traditional style of
yoga originating from India now yin yoga uses a lot of asanas or postures that
come from the classical hatha yoga system however it is mainly inspired by
traditional Chinese medicine and Taoism so it is not necessarily originating
from the same backgrounds but there is a little bit of a crossover you can almost
say that Yin Yoga is like a blend of hatha yoga or a form of hatha yoga as
well as a blend of Taoist practices as well as traditional Chinese medicine so
it just has some different lineages I probably won't go in-depth into this
in just this video but you can read a lot more about the origins of yin yoga
so what we call yin yoga today this practice of passive poses held for a
very long time originally mainly came to the west and to North America through a
teacher called pauly zinc he was teaching something called Taoists yoga which was
a blend of these passive poses which we now know referred to as yin yoga
poses as well as more vigorous and dynamic forms of yoga and movement and
this together is what he was offering classes called Taoist yoga and then his
students Sarah Powers and Paul Grilley and then
eventually Bernie Clarke and many other teachers ended up kind of pulling apart
and separating those passive long-held poses of Taoist yoga and coining it as
yin yoga and this is what you know pretty much spread like wildfire across
America and over in Europe and pretty much all over the world and is what we
know today as yin yoga but it really does have those Eastern roots in
traditional Chinese medicine so for many yin yoga is the practice of unlocking
blockages in our meridians whereas in classical hatha yoga we don't
necessarily talk about meridians we usually talk about chakras so it's like
two sides of a coin if you think of the energetic body so on one side in
classical hatha yoga and more restorative yoga you might think of
energy systems as the energy system of the chakras whereas in Taoism or in
traditional Chinese medicine the energetic body is defined through
meridians so through pathways in the body in which Qi flows whereas in hatha
yoga it's not Qi it's prana so there are a lot of similarities but it's kind of
different lineages different Heritage's so that's why they're not necessarily
the same so origin is the first thing it is
different now the second thing that's also different about yin yoga and
restorative yoga is that they have different intentions and again this is
one of those things where there is a little bit of a crossover but it's still
not the same so restorative yoga pretty much has it in the word it is meant to
restore you back to your optimal health or back to your normal health levels
this is not to say that yin yoga can't do that for you of course it can
especially if you're working with blockages and energetic blocks then
practicing yin yoga is meant to restore you back to energetic health however
restorative yoga is mainly or you know now it's fairly widespread but if you
kind of look back restorative yoga was mainly used to bring back some
equilibrium to your parasympathetic nervous system so we are living in a bit
of a chaotic world and for many of us stress levels are really high so
restorative yoga is a really wonderful practice to tap into that rest and
digest part of your nervous system and of course yin yoga does that too but
let's just focus on restorative for now so restorative yoga is meant to
restore you back to your optimal health levels this is why it is an amazing
practice for anyone suffering from any kind of chronic illness Yin Yoga can
also be good for people with chronic illness and it's also good for people
who are stressed out and who need to tap into that parasympathetic nervous system
and give it a little bit of nurturing however it's not necessarily assuming
that you're not already at your optimal health or your optimal level of
well-being in restorative yoga we're never trying to bring people to their
edge which is really what we are trying to do in yin yoga and if you remember
the intention of yin yoga first and foremost usually is yoga
of the joints it is about getting deep into the fascia into the connective
tissue of the body and it's also about clearing energetic blockages by tapping
into the pathways of the meridians so while it absolutely can be great for
people who are injured or people who have any kind of chronic illness it's
not necessarily a practiced design specifically for those populations so
there is a crossover but there is a difference at the same time hopefully
I'm explaining that well but also you know in yin yoga if you think of our
three principles and I have a video on this on my channel already but the
principle is to find your edge so to kind of get to the limit of what you can
handle ish in a pose finding that that level of intensity that works for you
and then you hold the pose and you resolve to be still so in restorative
yoga there's not really a sense of finding your edge usually when I'm
guiding you guys in a yin yoga class I give you a scale of 1 to 10 intensity
wise so if you're in the yin yoga pose one would be I don't feel anything and
10 is I feel pain I usually tell you guys to stay at about a 4 or a 5 that's
usually where our edge is if I was teaching a restorative yoga class I
would probably tell you to go to a 2 or a 3 we are not chasing sensation in a
restorative yoga class we're not really necessarily trying to increase the range
of motion in our joints we're not necessarily trying to improve our
flexibility the way we are in yin yoga and again that's not to say that those
things don't happen in restorative yoga they absolutely can it's just not the
intention so does that make sense I feel like for everything I'm saying I'm
offering a counter example but that's why it is kind of difficult for people
to say well is yin yoga the same as restorative or is it
different so I really do stick by the fact that they are different they have a
different heritage a different lineage they just have a lot of ways in which
they're similar so let's go over two ways in which they are absolutely
similar the first one is the poses if you've taken a restorative yoga class
and you've taken a yin yoga class you've probably noticed that some of the poses
you're doing are the same you'll do reclined butterfly or supported fish or
you might get into a pigeon pose or we call it swan pose in yoga and actually
that's another difference I'll touch on in a minute but a lot of the poses are
absolutely the same because many of the poses are both good for your joints as
well as good to restore you back to that optimal level of health where you might
find some differences in the asanas and then the poses themselves in restorative
versus yin is that I've often found that in restorative yoga they'll use even
more props than we would in yin because you're not necessarily going to your
edge you're holding back a little bit more so usually that means you need to
prop yourself up and get even more comfortable we are trying to restore
relax and renew whereas with yin yoga you might get some restorations and
relaxation and some renewal but you are kind of finding your edge and playing
with gravity a little bit more so some of the asanas are the same but some of
them are a little bit different so you wouldn't do every single yin yoga pose
in a restorative class and vice versa but there is a big crossover another
thing to note about asanas if you've noticed yin yoga asanas have different
names from their hatha yoga counterparts so we might do pigeon pose
in restorative yoga as well as in yin yoga but in yin yoga we call it Swan
pose and not everyone does that and I'm not gonna say that it's a hard and fast
rule even for me sometimes I use the hatha yoga names because that's just
kind of what people know by now but the reason behind why
teachers gave them different names was to remind students that we're not
practicing the poses with the same intention so if you're doing a pigeon
pose in a vinyasa yoga class for example you might be contracting and engaging so
hugging muscle to bone whereas in a yin yoga class it's a passive pose that
you're holding so you want to relax fully so if I say Swan you might think
relax and if I say pigeon you might think contract one is not better than
the other it's just to remind you that we're doing something different in yin
yoga then we do in power or hatha or vinyasa so that will also be a
difference that you have in restorative usually they won't be calling pigeon
pose Swan pose that's pretty much you know that terminology and language is
usually mainly reserved for yin yoga so one other thing that restorative and Yin
have in common is that they are not fast classes at all
you stay in poses for an extended period of time
however even though it's the same of course like everything else that I've
been mentioning in this video they do have ways in which they're different I
personally found that in restorative poses you can hold the poses even longer
so yoga I like to say it like a three to five minute range maybe an eight-minute
range if it's like a more advanced practitioner but in restorative you can
be in a pose for 20 minutes and this is safe and fine because remember we're not
finding our edge we're not pushing ourselves we're really really holding
back so it should be extremely comfortable and extremely nurturing to
hold a pose for that long so in a restorative yoga class you might end up
only doing like three or four poses whereas in Yin you might also only do
three or four but it's most likely more like five or six so the same goes for
both we are holding them for longer than you would in a hatha vinyasa or power
yoga class but restorative tends to hold it even longer I would say than yin yoga
so I hope this kind of helps to narrow down
the differences between restorative and yin you know I'm just one teacher of
many I don't know everything but from my studies and my research this is what
I've found to be the biggest difference and the biggest similarities between
restorative and yin yoga but if you are also a teacher either restorative or Yin
I would really love to hear from you so how do you best explain to your students
the difference between yin yoga and restorative because you know they're
different they come from different backgrounds and they have different
kinds of applications but when you look at the classes they do kind of look the
same so it can be challenging you know even when I was preparing this video I
was like I don't know how I'm going to explain the difference between these two
it's almost like you need to feel it to really truly sense how they are
different so I guess that would be my biggest advice if you are struggling to
understand the difference because I have not been super clear and in this video I
do apologize and I would recommend go to a studio or even just online try
restorative yoga class try a yin yoga class and you notice what is different
between the two or do you find that they are the same so please leave me a
comment down below and let me know what you thought of this video and what your
thoughts are on the differences in similarities of yin yoga and restorative
yoga and if you are new to my channel please do I put out new
full-length yoga classes every single Thursday I look forward to practicing
and talking with you soon have a wonderful day namaste