Hi there,
I'm Maryam and today I want to tell you a little bit about yin yoga.
Yin yoga is a slow,
Floor-based style of yoga.
Where you hold each pose for a few minutes usually three to five sometimes even longer.
Most styles of yoga work your muscles,
So you move,
You build heat,
You build strength.
And you move through poses quickly.
Yin yoga does the opposite.
So by staying in stillness,
And holding passive shapes for longer periods of time.
You reach the connective tissues under the muscles,
So the fascia,
The ligaments around your joints.
And these tissues don't respond to quick movement.
They need time and gentle,
Steady pressure to open up and to change.
Here's what a class usually looks like.
You get into a shape,
You settle,
You find a moderate edge.
Maybe 60 to 70% of your range,
Not your max.
And then you stay there in stillness and you breathe.
Allowing your mind to settle on your breath.
And allowing gravity to pull you towards your mat.
And after a few minutes,
You notice that something's shifted in your body.
Maybe your nervous system settles and your body softens and you may notice that you can go a little bit deeper into the pose.
There's no flowing,
There's no balancing,
No strength is needed,
Which makes this style of yoga very accessible.
And you don't need to be flexible,
And you don't need to have experience to practice yin yoga.
Yin is especially useful for people who move a lot.
So for runners,
Cyclists,
People who practice active styles of yoga because it gets into the areas of your body that tighten up with repetitive motion.
It's also great for stress and anxiety.
Holding still for a few minutes and breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system,
Your rest and digest mode.
Yin is often more mentally challenging than most people expect.
And just staying in stillness,
Staying.
.
.
And pose.
With a feeling,
With a sensation in your body can bring up thoughts or feelings or emotions.
That you may not be comfortable with.
And that's the practice.
That's a big part of yin yoga is learning to sit with something that you're uncomfortable with.
Instead of reacting to it right away and trying to change it or fix it.
One thing I always mention to my students in Yen practice is to really listen to your body,
Make sure you're not holding any pain or discomfort,
Any sharp pain.
Make sure you move out of the pose and take a resting posture.
You want to make sure that you're always comfortable and you feel safe at all times.
So I hope you try it and let me know how it goes.
