The Principles of Yin Yoga

Hi,

I'm Kumari Skye,

The Relaxationist.

And in this video,

I'm going to share about the principles of yin yoga.

Maybe you've practiced yin yoga before and you deeply resonate with its healing and balancing and calming properties.

Maybe you've never done the yin yoga before and you're like,

What is it all about?

The first principle of yin yoga is coming into the pose to the appropriate edge for your body.

Let me explain that a little more.

In yin yoga,

Every pose has an intention.

A sensation in tension.

So for example.

When you're doing child's pose.

The intention is to feel something on the backside of your body,

Your spine elongating.

There's also secondary edges.

In the hips,

The knees,

The ankles,

Some edges of compression,

Not stretching.

And so this first principle.

Asks us to decide in every pose.

What level of sensation is most beneficial for us?

We want to find the sensation for sure if we can because that's when the physical Benefits of the practice really benefit our tissues.

And yin yoga is all about the connective tissues,

Your fascia,

Your tendons,

Your ligaments,

Your joints,

Your bones.

And we want to find a positioning that's not too much,

Not too little.

My teacher calls it the Goldilocks principle.

We want to find a place.

Between like maybe a 4 and an 8 on a 10 point scale where we're feeling sensation.

Now since we hold these yin yoga poses for usually 3 to 5 minutes,

That can change over the time we're doing the pose.

So you might have to adjust your edge sensation.

Put your body in a way to go a little deeper,

Or maybe you're realizing you're too deep and you need to come back a little bit.

Coming into the pose,

Finding the appropriate edge.

This is the first principle.

The second principle.

Is resolving to remain still.

We resolve to remain still in yin yoga.

Because this is when we can really target the connective tissues.

If we're moving around the body,

Fidgeting,

Twitching.

The muscles tend to take up the stress before the connective tissues because they're bigger.

Um And so.

The stillness is also about Stilling the body helps us still the breath and that ultimately helps us still the mind.

And this is really what yoga is.

Is all about.

Stilling the fluctuations of the mind.

Yes,

It's super beneficial to our physical bodies.

Really,

It's about working with the mind.

And so we resolve to remain still.

Of course,

We're going to move a little bit if we want to go deeper or if we want to come out of the pose.

But in general,

We want to be still.

The third principle.

Is holding for time.

And my teacher,

Brony,

Calls this the magic ingredient.

Because.

.

.

As I mentioned before,

We're targeting the connective tissues.

Our connective tissues are not like muscles.

They do not respond to stretching.

In fact,

We don't really want to think of it as stretching our connective tissues.

We're more stimulating them.

And within that stimulation,

All sorts of beneficial things happen.

Our tissues get stronger and thicker.

They can glide easier over each other.

We find more mobility,

More range of motion,

And a sense of just feeling better in our bodies.

The fourth principle of yin yoga is the rebound.

This is the time in between the poses.

You might do a counter pose here,

So something opposite of just how you were holding the pose.

Or you might just rest in stillness,

Like a little mini shavasana.

The rebound time or counterpose time is really,

Really potent time.

This is when your tissues are reforming.

They're coming back to life.

Stimulated and enhanced.

Through the long hold you just did.

So we need both.

We need the sensation,

But we also need that time for the body to release whatever we were just doing and come back to baseline.

And this is really where so much of the healing potential happens with yin yoga.

I hope this helped clarify what yin yoga is all about.

And I hope you enjoy your next yin yoga.