Yin Yoga Changed My Life (Even Though Sometimes I Kind of Hate It). ~ Laine Williams
The first time I went to Yin Yoga, I felt like I was going scream. I just wanted to zone out and relax; I didn’t realize that before Yin lets us relax, it makes us work some stuff out.
I also didn’t realize I was going to have to hold a pigeon pose for seven minutes on each side. Seven minutes.
Are you serious?!
I kept looking up at the teacher and making sure she hadn’t left the room. All of my fidgeting and moving around—a classic Yin no-no—inspired the teacher to come over and ask me if I needed a bolster. No! I don’t need a bolster in pigeon pose—bolsters are for the weak! So I grimaced and reluctantly declined, propping myself up for a total of 14 minutes, until the blood flow to my hands stopped completely. It was so relaxing!
Actually it was miserable, but it was my turbulent start down the very rewarding path of Yin Yoga. Much later, after I finished my teacher training, I shared that story with the instructor, by then a good friend. We both had a good laugh about how unenlightened I am.
Fast forward to present day: I just moved to a new city with my new husband, going strong after three weeks of marriage. I don’t know anyone. Every yoga studio is at least 20 minutes away, and I have the directional sense of a toddler. I literally got lost inside my own apartment complex—I hadn’t even made it to real streets and I was already lost. Therefore, chartering my way across the city of St. Louis is not something I always feel mentally prepared to do.
An unexpected benefit of not having any friends or a job or navigating abilities is that I have plenty of time to devote to my home practice. After our move, I started practicing Yin for at least an hour in the mornings.
It’s changed me—so I’m sharing the top five benefits of a Yin Yoga practice I’ve found so far:
1. Dropping the Ego: During faster paced, yang style classes, I constantly find myself looking around at other people and trying to rank everyone in terms of skill. It’s not the point of yoga, I know. My heart chakra is probably out of alignment.
But in full honesty, I feel competitive about my practice sometimes. I can wrench my shins into fire log pose, but my hip flexors feel like they’re ripping in half and suddenly I’m remembering every curse word in the book—including the ones in other languages that I learned on the bus in middle school. Meanwhile, the petite gumby-like blonde next to me has her forehead on the floor and looks like she is enjoying it!
But with Yin, poses have to be held that for so long that eventually, we come to terms with ourselves in a new way. We learn to joyfully use props to ease the tension and to approach the edge with a little more honesty. We can’t really fake our way through a 10-minute hold, so we have to get real about what our individual bodies can realistically do.
But the body isn’t static! Which leads me to number two:
2. Deeper Poses: The theory behind Yin Yoga is that longer holds begin to move beyond muscle stretches and into the tendons, ligaments, and fascia of the body. So by stretching the actual tendons—and not just the muscles they support—we’re approaching a whole new realm of flexibility. I’ve started getting into poses that were unavailable to me before, just by practicing Yin.
Try practicing first thing in the morning before the muscles are warmed up. That way, your muscles won’t overcompensate while you’re in poses, and you’ll really find that the deeper tendons are being stretched in a way that will change the way you practice.
3. Facilitates Meditation: I’ve had “meditating” on my goal list for a long time, but could never seem to settle down long enough to reap the benefits. I would break my meditation about every 30 seconds to check the timer and see how long I had left. The great part about Yin is that the practice really does the work for you. Just try and think about your grocery list when you’re in frog pose for five minutes. I can only think about finding a way to escape the pain!
All kidding aside, even in deeper poses that aren’t painful, eventually the body finds a way to relax deeply. That deep physical relaxation translates into mental relaxation. I’ve made more progress in my meditation practice through Yin than through nearly any other method.
4. Emotional Stability: Any season of life is bound to bring a unique set of emotional challenges. For me, a newlywed in a new city, I find myself teetering on an emotional edge quite often, like when my husband comes home from work late and I have a meltdown because I’ve been at home by myself all day. Or, when I repeatedly play a slideshow of photos of our dog, who was happily re-homed with my parents. At this point if my husband hears Sarah McLachlan’s voice coming from the apartment, he knows to run.
One of the most beautiful benefits of Yin, however, is that it balances the body and the mind. I’ve made it a point to set an intention for my practice and let go of any negative emotions that might be lurking beneath the surface. I take the time to feel whatever I need to feel—anger, grief, fear, disappointment, longing—and then I visualize those emotions leaving my body. They don’t always leave entirely, but creating space to feel into my body creates a safe container to process emotion.
5. Energy: Our world is constantly on the go! We multi-task, double book, pencil in and fill every minute of our day with activity. It leaves relatively few opportunities to just do one thing at a time—sometimes I check emails on the toilet. Or every time.
All of that rushing around leads to an abundance of yang energy (typically defined as masculine, dominant, active, and aggressive in quality) and a lack of yin energy. By taking some time out to restore the side of us that craves a quiet, nurturing, slower pace, you will immediately feel the balance of energies in the body. (If you start every morning with six cups of coffee and then cut the line to get on the highway, I’m talking to you.)
Our world is busy enough—it’s aggressive enough. It needs more softness, more peaceful reflection, more restoration.
More Yin.
If the morning isn’t a good time to practice, it can also be done right before bed. Try and create a calm environment—and if your partner/child/dog/hamster keeps interrupting you, then just go with it!
The practice will absorb your frustration, I promise.
Happy practicing my friends!
Laine Williams is a yoga teacher in the St. Louis area. She is originally from Denver, but moved to St. Louis after marrying her BFF. Laine loves arm balances, practicing handstands, her puppy Dallas, chocolate, red poppies, cooking healthy meals, and a good bottle of wine. She believes in laughing a lot, being real, and allowing the practice of yoga to facilitate a connection with the Divine!
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