Yin Yoga
The balance between yin and yang energy is used to describe how polar or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. Most people familiar with yoga, are familiar with yang yoga asana practice, as this tends to be more common in Western culture. Yang yoga asanas stimulate the muscles in the body, encouraging strength and great physical health. Yang can be considered our yoga of physical movement, or our flow yoga asanas. While yin asanas are the balance to our yang asana practice and is performed in stillness, to open the connective tissues of the body in a deep stretch.
Most yin postures are floor postures and are usually held for a longer period of time than yang postures. They can be held typically from two to five minutes and some even longer. This extended hold encourages our joints, tendons and other connective tissue within the body to open, lengthen, strengthen and is quite detoxifying. Yin yoga is a wonderful balance to an active lifestyle, whether it includes other forms of yoga or not.
Yin yoga has recently been rediscovered and contains the ancient, and some say the original, asana practice. The sages who pioneered the path of yoga used asanas to strengthen the body, so that they could sit for long periods in contemplative meditation. So many students are finding yin yoga asanas to be the perfect compliment and balance to their more active, yang asana practices.
