What is Yin Yoga? Understanding the Basics

While yoga has a lot of different styles, what we can definitely say is that Yin yoga isn’t your average yoga practice. It is a gradual practice where the yoga postures involve the movement of hands and stretches to boost the mobility of joints. At the same time, Yin yoga also offers an avenue of spiritual awareness, giving you a lot of bandwidth to become aware of your inner self.

What is Yin Yoga?

From an overview perspective, Yin yoga is a slow-paced and gentle yoga style that works along the lines of simple yoga poses to enhance mobility and stretch the fascial framework of the human body while bringing you into a meditative state as well.

With a few basic postures to follow, Yin yoga makes significant use of yoga props to provide support to your body joints.

What is the Purpose of Yin Yoga?

The primary focus of Yin yoga is to target various connective tissues, such as tendons and ligaments and not just the muscles. Here’s a look at the various points of purpose of Yin yoga:

1. Better Joint Health

Yin yoga helps in releasing the tension from around the body joints and boosts the range of motion, leading to healthier joints.

2. More Flexibility

The yoga postures in Yin yoga cover are supposed to be held for several minutes, helping you stretch your body and enhance the flexibility of your tissues, improving the overall flexibility.

3. Mindfulness

The emphasis on slow pace and stillness for practitioners offer greater focus on physical and mental awareness with Yin yoga, offering a meditative phase during practice.

Key Principles of Yin Yoga

From a lot of other yoga practices, Yin yoga creates a different space for it along some key principles that set it apart in terms of philosophy as well as practice. It is these principles that make some of the best yoga exercises part of Yin yoga.

Have a look at three of these important principles:

A Gentle Approach

Yin yoga, by nature, is a gentle practice and calls for a relaxed attitude. This is because Yin yoga does not revolve around the goal of pushing limits, but instead finding a comfortable area of practice to set in.

Long-holding Poses

The poses of Yin yoga are typically slow, and expected to be held for durations between 3 to 5 minutes, and even longer. The long hours offer all connecting tissues with enough time to stretch properly and gradually release tension from the joints.

Energy Flow with TCM

Yin yoga includes meridian concepts from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). It aims to ensure a better flow of energy, known as qi, through the meridian lines corresponding to the different poses.

Benefits of Yin Yoga

Because it targets physical as well as mental well-being, Yin yoga has a lot of benefits for practitioners.

Here are some of them:

1. Better Circulation: The stretching involved in Yin yoga improves the blood flow and circulation in the connective tissues, helping in better absorption of nutrients and disposal of waste products.

2. Increased Mindfulness: The focus on slow pace and long breathing deliver a greater feeling of mindfulness and self-awareness, facilitating your connection with inner self.

3. Better Emotional Health: By offering space for emotional release and introspection, Yin yoga offers better and improved emotional health and resilience in the process.

4. Improved Sleep: Owing to the calming effects that Yin yoga brings with it, you get better sleep quality and alleviate issues such as insomnia in the process.

Who Can Practice Yin Yoga?

There is no specific use case for anyone to practice or not practice Yin yoga. Anyone can go ahead with it because it’s a very adaptable style of yoga. It’s intense use of props, slow pace, and a higher sense of awareness when it comes to human variability makes it a very accessible yoga form for everyone.

While there might be a few poses which might not suit certain individuals, the most beneficial yoga poses in Yin Yoga can be modified as per requirements. In short, the experience will be equally enriching for everyone.

Some Common Yin Yoga Poses

Have a look at some of the common Yin yoga poses that can be practiced:

1. Caterpillar pose: This pose is performed by a rounded back. Sit with extended legs and fold yourself forward, allowing your spine to relax into the resulting stretch.

2. Dragon pose: Get yourself in a lunge position, and lower your hips to the ground, giving time to your back leg to rest on the ground. It’s a great pose for the hips, groin, and quadriceps.

3. Child pose/Balasana: This is a gentle and very restorative pose where you need to sit on your heels, stretch your arms in a forward direction, and continue doing that till your forehead touches the ground. It helps in releasing the tension of your back region and is an amazing yoga pose for back.

Takeaway

An accessible yoga style that offers the best to your mind, body, and breathing. That’s what Yin yoga is about. While your initial impression might make you feel that it’s a little unrequired yoga practice, investing a considerable amount of yourself in the process will definitely yield some amazing results. If you are looking for a great yoga place to help you begin your Yin yoga in London, then Yogabase London will be a great option for you.