Category:Yin Yoga

Yin Yoga

What is Yin Yoga?

This question is asked a lot by students who have been practicing yoga for a while but have never come across this particular challenging style. Simple answers such as “It is the balancing practice for your yang style of yoga” or “It is yoga for the joints, not the muscles” are not overly satisfying. If students haven’t heard of Yin Yoga, they won’t know what a yang style of yoga is. And isn’t all yoga good for the whole body, including our joints? To really answer the question and get to know Yin Yoga requires a fuller explanation.

Yin Yoga has the same goals and objectives as any other school of yoga; however, it directs the stimulation normally created in the asana portion of the practice deeper than the superficial or muscular tissues (which we are calling the yang tissues). Yin Yoga targets the connective tissues, such as the ligaments, bones, and even the joints of the body that normally are not exercised very much in a more active style of asana practice.

Suitable for almost all levels of students, Yin Yoga is a perfect complement to the dynamic and muscular (yang) styles of yoga that emphasize internal heat, and the lengthening and contracting of our muscles. Yin Yoga generally targets the connective tissues of the hips, pelvis, and lower spine.

While initially this style of yoga can seem quite boring, passive, or soft, yin practice can be quite challenging due to the long duration of the poses. We can remain in the postures anywhere from one to twenty minutes! Yin and yang tissues respond quite differently to being exercised. You need to experience this to really know what Yin Yoga is all about. After you have experienced it, even just once, you will realize that you have been doing only half of the asana practice.

Please note: Yin Yoga is not restorative yoga. Like all yoga practices, if the tissues you are targeting for exercise are damaged in some way, please give yourself a chance to heal before resuming your regular practice.

Yin and Yang

Patterns define our lives. Look around you right now; look carefully and you will notice the patterns surrounding you. Look up; you will see things that are high. Look down; you will see things that are low. Listen; you will hear things close by, and you will hear things far away. You will hear loud or obvious noises. You may hear soft, subtle sounds. Bring your attention inward; you may feel the tip of your nose (especially now that you just read the words “tip of your nose”) or the top of your head. Now you may be feeling the tips of your toes. Up, down … near, far … louder, softer … these are just some of the adjectives we can choose to describe the patterns of life, of existence. All patterns are formed by contrasts. The pattern on a chessboard is formed by the contrast of dark and light. The pattern of your life, when reflected upon, has displayed a contrast of good times and bad. For the Daoist, harmony and health are created when conditions arise where the contrasting aspects are in balance.

Yin

Dark
Cold
Passive
Inside
Solid
Slow
Right
Dim
Downward
Substance
Water
Matter
Mysterious
Female
Moon
Night
Earth
Even
Dragon
Yang

Light
Hot
Active
Outside
Hollow
Rapid
Left
Bright
Upward
Function
Fire
Energy
Obvious
Male
Sun
Day
Heaven
Odd
Tiger

Balancing is not a static act. Imagine the typical depiction of weighing scales: two plates held by a common string suspended at a point halfway between them. When two equally weighted objects are placed upon the scales, there is a slight swaying motion, like a pendulum. If one side is too heavy, the scales tip and balance is lost. When both sides are equal, there is still a slight oscillation around the middle position. This rebalancing is the returning to wholeness and health.

The ancient Chinese called this middle point “the Dao.”¹ The Dao is the tranquility found in the center of all events. The center is always there even if we are not always there to enjoy it. When we leave the center we take on aspects of yin or yang.

Yin and yang are relative terms: they describe the two facets of existence. Like two sides of one coin, yin cannot exist without yang; yang cannot exist without yin. They complement each other. Since existence is never static, what is yin and what is yang are always in flux, always changing.

The observation that everything has yin or yang attributes was made many thousands of years ago in ancient China. The terms existed in Confucianism and in the earliest Daoist writings. The character yin refers to the shady side of a hill or stream. Yang refers to the sunny side. Shade cannot exist without light: light can only be light when contrasted to darkness. And so we see how, even in the earliest uses of these terms, patterns are observed.

Darkness and light are just two of the many aspects separating yin and yang. Yin is used to describe things that are relatively denser, heavier, lower, more hidden, more yielding, more feminine, more mysterious, and more passive. Yang is used to describe the opposite conditions: things that are less dense, lighter, higher, more obvious or superficial, more masculine, and more dynamic. The table below shows a more complete, but not complete, comparison. There is no limit to the relative contexts in which yin and yang can be applied. br>

Yin contains Yang

Look again at the symbol for yin and yang at the beginning of this section; do you see the white dot within the dark paisley swirl? Even within the darkness of yin, there is found a lightness of yang. And vice versa: within the white swirl is a black dot; within yang is always found yin. In the context of temperature we say that hotter is yang and cooler is yin: but slightly hot is yin compared to extremely hot. And extremely hot is yin compared to hotter yet, which would be yang. In the other direction there is cool and there is cold. Yang would be cool relative the yin of cold.

In our yoga practice there are very active asana workouts, which we may call yang, but even within these relatively yang practices we can find relatively yin aspects; watching our breath mindfully while we flow through a vigorous vinyasa ² is just one example.

Yin becomes yang

Just as we can detect yin elements within the yang aspects, we can also notice how yin becomes yang, and yang can transform into yin. These transformations may be slow and subtle, or they may be devastatingly quick. The seasons roll slowly by; they change imperceptibly. The yang of spring and summer transforms day by day into the yin of fall and winter. It is not possible to pick the exact moment at which one season becomes another, astronomical observations notwithstanding. But the transformation may also come quickly: the eye of a hurricane quickly brings calm, and just as quickly the eye moves on and the other half of the storm strikes.

In our own life we often experience both the slow transformations of yin into yang, and yang into yin, and the quick changes. We wake up in the morning; yin becomes yang. Sometimes our awakening is slow, leisurely; this is a slow transformation. Sometimes we wake with a start and jump out of bed, perhaps because we realized we overslept. When we work long hours for many weeks or months in a row (a very yang lifestyle), our body may seek balance by suddenly making us too sick to work (a very yin lifestyle), or it may gift us with a severe migraine to slow us down. Yang is quickly transformed into yin.

Yin controls yang

In this last example, we can see that if we stay too long in an unbalanced situation, the universe acts to restore balance. It throws us to the other side: our health may suffer; our lives may change. If we do not heed the need for balancing yin and yang, this transition can be devastating; a heart attack could be the balancing force applied to us. These imbalances are often referred to as either a "deficiency" or an "excess." We can have an excess of yin or a yin deficiency; we can have an excess of yang or a yang deficiency. The cure is to apply the opposite energy to control the excess or deficiency.

In the Eastern world of the Daoists and yogis,³ the need for balance is well known and understood ⁴ . In the West, the concepts of yin and yang are more foreign. We don't think in these terms; our lifestyles rarely reflect a need for balance. We seek it only when the universe forces us to pay attention. Fortunately, the idea of yin and yang is becoming more widely known here in the West. Let's look now at how these terms can be applied to our own bodies.

Yin Tissues and Yang Tissues

Yin and yang are relative terms and need a context to be appropriately applied. They can be used as adjectives, although they are often used as nouns. Within our bodies, if we use the context of position or density, the yang tissues could be said to be our muscles, blood, and skin compared to the yin tissues of ligaments, bones, and joints. The contexts of flexibility or heat could also be used; muscles are elastic, bones are plastic.⁵ Muscles love to get hot while ligaments generally remain cool. However, we are not making an absolute definition here. In the context of water content, the muscles are yin and the ligaments are yang. Muscles love to get juicy, thus, they have lots of water in them, which is a yin quality; ligaments have less water content, which means they are relatively yang.

Despite the context of water, there are more ways in which the muscles are yang-like relative to the ligaments than they are yin-like. This is one reason this particular style of yoga is called Yin Yoga. Yang styles of yoga generally target the muscles and employ rhythmic, repetitive movements to stress the fibers of the muscles. Being elastic and moist, the muscles appreciate this form of exercise and respond well to it. Yin tissues, however, being dryer and much less elastic, could be damaged if they were stressed in this way. Instead, the more plastic tissues appreciate and require gentler pressures, applied for longer periods of time, in order to be stimulated to grow stronger. This is why orthodontic braces must be worn for a long time, with a reasonable (and not always comfortable) amount of pressure, in order to reshape the bones of the jaw.

Our joints can be seen simply as spaces between the bones where movement is possible. Stabilizing the joint are ligaments, muscles, and tendons, which bind the bones together. The tendons and muscles also provide a force to move the bones relative to each other. Generally one of the muscles’ jobs is to protect the joint; if there is too much strain on the joint, the muscle will tear first, then the ligament, and then finally the joint itself may become damaged. In this regard, yang yoga is designed to not stress the joint. This is why there is so much care taken to align the body and engage the muscles correctly before coming into asanas in the yang practice. However, Yin Yoga is specifically designed to exercise the ligaments and to create space and strength in the joints. The topic of tissues is discussed more fully in the Chapter Three: Our Bodies and Yoga’s Benefits.

An example can help explain the different roles of the muscles and ligaments. Take your right index finger in your left hand. Tighten the muscles of the right finger and try to pull it away from the knuckle. Notice that there is no movement there. The muscles’ job is to bind the bones together and limit the range of motion allowed in the joint. Now relax the finger completely. Shake it out for a moment. Now, keeping the muscles passive again, try to pull the finger away from the knuckle. Notice the slight dimpling there? Perhaps you can feel only the slight pulling away. When the muscles are relaxed the stress is moved to the ligaments binding the joint. The joint can open a little now and the ligaments can receive some of the stress. The first exercise was yang-like, whereas the second exercise was yin-like.

The Theory of Exercise

All forms of exercise share two features in common:

· first we must stress the tissues,

· then we must let the tissues rest.

Yang tissues do better when stressed in a yang manner and yin tissues do better when stressed in a yin way. Stress has many negative connotations in our culture because we forget the “rest” part of this equation. But to have no, or little, stress in our life is just as damaging as having too much stress. We need to stress the body, and we need to rest it. There is a yin/yang balance here that leads to health. Too much of anything is not healthy.

Yang exercise targets the yang tissues: the muscles. Muscles love to be rhythmically and repetitively moved. Any static holds are brief. The muscles are elastic and can take this type of exercise. However, to apply yang exercise to yin tissues could damage them. Yin tissues, being more plastic, require gentle but long-held stresses. Imagine bending a credit card back and forth one hundred and eight times every morning. It wouldn’t take many mornings of this for it to snap in half. The credit card is plastic, just as our ligaments are. To rhythmically bend ligaments over and over again, as some students do when doing drop back from standing into the wheel, can, over time, damage the ligaments, just like the credit card was damaged. The warning here is … do not apply yang exercise techniques to yin tissues!

Applying a yin exercise to yang tissues could also be damaging! Holding a muscle in a contracted state for a long period of time is called “tetany”⁶ and may damage the muscle.

Is it better to tighten muscles (yang) or relax them (yin)? That depends on your intention. We tighten our muscles to protect our joints. We relax our muscles so we can exercise our joints. What is your intention in the pose you are doing?

Many health care professionals shudder at the thought of exercising joints; they have the mistaken view that all exercise is yang exercise. Despite this concern it is possible to exercise ligaments, bones, and joints. In fact, it is necessary. However, being yin tissues means we must exercise them in a yin way. And then, please remember the important second part of this equation ­ we must let them rest!⁷

There is a lot of research proving the importance of stress and rest beyond just developing strength physically, but it is beyond the scope of this journey to go into it further.

The History of Yin Yoga

Yin Yoga has been described as new, yet ancient. While Paul Grilley has done much to publicize and popularize this form of yoga,⁸ he did not invent it. Paul combined three lines of inquiry in a unique way. This is the hallmark of genius. In his own book, Yin Yoga, Paul dedicated his work to three teachers who guided his three lines of inquiry:

· Dr. Garry Parker … who taught him anatomy

· Paulie Zink … who taught him Daoist Yoga

· Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama … who reminded Paul of yoga’s greater purpose

Original Yin

There are many documents describing yoga; some were written hundreds and even thousands of years ago: the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the Gheranda Samhita, the Yoga Sutra, and many more. However, none of these ancient texts were meant to be read alone. They all required the guidance of a guru, to ensure understanding. The books were used more like notes ­ shorthand reminders of the real teaching. Much of the real knowledge was deliberately kept hidden; only when the teacher felt the student was ready was the knowledge revealed. We cannot tell simply from reading these old texts how the physical practice of yoga was performed. What we can say, with some certainty, is that the purpose of the physical practice was to prepare the student for the deeper practices of meditation.

In the earliest spiritual books of India, the Vedas, yoga is not described as a path to liberation, and asana practice is not described at all. Rather, yoga, among its many other meanings, meant discipline, and the closest word to asana was asundi, which described a block upon which one sat in order to meditate. By the time the Yoga Sutra was compiled,⁹ yoga was defined as a psycho-spiritual practice aimed at ultimate liberation. Asana, however, was still a very minor aspect of the practice. The Yoga Sutra mentions asana only twice¹⁰ in all one hundred and ninety-six aphorisms. And all that is said about asana is that it should be sthira and sukham: steady and comfortable. These are very much yin qualities, compared to the style of asana we see performed today in yoga classes. When we are still and the mind undistracted by bodily sensation, meditation can arise.

The point of yoga practices is to enter into a meditative state from which realization or liberation may arise. Different schools of yoga have different techniques for achieving this. Some even claim that one cannot become liberated while in the body. The goal in these dualistic schools is to get out of the body as fast as possible, but this must be done in the right way. Other schools rejected that approach and suggested, since we can meditate and practice yoga only while in the body, we must treat the body well. The body must be healthy. The focus of the Hatha Yoga schools was to build a strong, healthy body that would allow the yogi to meditate for many hours each day. In Hatha Yoga, the practice of asana began to take on a new, broader importance. However, the ultimate goal was still to be able to sit comfortably and steadily for hours.

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika was written around 1350 C.E. by Swami Swatmarama. It is almost twice as long as the Yoga Sutra and has generated a lot of commentary since its writing. It is one of the oldest extant documents we have describing Hatha Yoga. Compared to today’s practices, however, it too has very little asana practice in it. There are only sixteen postures described, and of these, half are seated postures. These are quite yin-like in their nature; however, many of the other postures are very definitely yang-like. The peacock (mayurasana) is prescribed, and if you have seen this posture performed, there is nothing relaxing or yin-like about it. We are told that one of the sixteen postures is supreme; once one has mastered siddhasana, all the other postures are useless.¹¹ Siddhasana is a simple, yin-like seated posture. ) The Hatha Yoga Pradipika claims that Lord Shiva taught the Hatha Yoga sage Matsyendra eighty-four asanas.¹² Other myths claim there are eighty-four thousand or even eight hundred and forty thousand asanas. Regardless, only sixteen are listed in the Pradipika. And of asanas it is said that these should be practiced to gain steady posture, health, and lightness of the body.¹³ Not mentioned in any of the Hatha texts is how long one should hold the pose. This is where the guru’s guidance is necessary. However, one can assume that the seated postures were meant to be held a long time while the more vigorous poses like the peacock were held for briefer periods. It is in the seated postures that the vayus (the winds or the breath) become trained through pranayama.¹⁴ The Lotus Pose (padmasana) is the prescribed pose for conducting pranayama.¹⁵

As time went on, later texts expanded the number of asanas explained. The Gheranda Samhita, written perhaps in the late 1600s, a few hundred years after the Pradipika, describes thirty-two asanas, of which one-third could be said to be yin-like and the others more yang-like. A trend had begun: more yang asanas compared to yin asanas. A few decades later, the Shiva Samhita listed eighty-four asanas. By the time of the British Raj, when England began to colonize Indian culture and change the school system, asanas were beginning to become blended with forms from the gymnasiums. Wrestling, gymnastics, and other exercises were cross-fertilizing the asana practice. By the end of the nineteenth century there were thousands of asanas. Krishnamacharya¹⁶ said he knew around three thousand postures but that his guru, Ramamohan Brahmachari, knew eight thousand. The era of yang yoga was upon us.

This gradual, and then sudden, evolution of asana practice moved the practice away from the original yin style of holding seated poses for a long time as a preparation for the deeper practice of meditation to the more active yang style of building strength and health. One is not better than the other; they are simply different. To sit for long periods of time in deep, undisturbed meditation requires a body that is open and strong. This opening, especially in the hips and lower back, is developed through a dedicated yin practice. However, if one is in ill health or weak, it is very difficult to sit with focus. A yang practice helps to build a “diamond” body, readying the student for the rigors of advanced yoga practice.

The original styles of physical yoga were very yin-like in nature. Over the past two hundred years the style has changed to be more yang-like. As in all things in life, harmony comes through balance. By combining both styles, progress in practice is more assured.

Paul Grilley’s Discovery of Yin Yoga

In the spring of 1979 Paul Grilley was inspired to study yoga after reading Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. After two years’ study of anatomy with Dr. Garry Parker, he relocated from his home in Columbia Falls, Montana, to Los Angeles to continue his studies at UCLA. While in L.A., Paul furthered his study of yoga and began to teach.

Paul’s personal yoga practice took him into Ashtanga, where he experienced the joys (and consequent dangers) of doing too many drop backs into urdhva dhanurasana (the Wheel). He also ran a Bikram’s studio and studied that form of practice. One day, Paul stumbled across a locally televised martial arts interview that featured Paulie Zink. While Paulie’s martial arts demonstration was impressive, what really caught Paul’s attention was his flexibility. Paulie kept stressing the importance of yoga practice to do martial arts effectively and without injury. Paul contacted Paulie through the TV station. Paulie invited him to attend an ongoing class, which included two hours of long holds of simple postures, and Paul was hooked. Paul became Paulie’s student.

In 1990 Paul met Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama. Through Dr. Motoyama’s teachings Paul began to see the connection between the asana practices he had been doing and Dr. Motoyama’s theory of the meridians. Paul went to Japan to learn more about the way our body’s physical and energetic structures are connected through the chakra system. Paul continues to study with Dr. Motoyama as well as host seminars with him.

Paul combined the knowledge he had been given on anatomy, Daoist Yoga, and the meridian theory into the core of his Yin Yoga teachings. His teachings resonated with many people who recognized the benefits of the practice and related to the model of the body/mind/soul Paul offered. One student, who found this practice compelling and highly beneficial to her meditation practice, was Sarah Powers.

From 1998 to 2000 Paul took a sabbatical and relocated to Santa Fe where he earned a master’s degree from St. John’s College in the study of the Great Books of the Western World. In 2005 he received an honorary PhD from the California Institute of Human Science, founded by Dr. Motoyama. He currently teaches yoga and anatomy worldwide and lives in Ashland, Oregon, with his wife Suzee.

Paulie Zink

Paulie Zink is the fifth-generation master of the art of Ta Sheng Men, or Monkey Kung Fu. He is also a seventh-generation master of the art of Pek Kwar (Ax Fist) Kung Fu. Three times he has been grand champion, with and without weapons, at the Long Beach International Karate Championships. He has been studying kung fu since 1977 and has written many articles and books. He has also created many videos on Daoist Yoga. For the last few years Paulie has been living near Billings, Montana, and teaching Daoist Yoga throughout the USA and Canada.

The following more detailed biography is from Paulie’s own Web site [www.PaulieZink.com]

Paulie Zink began studying yoga and martial arts as a teenager. While he was in college he met a Kung Fu master from Hong Kong named Cho Chat Ling. Master Ling had been imparted with secret martial arts knowledge by his uncle and was obligated to pass on the legacy. He wanted to choose a proficient, worthy practitioner who could show the art to the Western world. He found in Paulie the potential and the tenacity of spirit necessary to meet this aim.

After some time Master Ling chose Paulie to become his sole protégé. Master Ling came to Paulie’s home and instructed him privately every day for six to eight hours. About three hours of his daily practice were devoted to Taoist Yoga and Chi Kung. Paulie was taught Taoist Yoga and Chi Kung as a foundation for his martial arts training. Master Ling taught Paulie three distinct Kung Fu styles combined into a discipline that demanded tremendous mental concentration, harsh physical exercise, and esoteric spiritual practices.

With this intensive level of study it took Paulie seven years to master the art of Taoist Yoga. At this time Master Ling began to taper the frequency of his visits, although Paulie continued to train just as vigorously. By the tenth year Master Ling declared Paulie to be his own master and his training ended. He told Paulie he had transmitted to him in ten years time what would usually require twenty years or more to learn. Paulie is the only Westerner to be traditionally trained in these Kung Fu styles in a direct Chinese lineage from the arts’ originators. Master Ling never charged Paulie for his tutelage.

Master Ling insisted Paulie compete in the martial arts arena. Paulie entered in the “Empty Hands” and “Weapons” divisions of approximately one hundred martial arts tournaments from local to regional to national levels. He won the Grand Championship in all of them, often in both divisions. Master Zink’s tournament career culminated with him winning the Grand Championship at the Long Beach International Karate Championships three consecutive years.

Master Zink has been inducted into four Martial Arts Halls of Fame. His personal effects are on display at The Martial Arts History Museum in Los Angeles, California. Master Zink has co-authored two books on Monkey Kung Fu. He has starred in numerous martial arts and Taoist Yoga training videos. Dozens of articles about Master Zink and his art have been published in several major martial arts magazines. And he has been featured on many magazine covers.

Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama

Dr. Motoyama was the inspiration for Paul Grilley, and later Sarah Powers, to delve deeper into the mysterious connection of the physical movements in yoga and the movement of energy through the subtle body. Sarah has described Dr. Motoyama as a yoga adept. He was born of a mother who was an accomplished yogini with advanced psychic abilities. Early in his life Motoyama was also taken under the wing of his mother’s teacher who adopted the young Motoyama. Her name was Kinue Motoyama and she was the founder of the Tamamistsu Jinja religious organization.

Tidbits of Dr. Motoyama’s life are sprinkled throughout his books. Curious readers can find more details in the book Awakening of the Chakras and Emancipation. Here we learn about the rigor of Motoyama’s early training and the awakening of his many vibhutis, or powers: his ability to see the energy fields, his ability to influence and correct faulty energy, to heal both those close to him and those in need far away.

Dr. Motoyama’s brilliance is not limited to his psychic abilities. He holds two PhD degrees. He is also a Shinto priest, one highly respected in Japan. His ability to move freely between the worlds of the spirit and of the physical allowed him to investigate his own abilities using the rigors of Western science and medicine. With the aim of making the subtle measurable, he created instruments that he and others have learned to use to verify the flow of energy through the subtle body.

To further his research and spread his findings, Dr. Motoyama created institutes both in Japan and in the USA. It was during his travels that Paul Grilley came across him. Paul, as noted earlier, was inspired by what Dr. Motoyama revealed and went back with him to Japan. Later Paul introduced Sarah and others to Motoyama and they too embraced the teacher.

Even though he is in his eighties, Dr. Motoyama still travels and teaches. He often comes to Encinitas, California, where he established the California Institute of Human Science (CIHS). His formal biography is available from this Web site.

Sarah Powers

Sarah Powers’ journey into the world of Yoga was unplanned. Her initial goal was to learn how her mind worked. She was working on a master’s degree in psychology when the detour that was to consume her occurred: she chose to study a topic based upon a book that had been lying around her home for many years. It was a book on yoga; Sarah fell in love.

Fortunately, Sarah was already married at the time this new direction appeared in her life. Supported by her husband Ty, she was able to delve deeply into the practice of yoga. She took teacher training courses and began teaching in Malibu. Her practice gravitated to the yang styles, but at that time she had no awareness that yoga could be yin or yang. One day, after a lovely and sweaty Ashtanga class, Sarah tried a class Paul Grilley was teaching. That was her first taste of yin; it was delicious. Sarah loved sinking deeply into the poses. However, at that time Paul’s classes were mostly conducted in silence; he didn’t explain the various and deep benefits that Yin Yoga has for the body. Eventually life’s changes took both Sarah and Paul along separate paths. Sarah did not see Paul again for many years.

After several years of building her physical yoga practice, Sarah decided it was time to face her mind. Ty had been studying the mind and consciousness for many years already, and Sarah felt like she was still just catching up to him. She decided to do a ten-day vipassana retreat in Asia. Despite the very flexible muscles and wide range of motion that her yang practice gave her, Sarah found sitting for an hour several times in a day to be excruciating. She was amazed how poorly prepared she was physically for the practice of meditation. It is hard to face your mind when all you can hear is your body screaming.

Fortunately Sarah’s path again crossed Paul’s. She returned to the yin practice she had dropped a few years before. This time, Paul explained the benefits of the practice. This understanding convinced Sarah she needed to stick with both the yin-style and the yang-style of asana practice. Her next vipassana retreat was a completely different experience: she was able to sit calmly and go deeper into mindfulness without the distractions she suffered earlier.

Ty and Sarah had been investigating Buddhist mindfulness: Sarah began combining this aspect of the practice with the physical and energetic work of yoga. Their Tibetan teacher, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, influenced them greatly as did their Zen teacher, Toni Packer.

Today Sarah interweaves the insights and practices of yoga and Buddhism into an integral practice to enliven the body, heart, and mind. Her yoga style blends both a yin sequence of long-held poses to enhance the meridian and organ systems, combined with a flow or yang practice, influenced by Viniyoga, Ashtanga, and Iyengar teachers.

Sarah feels that enlivening the physical and pranic bodies, as well as learning to open up to our emotional blockages, is paramount for preparing us to deepen and nourish insights into our essential nature – a natural state of awareness. She draws from her studies in transpersonal psychology, as well as her in-depth training in the vipassana, Tantric and Dzogchen practices of Buddhism. She now teaches trainings and silent retreats internationally with Ty. They live with their teenage daughter Imani Jade in Marin, California.

Footnotes

1 -- Tibetans have called it the Rigpa.

2 -- A vinyasa is a sequence of postures or asanas that flow smoothly from one to the next. It literally means to place in a special way.

3 -- The term "yogi" is defined to be "a person who practices yoga" and so is gender neutral. When we wish to specifically refer to a male practitioner, the term "yogin" is used, and for a female practitioner, "yogini" is used.

4 -- The yogis have similar words for yin and yang, tha and ha, which together form the word hatha after which the well-known school of yoga is named.

5 -- Elastic materials return to their original shape once the stress upon them ends. Plastic materials retain the new shape.

6 -- Tetany is an involuntary cramping of a muscle.

7 -- As an aside, the theory of exercise applies beyond the tissues of our body. We need to have stress, and then rest, in all areas of our life in order to be healthy. This can include our relationships, our mental abilities, and even our immune system. For example, cancer patients rarely get colds before getting their cancer. Their immune systems were not exercised by colds and thus were weaker than the immune system of people who did get colds regularly. We need to stress our immune systems, appropriately, in order for them to be strong. But we also need rest. Migraine sufferers rarely have heart attacks because their migraines force them to slow down and adopt a yin lifestyle for the few days that their migraines occur. Like our tissues, our lives require periods of stress and rest.

8 -- It was actually Sarah Powers who coined the term “Yin Yoga” that is commonly used today.

9 -- Arguably around 200 C.E. and mythically attributed to the sage Patanjali.

10 -- Yoga Sutra, II-29 and II-46.

11 -- Hatha Yoga Pradipika, I-43.

12 -- Ibid, I-35.

13 -- Ibid, I-19.

14 -- Pranayama is one way to harness the inner energies we work with in yoga.

15 -- Ibid, II-7 and 8.

16 -- Whose students included BKS Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois and TKV Desikachar.

External Links

Other Information about Yin Yoga

Articles about Yin Yoga

How to Practice Yin Yoga

Yin Yoga Asanas

Where to find a Yin Yoga teacher or studio

To find a Yin Yoga teacher in your area, you can check with YinYoga.com's Teacher Directory. (To add your name to this directory, contact YinYoga.com directly.)

Yin Yoga Workshops and Teacher Trainings

This page provides links to various Yin Yoga related workshops and teacher training programs: Upcoming Events

Yin Yoga Resources

This page provides links to various Yin Yoga DVDs, CDs, Books and other items of interest to Yin Yogis: Other Links

YinSights (a web book concerning Yin Yoga)

Paul Grilley's Web Page

Sarah Powers' Web Page

Paulie Zink's Web Page