A little on Yin Yoga
Yin Yoga is a blend of practice between martial arts and Tao philosophy / principles. Founded by Paulie Zink, coined and structured by Sarah Powers and Paul Grillie which has spread its favour to everyone making it accessible and easy to start practising! Yin Yoga is not a religious practice but can be used with either a spiritual/or physiological approach for it's diverse benefits to an individual's well being. Yin Yog's versatility is seamlessly easy to blend whatever your academic background, health, fitness, body composition and even mental well being. If you want to learn another technique to meditate instead of sitting silent, Yin Yog would be a great tool to have. YY (Yin Yog) session are extra gentle, passive and offers deep relaxation never thought possible, allowing them to truly bring themselves from Sympathetic state (fight/ flight mode/ high stress situations) to a rest and digest state (para-sympathetic state). Of which allows deep targeted myofascia release, tendon and ligamentous stretch and even allowing the viscera organs to be stretched in specific position(s). The fascial slings has a connection closely related to the traditional chinese medicine meridians theory. YY helps stimulate the channels of energies which modern science sometimes referring it to as nerves and dermatomes that has almost similar flow of patterns.
Yin Yog's versatility seamlessly blends in to whatever your background, health and mental state of mind is. If you want to learn another form of technique to meditate instead of sitting silent, Yin Yog would be a great tool to have. Yin Yog session is gentle, passive and enables one to bring your current state of "fight or flight" mode to "rest and digest" which most of us are always not able to due to the interaction of the material world, it's stimuluses and how we just find it impossible to take a moment back into rest and digest state of mind and body. YY facilitates deep relaxation and allows both superficial and deep fascia to stretch and stimulation of the different meridians, which closely relates into the current era of holistic approach to have anyone into a deep restful session bringing balance between mind, body and breath.
During a YY session, one allows the superficial and deep connective tissues to elongate by holding the poses anywhere from 60 seconds up to 20 minutes, depending on the pose and ability of individuals. There are a few ways the body can be stimulated, through compression, torque, stretch and a combination of the series. Fascial networks in our body takes some time to adjust and allow changes and remodelling of it thus making sure it isn't forced but having the body work with gravitational pull and allowing breath to guide individuals into a deeper stretch and release.
Breath work is a major part of YY as it allows you to shift your intellectual awareness of your thoughts and observe them. Having breath work incorporated as well brings you from sympathetic to para- sympathetic state where one learn show to truly rest and digest in the current era of constant stress.
Consciousness and awareness are as well increased by the facilitator, guiding individuals to learn to observe thoughts, sensations, feelings and experiencing something in them. There has been many cases of realisation during YY session due to an enhanced ability to shift one's awareness.
Emotional release may happen during a YY session as we all keep or repress our feelings, actions and thoughts, all of which is stored in the network of fascia. Sometimes a release facilitates itself through certain poses, mantra chanting and guided release of current and past issues. During YY, it's always suggested to fully let go and allow any form of release to happen, be it, mental, physical and emotional.
Clarity and a deep rested state follows almost every session as throughout the transitions of poses, it allows you to fully rest the body and mind. It's been said that a short 30 minute session with meditation during YY session is almost a few hours of deep sleep rest!
Yin Yog is a practice of deep positional release and transcendental meditation at each pose. It's also been seen as a restorative yoga through the yang activity and balancing it out with a Yin practice. Always finding balance within the body through total awareness of the body, intellectual observation and breath awareness.