Yin Yoga changed my life. I cannot live without it.

What is Yin Yoga ?

Yin yoga targets your deep connective tissues, like your fascia, ligaments, joints, and bones. It’s passive and  meditative. Because you’re holding poses for a longer period of time than you would in other traditional types of yoga, yin yoga helps you stretch and lengthen those rarely-used tissues while also teaching you how to breathe through discomfort and sit with your own thoughts.

Why you should practice ?

• Increases circulation and improves flexibility
• Calms and balances the mind and body
• Reduces stress and anxiety 
• Releases fascia
• Encourages relaxation
• Improves joint mobility

My road was similar to many. When you exercise and move a lot and also when you sit a lot, you should be doing stretching. But what most people do and I was one of them, are those useless 30 seconds long or even less so poses which you do for 7 minutes altogether after your workout. Look around your gym how many people do stretching properly and for how long. That really does not work well for our bodies and as more years go by our bodies tighten more and more and problems will start to arise. I started witnessing on myself that although I worked out and moved a lot so I would be healthy and my body resilient, my body actually hurt. When I look back on the things I used to do in the past, meaning lifting heavy weights (at least according to me), doing martial arts, running and doing all other sports that I enjoyed doing while not stretching my body properly and without focusing on recovery, I am really lucky that I never got injured. 

Couple of years ago and thanks to my girlfriend (she’s a physiotherapist) I started realizing how tight my body was. And I needed more and more rest days because I couldn’t recover from muscle fatigue. 

That’s when I started incorporating strong Yoga based workouts and doing advanced classes, meaning with a lot of focus on strenght. That helped a lot to balance my body and Yoga advanced classes are still part of my routine, but it was when I found out that “Yin Yoga” exist when things started change for me. 

One thing people get wrong as I did when I first found out about it, they think it is “easy”, because it is passive. It is not easy at all. More tight you are, the more you’ll need to push yourself in your head to stay in those poses longer when you’ll start doing it, but the results will be worth it. 

At the time of writing this article I practice Yin Yoga almost daily, I rarely do not do an evening session which lasts something between 30 minutes and 1 hour. Usually holding each pose for 3-5 minutes. In the beginning I went on youtube and also googled yin yoga classes but now I combine poses by myself as I found out which areas of my body are the most tight ones and which poses I need the most for the given day. (I suggest you’ll try several youtube teachers so after some time you won’t need any teacher but you’ll know well where are your “tight” areas and which poses you like the most and how to combine them for yourself)

One very challenging aspect of Yin Yoga is that most of us cannot be in silence with our own head. This is very hard for many because the fact that you’re stretching your body areas that are very tight makes your head wonder “let’s get out”, “you’ve been holding for one minute already that’s enough” and all other bullshit. Our mind is playing games with us all day long and Yin Yoga will show you very quickly how hard it is to stay focused if there are no distractions available. 

I’ve been practicing it for couple of years now and although I cannot call myself flexible and I probably never will, my recovery improved rapidly and I finally feel great in my own body.
I cannot live without it. 

If you’re planning to try it for yourself, be careful from the beginning. You’ll need to distinguish between discomfort and between itching pain that might destroy your body, not help it. Discomfort is okay but if you’ll feel itching pain you’re pushing too hard and you’ll need to back off a little. Do not push it. When I started first couple of months were so hard that I almost cried while doing Yin Yoga focused on hips. But nowdays I do poses (asanas) focused on hips daily and I love them. The biggest difference I see between Yin Yoga and normal stretching you see people do after their workout or after the martial art training session is the lenght of the hold in each pose. And especially beneficial is the fact that no one creates pressure on your body as I used to see in the past when people wanted to push the stretching further and they “helped each other” by creating pressure on their legs or similar and ended up injuring themselves. The only thing “pushing” in Yin Yoga is gravity. You need nothing else. 

In my mind Yin Yoga is stretching combined with meditation. I like intense workouts and than to fully relax in Yin Yoga. This creates balance we should aim for.

I dare you to try Yin Yoga and check for yourself, but I warn you, once you’ll try there is no way back !

Disclaimer: Author talks about his experience only, this web site is provided for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute providing medical advice or professional services. The information provided should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, and those seeking personal medical advice should consult with a licensed physician.