Yin Yoga

About two weeks ago, I bruised a shoulder bone while doing an “unscheduled dismount” from a forearm stand. My two year old didn’t let me come out of the pose as I had planned, so gravity enthusiastically introduced my right shoulder to the floor. About two days later, I couldn’t lift up my right arm without pain. I didn’t bother me that much, but vinyasas were out of the question. So I thought it would be good time to rest for a while. One week later and I was going crazy with withdrawal. I needed to practice asanas!

What was I to do? Ashtanga wasn’t option. I’m too broke to take some Bikram classes. I need something easy. So I thought about trying to find one of those “Yoga for old ladies” DVDs I mistakenly bought early on. No, it’s not really called "Yoga for old ladies", but that’s what I felt like when I used the DVD. I just couldn’t deal with just sitting in a poses for a few minutes at a time unless it was causing me to sweat. That type of yoga must be for old ladies with no upper body strength right? I thought is was boooooooring. Anyway, perhaps this would be a good time to give it another shot as I felt like a fragile old lady who couldn’t do a push up without a lot of pain. Therefore I decided on Tuesday to resign to my injury and try some of that boring gentle stuff once I put the kids to sleep that night.

As luck would have it, I was also finishing a book that day and needed a new one. For the past 4 months, I’ve read nothing but yoga books. Maybe there was a vampire book in there somewhere, but I’ve been studying/reading Yoga every day. The latest book, “Happy Yoga” by Steve Ross, was awesome. It’s more of a book on happiness than asanas, but it’s all yoga. Being a generally happy person, I didn’t get any moments of clarity from Steve’s book, but I really enjoyed his articulation on happiness and I think a lot of people could get something from that book.

Anyway, on my lunch break I headed down to this Yoga Studio/Bookstore/Health food store a few blocks away from my work to get a new book. I go there for lunch a lot because they have great cheap veggie food and the chicks at the cashier are usually cute. I don’t normally get my books from there do to the apparent snobbyness of the people who work there. Yoga snobs are the worst, but I digress. As I was looking around all of the books, one of them called out to me. I think it would have tapped me on the shoulder if it could, but it’s just a book and books just don’t do that.

As soon as I saw “Yin Yoga”, I remembered my good buddy Cody made a comment on this blog about how it was a good counterpart to my practice or something. I didn’t remember was she said, but if she said something about it, it must be good. Love the Cody. The description said something along the lines of “quiet” yoga and “connective tissue”, neither of which I had clue about. Perfect, I thought; Cody suggested it, seems gentle, might learn something about “connective tissue”. It spoke to me.

By the time 8 o’clock rolled around that night I had almost finished the book! Paul Grilley methodically explains meridians and connective tissue in a format that is easy for a westerner like me to digest. Some of the yoga books try to explain a concept along the line of “this is the way it is, you must have blind faith and follow along” which I just can’t do. For the first time, I was reading something about an intangible yoga “thing” and I didn’t feel like it was a sermon. Paul effective explained that most yoga is a “Yang” type of yoga that focuses solely on making muscles strong and flexible. “Yin” style yoga focuses on the connective tissue and/or fascia that holds your bones in place. Since this tissue is so deep, flowing yoga doesn’t yield enough time for the tissue to be stimulated. Long story short, you have to hold a pose for a long time in order for the tissue to begin to relax and subsequently heal.

I’ll try to keep this long short story shorter (if that makes sense).

My hips always seem tight so I stared with the sitting poses. At first, they seemed typical. “Sit this way and hold it for 5 minutes” was about the extent of the instruction. Seemed simple enough. I couldn’t help but have images pop in my head of the old ladies doing yoga. None of the poses were new to me, but I haven’t held any pose longer than 5 breaths (Ashtanga) or 60 seconds (Bikram). After about 2 minutes, something new started happening! I could feel new sensations, like warmth and energy, coming from the area I was working on. By the time I had gotten through a few poses, I really felt like something amazing was a happening. Opening the connective tissue seemed to allow energy to flow freely through me. Could these be meridians? I’d read about them. Yes, there were! Holy cow, I was actually feeling the energy opening up. This mystical shit isn’t so mystical after all!

After about an hour of practicing, I felt so light and energetic. My hips seemed so flexible, I just wanted to jump around. I even practiced a few karate kicks, which is something I do only when I’m drunk and want to annoy my wife. No, I don’t know actually know karate, but I really enjoy kicking in the air and making that “hiiiiiiiii-ya!” sound. Anyway, here I was enjoying “old lady yoga.” Then it hit me. The past 18 months of heavy duty asana practice had actually calmed me down enough to be able to listen to subtle changes in the body. My previous aversion to gentle style yoga had nothing to do with the yoga itself, it was all me. My mind raced way too much to pay attention to me, so I wrote it off as “old lady yoga.” I’ve read so much about how asanas calm the mind and here was tangible evidence. A MOMENT OF CLARITY!

To sum it all up, I’ve reached a milestone this week. I really feel that my mind has quieted enough for me to enjoy the subtler aspect of gentle asana practice. This is a really big deal for me because I didn’t know I could get to it. The whole meditation thing seemed to be on another planet until now. Now, it seems much closer. I figured out that I don’t need to sweat to feel results. Now I can sit in my living room, while my kids are running around, and do some good yoga. And I don’t think I’ll have an “unscheduled dismount” from butterfly pose.



From here on out, I’ll always include some Yin Yoga asanas into my practice.

Thanks C!