Yin Paths…
Today I’m flying low and I’m not saying a word.
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep…
Quiet as a feather…
Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.
Those lines from Mary Oliver are a good summary of the Yin yoga practice. Many other such summaries are available, such as these words from Sarah Powers: “unhurried postures unstained by striving”. In the last 20 years, the Yin yoga practice has become increasingly popular, going from the margins to the mainstream. To borrow words from Bernie Clark: “Yin is in”.
In 2002, the first book on Yin yoga was published. It was by Paul Grilley and had this succinct and telling subtitle: Outline of A Quiet Practice. Twenty years later and more than 20 books have been published in English specifically on Yin yoga. Some great; some good; some not-so-good. Just because a book has ‘Yin’ in its title does not automatically mean that it is good (nor that it appropriately reflects the Yin yoga practice).
Yin yoga has – like a beautiful tapestry – many different threads. One thread is that of Paul Grilley; his learning from Daoist practitioner Paulie Zink in 1988 and then his subsequent teaching of this particular practice to Sarah Powers in 1988/89. Another thread is from a person who told me that while they were in Goa during the late 1980s, they would practice this form of yoga after all-night parties. They called it ‘LSD yoga’; that stood for Long Slow Deep.
A third thread is in James Nestor’s Breath book. He interviewed a practitioner and this person said “in the 1970s…in Rishikesh, India…Poses were done once and held for an excruciatingly long time.” Then there is Krishnamacharya’s Yoga Makaranda (published in 1934): “Janu Sirsasana…one can stay with the forehead on the knee for between five minutes and half an hour.” And undoubtedly there are other threads.
When Paul was first teaching this practice, he called it ‘Daoist yoga’ to honour where he had learn it from; when Sarah started teaching this form, she called it ‘Yin yoga’. This was partly because Sarah was just teaching the floor postures of Daoist yoga and she wanted to differentiate this from the forms that Paulie Zink taught (a synthesis of Hatha yoga postures and martial arts). Yin yoga was the name that became more widely known and Paul – in a good modelling of flexibility – also began using this name.
Excellent questions
Someone asked me at a recent workshop this excellent question: “Who did you train with?” My response was to talk about Sarah Powers (who I first trained with in 2004) as well as other teachers such as Bernie Clark and Judith Lasater. A participant on a course that I taught wrote in their pre-course feedback: “I do need many more years of practising Yin to truly understand… what can be released…also what can support the body, prevent injury and allow the body its time to soften.”
A contrast to this is what a teacher said in an interview when promoting what they are teaching: “yoga teachers…can learn to teach Yin yoga in seven hours”. In my view, this is mistaken. This might be described as ‘magical thinking’ (aka the law of manifestation or attraction, as found in that so-called self-help book The Secret and elsewhere). It takes time to learn and teach practices. To deeply absorb a practice. It can take time for things to sink in, like how steady rain softens hardened soil.
For myself, it has been a process of many years, much study, many mistakes to become more confident as a practitioner and a teacher of Yin yoga. Perhaps I am a slow learner; my learning process has been significantly helped by repeat and repeat and repeat (this might be called ‘saturation teaching/learning’). An example is that I have done three ten-day training courses with Sarah; and three one-week courses with Bernie Clark; and more elsewhere. Gradually dots becoming more connected.
Like those growing numbers of books on Yin yoga, when I trained with Sarah and Paul in 2004 (they were teaching together), there were very few options for training in Yin yoga. Now there are many. A day course or a workshop can be a wonderful start, a good way of setting some foundations. We all start somewhere: that first step, the beginner’s yoga class, becoming more proficient. To quote the 4th century BCE text, Tao Te Ching: "a nine-tiered tower/ starts as a basket of dirt/ a thousand-mile journey/ begins with a single step." [Chapter 64; translation by David Hinton].
But I believe that saying that a one-day course is sufficient to teach Yin yoga is ungrounded and superficial – to put it mildly. Consequences of such simplistic approaches can include lack of depth and an assumption that teaching Yin is easy – when actually teaching Yin well can be challenging and requires considerable practice experience.
One teacher wrote: “I have been teaching solely yin since 2017 and I have trained with many teachers now. However the learning comes in my deep immersive work with my own practice… I feel I have only nudged the iceberg.” Let us take in that line: “only nudged the iceberg”. Another teacher said about the notion of learning to teach Yin yoga in one-day: “this comes from not understanding the difference between learning a concept through the mind – the knowledge part – and understanding it through the body, our whole somatic experience – which is embodied wisdom. There is a huge difference between those two.”
Differences and Variations
There are definitely differences and variations in how to practice and teach Yin yoga. This is healthy and positive. For example, I am a fan of props; I do not use terms such as “target area” or “rebound pose” – and over the years I have become increasingly inspired by ideas of the threads that connect (aka meridians; or canals or channels). Paul Grilley and Sarah Powers have certainly changed their teaching styles, their particular emphases, their personal practices over the last 20 years. I have deep respect for Paul and Sarah and all their work over the 30 plus years in popularising this Yin yoga practice.
Acknowledging sources of inspiration and giving thanks to those who have taught us is essential. To me, this does feel quite yin, as it can be both humbling and also placing ourselves within the broader picture; a contrast is that guiding a class feels to me more yang. Yin within yang and yang within yin; it is about balancing. And so good advice for practitioners is to be yin during Yin; and for teachers, good advice is to make sure not to become too yin when teaching Yin (because of that yang role of guiding the class).
Other aspects could include having a perspective that poses are less prizes and more places of exploring possibilities; rather than a goal to be achieved, avenues towards awareness. Neither a peak pose performance nor a maximising of physical fitness – but because our lives can often significantly benefit from (in words from novelist and meditator Tim Parks) this approach: “awareness has to plunge into flesh”.
Yin yoga potentially has great depths and much subtlety; presenting it as something fully understandable with a one day training diminishes and devalues its possibilities. One example: many people experience becoming burnt out – mentally, emotionally, physically – and contemplative practices such as Yin yoga can be helpful.
A Yin yoga teacher wrote to me: “the more I practice, the more I learn, and teaching Yin is an entirely different process to teaching Yang forms of yoga. There is a different energy, different expectations, different considerations and a different end goal…To me, Yin is less about meridians and more about inner peace, finding equanimity and a still point amidst the chaos. Where is the teaching on this? Where is the teaching on the mental benefits and pitfalls of the practice?”
These can all be paths of yin. And as Yin flows into the yoga mainstreams, hopefully it can maintain its countercultural attitudes: that slowing down, the softening, the taking of time, this focus on inner tones rather than an outward appearance.
Maybe then our practices could be informed and inspired by this description by the 19th-century Tibetan poet Shabkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol.
Keep your body still;
Keep silent;
Do not restrain your thoughts, let them come;
Let consciousness relax
Into a perfect state of ease.
A participant on a course that I taught wrote in their post-course feedback: “I came here wanting to become a better teacher but now I understand I want to be a better practitioner.” I continue to learn with the intention of digging deep the wells of knowledge. As a teacher, I aim to share in ways that are accessible, practical and understandable. My aspiration is to clearly communicate my passion for the Yin.
We are just farmers sowing seeds; what survives and thrives depends in part on the choices that we are making. Knowing roots, questioning motivations and being aware of inner experiences are all necessary tools for transformation. Keep practising, keep reflecting, keep learning – and slowly over time, some of this stuff can begin to make more sense.
Norman Blair
1 November 2022
Many thanks to the eight yoga teachers who gave comments and feedback on this article; your help is greatly appreciated.
