Hello old friend. I know it has been awhile since I last wrote in you, but that's that beauty of old friendships, yes? That you can be away for an eternity but pick right up where you left off like you were never gone. So let's skip the awkward hellos and get right to the good stuff. :)
I've been going to Yin Yoga a lot lately. It's been a great experience so far. What is Yin Yoga you might ask? My teacher begins each class talking about what yin is specifically in relation to yang. She says yang is movement, brightness, sunshine, open meadows. Yin is stillness, the moon, quiet, darkness, cold. It's serendipitous that I happened to start this practice in winter, knowing nothing about it. Usually with the dark coming so early in the evening, by the time we make it to our shava-asana, the only light left in the room is a bit of soft yellow seeping in the window from the street lamps outside.
Yin's not your typical flow through the poses sort of yoga but, rather it works to build flexibility in your less flexible tissues like the ligaments, cartilage and fascia. Your bones are even yin tissues (what?!). Our teacher says to think about how to move your teeth, for example, it takes years of having braces for the shift to not only occur but to take lasting effect on your body. And that's yin yoga. I like how she describes it. It reminds me that I am going to have to be willing and patient for the next hour and a half. But that is not the hardest part, I think.
Go ahead. Enjoy this for SEVEN MINUTES.
In Yin Yoga we'll hold a pose for anywhere from five to seven minutes, sometimes longer. That sounds pretty insane, I know, but it's quite a calming quiet practice. The poses are all fairly gentle seated poses like butterfly, dragonfly, caterpillar (all the insects, lol). Pigeon pose or sleeping swan is probably the hardest since the hips tend to be an area of the body that is tight for everyone. But because the poses are held for so long, you have a lot of time in your own head. That is probably the most difficult part of Yin. The mind is undoubtedly the hardest muscle to quiet. It takes whatever is going on in the rest of your body and amplifies it but adding its own commentary. But not just that. It adds in judgments. It adds in garbage from your life that you're trying to ignore. It adds things from your past that you haven't thought of in years. But that's kind of the good part of it too. All that it asks is that you have the courage to allow these unhelpful thoughts to pass through. Not brush them under the carpet. Not hold onto unnecessary punishments we feel we deserve. And also not to keep that death grip on things that we're priding ourselves that may be keeping us from opening up to other ventures in our lives. Just acknowledge that they exist and allow yourself to let go of them. Surrender. Letting go takes courage. It is an action that is so passive it often gets ignored. But it is so essential in finding peace within ourselves in a world so restless. And that is why I love Yin. It gives me the chance to practice letting go, which I so very much need. And every single time, I find that it is possible to not only find peace in the tiny eternities that I am in each pose but, more importantly, to enjoy it.
One of my favorite things that my teacher always says at the beginning of class is to ask yourself why you came to your mat today. That question always makes me feel like I'm six-years-old and we all just grabbed those old squares of carpet to set up for story time or something. But really, I think that's a fair question. What made you show up today? What was different that made you decide to be present for your life today? To not just burn through it on auto-pilot. And what do you hope to get out of it? I think about these questions a lot. Why do we choose to do certain things and not others? Especially when the choices we make often do not actually benefit us in the long run. Like eating bad food or smoking or something. Sure it feels good, but couldn't you make the same argument for the opposite? Plus, in the long run, it won't feel good. I often wonder why I chose to not write for so long. It's something I've missed but the task of it has seemed daunting. Then doubt creeps in that I won't be able to find the right words to express what it is that I need to say. Or that what I will say will be meaningless or boring or just sound stupid or something. So instead of sitting down and investing the few short minutes or hours it would take to put my mind at ease, I've chose to instead let it fall away. I've let these judgments that I inflicted on myself keep me away from something I love. And that just seems silly. So here I am. Today. Coming to my mat. Because it is spring and spring is about renewal and rebirth and second chances. And because I love it and have something to say. No judgments.
I've been going to Yin Yoga a lot lately. It's been a great experience so far. What is Yin Yoga you might ask? My teacher begins each class talking about what yin is specifically in relation to yang. She says yang is movement, brightness, sunshine, open meadows. Yin is stillness, the moon, quiet, darkness, cold. It's serendipitous that I happened to start this practice in winter, knowing nothing about it. Usually with the dark coming so early in the evening, by the time we make it to our shava-asana, the only light left in the room is a bit of soft yellow seeping in the window from the street lamps outside.
