While “yang” yoga focuses on your muscles, yin yoga targets your deep
connective tissues, like your fascia, ligaments, joints, and bones. It’s
slower and more meditative, giving you space to turn inward and tune into
both your mind and the physical sensations of your body. 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 thoughts.
The practice of yin yoga is based on ancient Chinese philosophies and
Taoist principles which believe there are pathways of Qi (energy) that run
through our bodies. By stretching and deepening into poses, we’re opening
up any blockages and releasing that energy to flow freely.
"A
yin yoga sequence has a very similar effect on our energies as an
acupuncture treatment," yin yoga instructor Stefanie Arend previously
tells mbg. By holding the various poses, a yin yoga sequence can help
restore the healthy flow of Qi in our bodies. Here, the goal isn’t to move
through postures freely--postures could be held for three to five minutes,
or even 20 minutes at a time. A yin practitioner is trying to access the
deeper tissues, and many of the postures focus on areas that encompass a
joint (such as the hips, sacrum, and spine, to name a few).
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