YinYoga- A way towards inner peace and self – balance.
“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
–Mark Twain
Yinyoga is a way of doing yoga where you will experience mostly seated, supine, or prone poses. And you will stay in the poses, not moving, with your muscles relaxed for long periods of time—up to five minutes, sometimes longer. Staying muscularly passive for long periods of time gently stress the connective tissue (which gets stiff and immobile with age and through too much or too little use).
Yinyoga poses focus mainly on the lower parts of the body because the abundance of dense connective tissue around the joints in this areas requires extra care and attention.
The practice of yinyoga introduces us to the natural edges of our beings in a graceful way. If we push our edges or lead a life that is contantly yang (always active; doing); we move into too much yang, burning energy rather than conserving. On the other hand, if we draw inward too much or lead a too passive lifestyle, we start moving away from life and being present, into the past, sliding backward. Too much yin or too much yang creates imbalances. They need to co-exist side by side in order for us to live our lives in harmony and balance.
So from a individual standpoint it is all about being aware of the stressors we have in our life and how they affect us. Maybe we cannot remove them, but what we can do is find alternative ways of relating to them and noting how much impact they have in our life. When we can attain inner stillness for a couple of minutes daily, we can get better perspective on where we are in life and how life plays out both within and without.
Through the practice of Yinyoga, one targets the fascia/connective tissue in the body, which makes it a marvellously therapeutic tool for healing bodily, mental, and emotional imbalances. Yinyoga is most effective when more active forms of yoga or exercise are also practiced regularly.
For me, years of vigorous yoga practice—breathing deep while standing on my head, hands, underarms, in deep backbends, rotations, and forward bends—made me stronger and more alive, but I still did not have a real sense of calm and serenity.
Through incorporating a regular Yinyoga practice, there it was—the connection between the mind being at ease and the body feeling alive and strong. I was amazed that the benefits of my yoga practice lingered much longer. It was as if my body and mind became best friends, allowing the third wingman, spirit, to reveal itself.
Yinyoga is to me, a wonderful tool for quieting the riffles of the mind, called Vrittis, in order to cultivate a more aware presence in life, but also as a phenomenal preparation for meditation. It is also a perfect bridge between meditation and a more vigorous yoga practice.
We usually color our world with different conceptions and that is how we perceive the world. Through meditation and slow movements, we start to cultivate insight, clear seeing. In a yoga practice we start to integrate and repeat things in order to find recognition.
In our practice we realign ourselves with the invisible forces that are a part of us. Then we are able to look inside and find more depth and clarity that we then bring towards integrating in our external world. Then we become more centered in ourselves and in the world.
My mantra has been about these four aspects. In life, in practice in meeting challenging situations:
Pause, Soften, Connect, Listen
Try them out and maybe they will influence you as much as they have me.
Of what I have written about above is inspiring to you and you would like to know more, then I think my book on YinYoga might be something for you. Out in stores in Australia from June 2014.
Namaste,
Ulrica
Kindly extracted with permission from http://ulricanorberg.se/yinyoga-from-an-individual-point-of-view/
Ulrica Norberg – 24 April, 2014