Yin Yoga Pathway
Saturday 26 October 2013
Yin Yoga Pathway
Thursday 21 February 2013
Always begin from where you are!
In his Yoga sutras Patanjali describes as asana as having two
important qualities, which are “sthira” and “sukha”. Sthira means steadiness and
alertness; Sukha means ease and comfort. Both of these should be used in yoga
asanas. Always begin from where you are. If you have a stiff back, you have to
acknowledge this is your starting point and work with the postures from here.
Progress with steadiness, alertness, ease and you will remain in comfort. Your
breath is the key link between your inner and outer body. Allow every movement
to be led by the breath. Allow the body to surrender it’s tension using the
breath and move further into poses during the out breath.
Sunday 10 February 2013
Yin and Yang
This Symbol (Yin-Yang) represents the ancient
Chinese understanding of how things work. The outer circle represents
"everything", while the black and white shapes within the circle represent the
interaction of two energies, called "yin" (black) and "yang" (white), which
cause everything to happen. They are not completely black or white, just as
things in life are not completely black or white, and they cannot exist without
each other.
While "yin" would be dark, passive, downward, cold, contracting, and weak,
"yang" would be bright, active, upward, hot, expanding, and strong. The shape of
the yin and yang sections of the symbol, actually gives you a sense of the
continual movement of these two energies, yin to yang and yang to yin, causing
everything to happen: just as things expand and contract, and temperature
changes from hot to cold.
Saturday 9 February 2013
Begin Yoga From Where You Are
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A yogi is an accomplished male student of yoga; a female is
called a yogini. Swami is a title for a spiritual master. Guru literally means
“one who takes you from the darkness to the light” and is often casually used to
denote a teacher or master. A yogi disciple in India is called a Chela. Mantra
means mind projection and is a yoga technique of focusing on an external or
internal sound to create a personal transformation. Production of the vibration
can become in tune with the universal vibration of energy. When your evaluation
of self’ changes, when you feel differently about yourself, everything about you
changes: your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and every aspect of your behaviour.
As we move deeper we change and learn, often in unexpected ways.
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Thursday 7 February 2013
Opportunity at the Edge:
The edge is the point in every pose when you are still within
your capabilities but are challenging yourself to go just a little bit deeper.
An edge is where we come right up against ourselves and what we can do and be, a
place of comfortable discomfort - opportunities of transformation. Playing the
edge can be a subtle shift – maybe holding a pose for a breath longer,
stretching a few degrees more, or even trying a modified version of a pose.
Sometimes your edge is learning to do less, to be more patient. Ultimately your
intuition knows what you need. We need to listen to our intuition and ignore our
ego. When you push the edge of your comfort zone you emerge from the experience
with a new level of awareness and confidence. As soon as we breakthrough one
edge a new one is created. The bar is ever raised. Here we see that yoga allows
for a continuous natural lifelong process of constant growth.
Growth is the most important thing there is!
In order to heal you need to feel!
Don’t try hard try easy!
Tuesday 5 February 2013
May the (life) force be with you!
The ancient yogis were very aware of the universal life energy
that all things are made of. They were experts of the use of vital energy that
enters on the inhalation and called it prana. The exhalation produced energy
which is named as apana. It’s the interplay between the prana and apana that
keeps us alive by circulating the vital life force and eliminating the used up
energy. What the Indians called Prana the Chinese call Chi!
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Yoga can teach you about the hidden energy centres within the
body which according to Eastern Medicine are called Chakras. Chakras are vital
to your health and Eastern Medicine recognises seven major chakras (as well as
many minor ones) that interact within the body and an eighth chakra that
connects all of them. When practicing yoga you recharge and balance your chakras
by bringing circulation and prana (chi) to the nerve plexus at each of the
chakras. So with yoga you not only improve flexibility and strength but also your energy and the release of stagnant energy within the body. Yin yoga works with the modern meridian theory developed by Paul Grilley - stretching the fascia works also on the meridians.
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Monday 4 February 2013
Yoga to grow...
A good Yoga instructor makes you feel good, it’s relaxing, it’s
energising, it’s strengthening – you feel better at the end of a session than at
the start. The transition will be smooth and easy much of the time (even
unnoticed) because it’s so natural, but some of the time it may not be so
comfortable – it may be hard and painful – but this is only because growth can
hurt when you resist change and most of us prefer to resist change in an attempt
to remain comfortable by maintaining the status quo. Yoga is a method by which
to obtain control of one’s latent powers. Yoga allows us to turn our thoughts
inward, away from the objective world. The real benefits of yoga are from
following and learning its fruits to get more out of life in every respect..
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Part of getting older is the change that the body goes through – it tends to
stiffen and tighten – we lose suppleness, strength and vitality. But with a yoga instructor you can dramatically reduce the effects of age. You can
improve your balance, strength, flexibility and vitality. Yoga can take years
off your face and years from your body, and add years to your life. Yoga helps
the body’s machine function smoothly, efficiently, at peak performance. It
encourages your body to derive every last possible atom of nutritive valve from
the food you ingest, to get every second of refreshment and rest from your
sleep, to attain regularity, relief from minor aches and pains, the ability to
sleep deep and wake feeling alive, the difference from feeling good to feeling
terrific.
Sunday 3 February 2013
Yin Yoga in Petts Wood
Stillness in yoga
Yoga is a way of moving into stillness in order to experience
the truth of who you are. Moving into stillness in order to evidence your true
nature is a primary theme of yoga simply because everything about you – every
thought, feeling, and emotion, as well as every aspect of your behaviour – is
predicted on the way you feel about yourself. The way you feel about yourself
determines how you think, what you do, and how you interact with the world.
Stillness is a higher energy state than what we are used to. But once we give
undivided attention with pratice we can come into stillness and hence a higher
energy state.
There are two levels of stillness:
1) Learning to relax, become centred and mind focused.
2) Living your daily life with the same new and growing inner certainty of
who you really are.
Saturday 2 February 2013
Two sides of the same coin - Yin/Yang
In order to exercise in a yin way we need long periods of gentle
stress to the harder tissues to allow them to adapt and function appropriately.
In the same way to exercise the muscles we need repetition of contraction and
stretch to allow adaptation and growth. Hence yin yoga holds the poses for
longer periods of time focusing on the joints rather than the muscles.
Now remember the tiny black dot within the white of the yin and
yang symbol. Within yang there is yin and the same is true of our muscles. Each
muscle has a proportion of fascia within it (up to 30%). Also our yin tissues
also contain yang elements – elastic fibres called elastin is buried deep within
the ligaments and fascia too. When we are born we are so much more flexible and
pliable – we are full of elastin in our yin tissues we are yang like creatures.
But as we grow and age we lose more and more elastin and within our yang tissue
lay down more and more scar tissue in the form of collagen causing us to become
stiffer and stiffer and much more yin like creatures. So in our youth we can
exercise very easily in a yang style whilst as we age we should naturally
exercise in a yin style. And as we have already said we need the yin to
compliment the yang and vice versa so at all times striving towards balance and
harmony – the yin with yang - the two sides of the same body!
For a really good website telling you all you need to know about Yin Yoga follow the link:
This is a website by Bernie Clark, who has written two excellent books about Yin Yoga, Yin Sights and The Complete Guide To Yin Yoga. He was encouraged to write these books by both Paul Grilley and Sarah Powers two of the pioneers of modern Yin Yoga.
Friday 1 February 2013
Yin and Yang
Everything in life is defined by patterns. All around you you’ll
see patterns surrounding you – look at the dark colours and look at the light
colours, feel the softness of your skin and the hardness of a nail. We always
make contrasts about things – light and dark, soft and hard – these are
comparisons of something within a context. Within life we strive towards balance
– what the Daoist call ‘the Dao’. However, nothing is static everything is ever
changing moving towards or away from the centre. But to return to the centre is
the ideal. Yin and Yang are relative terms, almost the opposite sides of the
same coin – one cannot exist without the other – and how often have you found it
hard to balance a coin on its’ edge?
The ancient Chinese observed that everything has a yin and yang
attributes. The yin character refers to the shaded side of a hill or stream;
yang refers to the sunny side. Yet you can’t have shade without light, and light
can’t exist without knowing what darkness is. It is here we can say that there
is no absolute yin or yang characteristics – white is considered yang while
black is considered yin in the context of colour. Then what about grey on the
spectrum – grey is both yin and yang! Compared to white grey is darker so is
yin, but compared to black it is lighter so would be yang. This is why the
Western world has struggled for so long to understand the ancient Chinese
philosophy of Yin and yang.
Look at the yin/yang symbol and you see the white dot within the
black and the black dot within the white – even within darkness there is light
and vice versa. So even in the dynamic yoga sessions of Hot Yoga (yang) there is
a yin aspect (relaxation).
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As stated earlier we need balance – come back to our centres –
so after a long vigorous muscular session of yoga taking us into a yang
characteristic we need to come back to our balanced centre with a yin recovery
of corpse pose. If we stay too long in an unbalanced situation we become
stressed, ill, out of function; so we need the universe to restore balance by
throwing us to the other side – we may become ill to make us
rest.
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Taking another example for explanation of Yin and Yang we have
the heart, a soft, hollow, muscular, organ contained deep within the chest. Then
we have the sternum (breastbone) a hard, solid, bone resting on the surface of
the chest. So if we were to ask which is yin – heart or sternum – we need to ask
more; with a context it makes it easier. In terms of the yin/yang quality of
hardness the heart is hollow and soft compared to the sternum which is hard and
almost solid. So the heart is yang and the sternum is yin. But when comparing
the location, the heart is deep and the sternum is superficial. Now the heart is
yin and the sternum is yang.
On a basic level we describe muscles as yang tissues because
they are soft, elastic, superficial, hot, and like rhythm. Whilst we describe
bones as yin because they are hard, non-elastic, deep, ‘cold’ and stay the same
lacking the rhythm of a contracting muscle shortening and lengthening. Staying
in this basic classification of tissues we group muscles and tendons into one
group (yang tissues) and bone, ligaments and fascia into the other (yin
tissues). So we can say that yang tissues are elastic, employing rhythmical and
repetitive movements to stress them to grow and function; whilst yin tissues are
much less elastic preferring long periods of small stress to cause adaptation and
growth and function. Think of wearing orthodontic braces to realign the teeth –
this requires a few years not just a few repetitive quick movements of the jaw
bones.
In order to exercise in a yin way we need long periods of gentle stress to the
harder tissues to allow them to adapt and function appropriately. In the same
way to exercise the muscles we need repetition of contraction and stretch to
allow adaptation and growth. Hence yin yoga holds the poses for longer periods
of time focusing on the joints rather than the muscles.
Thursday 31 January 2013
What is Yin Yoga
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A common metaphor when commencing a journey into yoga is to
climb a mountain. Quite often we start at the base, admiring and inspired by
other who are climbing already or even reached the summit. Yet it can be
difficult to see the peak of the mountain, it’s hidden by clouds obscuring our
vision of where our path will lead to. Just as there are many way to ascend a
mountain there are many forms of yoga to follow. Each path can be varied with
different rates of progress. During our journey we can meet different guides who
can help (or hinder) our climb, but we meet very few individuals who have
already actually reached the summit called ‘Samadhi’ where everything will
become clear to us (literally above the clouds).
The summit itself is nearly always a small place. Only a few people can fit on
it at once, you can’t stay here for ever and have to come down from time to
time. The effort used in climbing our metaphoric mountain is very ‘yang’ in
nature. Yang involves muscular effort to do forceful and dynamic actions. To
many yogi’s, yang is their favourite way to live, and the only way they know.
But it is not the only way. There is a ‘yin’ path to compliment the ‘yang’ way.
Yin is passive and yielding and metaphorically is more of a journey down a
relaxing river – a Yin River
So for every ‘Yang Mountain’ you climb I suggest you compliment
it with a ‘Yin River’. A passage down the yin river guides you down to the
universal ocean. Along the route you will again meet guides to help steer your
course in the ever changing waters. You will need focus on the subtle changes in
the ebbs and flow of the currents – sometimes meeting rapids and at other times
complete stillness of water. It is during these times of stagnation we have time
to investigate and reflect on many interesting sights; what Bernie Clark calls
our ‘Yinsights’. Here our destination is plentiful, an endless universal ocean
rather than a small crowded peak of a mountain. The universal ocean can
accommodate everyone.
To be a balanced yogi you need to learn both how to climb a
mountain and to swim a river – and just like swimming and climbing have many
techniques, skills and styles to accomplish so does yoga making it probably the
best all round balanced way to exercise and live.
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