The Origins of Yin Yoga

Yin Yoga is a yoga style that has grown in popularity over the past couple of years. It’s a quiet and inward practice, in which poses are held longer in a passive way. Most often a pose is held for 3-5 minutes during class, but this can vary for each practitioners’ needs and practice; extending or shortening the time in a certain pose. The idea of holding the pose for a longer period of time, is to work the deeper tissues of our body, our connective tissue. Also known as our fascia. Fascia is a fibrous tissue that connects every cell in our body to each other. Our organs, muscles, bones, blood vessels, nerves.. everything is embedded in fascia. It has a gelatinous, fluid texture that is connected to different parts of the body in a web-like structure. The purpose of Yin Yoga is to restore our natural ability to move with fluidity and therefore targets our fascia.

So where does this form of yoga originate from? The practice is based on ancient Chinese and Taoist principles. A simple practice and technique in which stretches are held for longer periods of time. It’s based on the ancient Chinese philosophy of being one with everything and to live in harmony with yourself and nature. The definition of ‘Yin’, comes from the Taoist concept of ‘yin and yang’. They resemble the opposite and complementary principles in nature. Yin is seen as the stable, passive, dark and feminine aspects in nature (in our body resembled as the relatively stiff connective tissues, including our fascia). Yang, however, is seen as the changing, active, light and male aspects of nature (resembled in our body as the more mobile muscles and blood circulation). 

Also in the old Yogic tradition, long-held poses has been around for a long period of time. It has been around since the beginning of the physical practice of yoga. It was just a normal part of the practice, to stay put in a pose for as long as the practitioner was able to. These were already yin postures in a certain way, only without giving it the Chinese term (yin) to it.

Paul Grilley and Sarah Powers however are seen as the two teachers that brought yin yoga to the attention of the Westerners. Paul Grilley was first exposed to holding postures for a longer period of time, and experiencing the benefits of it, during the Taoist Yoga classes of Paulie Zink. While these classes of Paulie contained both yin and yang postures, Paul Grilley was mostly interested in the longer-held yin poses. He started teaching these longer-held poses in his own class. Sarah Powers was one of his students. She loved his classes, but only started to incorporate it in her own classes after Paul started to explain the different benefits of longer-held poses. He explained about the physiological and energetic pathways that were stimulated in the yin postures, which convinced Sarah. Sarah Powers is the one who dubbed it with the name “Yin Yoga”.