What To Expect in a Yin Yoga Class

In a Yin Yoga class, you won’t flow. You won’t contort yourself. You won’t do many poses.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not hard.

In a yin yoga class you’ll put yourself into a pose, supported by props, so you can hold the pose for longer without using your muscles to hold it up.

Yin yoga is based on three principles.

Meet your edge.
Find stillness there.
Hold for time.

Once you’re in the pose, your only job is to breathe and notice:

What arises and where?
How does it change when you let it be there, instead of trying to push through?
What opens? What softens? How does your breath change?

Simple. And ever so difficult.

This is a passive practice. It’s a practice of receiving — a skill in its own right.

But don’t be fooled by the optics of this practice.

Yin is a practice of creating and holding space for what is. Of being with it. And of transforming it through the most potent tool we have: our breath.

Learning how to hold space for yourself in your own experience, how to be with your emotions, how to witness yourself, and how to be in discomfort without pushing through — these are the skills of life.

These are skills we don’t learn and that don’t get valued in a culture that prioritizes pushing through.

This is a practice for the spiritual warrior.

Physically, over time, this practice helps restructure the fascia and create space in the joints.

But the true magic is what happens in the mind and heart.