Yin Yoga: On and Off the Mat
Lessons learnt & reflections from 5 days of yin yoga teacher training
By Tati von Yoga, May 2023
"How was your holiday Tatiana?" "I lay on the floor for 5 days. It was great."
Probably not quite the response that my corporate colleagues were expecting, especially because it wasn’t a sunny island beach holiday. However the week of yin yoga teacher training with Norman Blair certainly was a lot more than just lying on the floor.
What is yin yoga?
Yin yoga is a very slow form of yoga, where we hold poses for long periods of time - anywhere from two to twenty minutes. To the point of getting bored…frustrated…and also blissful.
Slowing down is certainly a rare luxury these days.
Although physically, the predominant energy of the week was slow and steady, internally it was a different story altogether.
I would love to share some of the rather surprising life lessons I learnt, in the hope that it might inspire you to also slow down from time to time.
🤍 COMMUNITY
There is something special about a group of strangers coming together for a limited period of time, and creating a circle that will never again exist. A circle where we are reminded that despite our different backgrounds, perceptions, life experiences and inhabiting very different physical and emotional bodies, that we share something very real and intangible. I loved listening and learning from others, each individual experience like a strand woven together into a community "carpet".
As yogi’s and yoga teachers, or even just ordinary folk living in the 21st century, it can be quite easy to default to walking the path in solitude. However, this is denying ourselves one of the Three Jewels - a buddhist term for describing the three things to turn to for refuge - Sangha, or community. These jewels are true refuges, places we can turn to for safety.
I don’t know about you, but community sounds a whole lot more nurturing and fulfilling than scrolling Instagram.
If you haven’t already, find your sangha.
🤍 SIMPLICITY
Less is definitely more.
In daily life, in practice, in teaching, I aim to do less, and be more.
I guess it comes down to being a bit of an essentialist. Filter through the noise and focus on essentials. Discern more to do less. Ask yourself “what tradeoff do I want to make?”
🤍SURRENDER
Letting go is not always easy. This lesson hit hard during the training - both on and off the mat.
Having the space to just be with what is, embody it (emotions are energy in motion after all!), and surrendering to the flow, was painful yet a refreshing cleanup of my emotional world.
I spend a lot of my time neatly folding my emotions into a little box and am "too busy" to feel them. Two minutes into a five minute dragon (a yin asana), with my knee by my cheek while the mind was screaming at me to do something else, be somewhere else, be someone else…was an excellent way to practice accepting things as they are.
Practicing this surrendering multiple times on the mat, helped me do the same off the mat.
Practice makes perfect. Maybe not perfect, but it definitely makes it easier.
By not clinging to outcomes and letting go, I created space for growth.
🤍CREATING SPACE
This one is closely linked to surrendering, and is about creating space around your experience.
Yin helps me see locked thought patterns and step outside of my self-created box.
"You can't heal in the environment that made you sick" - even if the environment we are in is not always in our control, creating space to slow down and notice what is going on in our external and internal world can be just the thing we need to bring about healing and positive changes.
Yin postures, often similar to their yang counterparts, have their own special names to remind the practitioner to cultivate a yin state of mind (and to delete any preconditioning about a pose). Although it is not possible to enter every pose with completely fresh eyes, having the possibility to start an entirely new little internal experience within yourself and to be aware of what is going on can be therapeutic. Of course this doesn't happen every time.
My favourite poses for:
Feeling nurtured and in a safe “cocoon”: Child's
Opening the heart: Supported Fish
Pressure on the belly and slightly vulnerable hip opener: Frog meets Sphinx
🤍NEEDS
These matter. I learnt how important it is to fill my own cup & stand up for my needs. Setting boundaries can feel like an alien concept, but it is absolutely necessary to do this.
I had a real “aha” moment during one of the long hold poses. In trying to be too selfless, I ended up going full circle and being selfish because a) inevitably I hit a point where I either had to choose others’ over my own needs (which caused me quite a bit of suffering), and b) you can't give if you are empty.
Love is a need, not a want. Feeling loved and appreciated is a crucial ingredient to the human experience.
A nice reminder in this challenging time was:
" I wish we could see
When we are lonely or in darkness
The astonishing light
Of our own being"
- Hafiz
🤍 GRATITUDE
You may already be aware of the great benefits of practicing regular gratitude, but I would like to give it a special mention here at the end. My heart is so full of appreciation for all the beautiful souls who walk this journey with me. Thank you.
So was it worth commuting every day in an incredibly noisy and polluted London Underground for over an hour during my holiday? Absolutely! Life is all about balance after all - a heavy dose of yang energy to bring harmony to a week of yin.
