“The practice of Yin Yoga is the cultivation of resilience.”
Pat Harada Linfoot
Body Like a River – a spine tingling Yin Yoga class
Studying Yin Yoga in my classes with Pat Harada Linfoot at her new on-line Studio Be is such a treat. Pat, one of the founders of the Octopus Holistic Yoga Centre in Toronto has, with other teachers, transformed the bricks and mortar location into a digital studio. In our Yin Yoga and Meditation class the other day our bodies moved through a regime of spine-tingling poses.
“‘Resilience’ is what we learn in Yin,” says Pat. The poses are held for from one to five minutes and this is not relaxing. (Relaxation is key to our Restorative Yoga practice which allows for long poses supported by props like bolsters and blankets and cushions etc.)
Sutra 1.1: Yoga Is Now
Yin Yoga practitioner Bernie Clark notes: “It is during Yin Yoga that we get to practice this advanced level of paying attention to our life. When we are at our edge and feeling the juiciness of the pose, we are simulating a challenging time. Now we get to notice our habitual pattern of reaction, and if it is not skillful, work to change that reaction, to create a new pattern. (The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga: Theory and Practice, 305.)
Spine Tingling
The popular colloquial expressions that we know about the spine often revolve around resolve and stiffening up. Practice rigidity says the “stiff upper lip” “find your backbone” popular idiom.
Ironically, this is what we do when we are aging in place with little flexibility as opposed to turning the clock backwards through a spine-tingling yoga practice. In yoga we seek exactly the opposite – the spine’s mobility.
One yogi notes that chronological age defines one measurement of “old”. And spinal mobility defines another.
Finding that your spine can move in six directions helps you get up in the morning. It also helps you discover courage and resolve.
Holding the Pose
Today I taught a Yin Yoga class focusing on “obstacles” (see YouTube embedded below). I grounded the practice in a few asanas, yoga sutras, pranayama, and meditation. The class is intended to initiate a healing process that begins in sitting with discomfort and difficulties. This hour-long interlude of movement and stasis allows us to identify, acknowledge, and work through obstacles.
“Holding the pose” is demanding. Today we focus on just a few Yin Yoga poses. Yin nourishes our ability to manage challenges in a productive way. Yin invites you to sit through discomfort, settle into the pose, feel the edge of your stamina, and plumb the depths of your endurance.
Sarah Powers describes “the three principles of a Yin practice. First, come into the pose to your appropriate edge, allowing stimulating sensations to be present without feeling overwhelmed or alarmed. Second, become still, muscularly unengaged but stretched, and mentally willing to surrender to the experience. Third, hold the pose for a while. I recommend 3 to 5 minutes to start, but if one minute is enough for you, start with that; in a month or so work up to 2 minutes” (Insight Yoga, 39).
This class focuses on the liver & gall & kidney & spleen & bladder meridians. Commentary on meridians below is from Sarah Powers book Insight Yoga.
- Shoelace Pose stimulates the groin and Liver meridians while calling to the Gallbladder meridian in the outer hip and leg.
- Sphinx Pose stimulates the Kidney meridian along the sacrolumbar area and the lumbar spine. “Passive backbends stimulate kidney chi revitalizing your energy supply.”
- Dragonfly Pose and Lateral Dragonfly Pose “stimulates the Spleen meridian as it flows up the inner thighs.”
- Sleeping Swan Pose “stimulates the Spleen meridian — the groin of the frontl eg and along the inner thigh of the back leg.”
- Corpse Pose/Savasana flushes out mental distractions and restores energy.
- Butterfly Pose stimulates “the Kidney meridian as it flows along the inner legs and through the torso.”
“Overcoming Obstacles — YIN YOGA Asanas with Meditation
ThIS Yin Yoga Sequence:
0:00 Pranayama
2:55 Cow Face Pose or Shoelace in Yin Yoga (meditation: T.K.V. Desikachar commentary on “obstacles”)
9:28 Cow Face Pose or Shoelace in Yin Yoga [other side] (meditation: focus on the senses to overcome obstacles)
12:34 Dandansan/Staff Pose (tapping our body)
15:25 Upavistha Konasana/Wide-Angled Seated Forward Bend or Dragonfly AND LEFT SIDE: Parsva Upavistha Konasana / Revolved Seated Wide-Angle Pose or Lateral Dragonfly in Yin Yoga with neck extending movements
21:37 Baddha Konasana/Cobbler Pose or Butterfly in Yin Yoga (with pranayama)
25:30 RIGHT SIDE: Parsva Upavistha Konasana/Revolved Seated Wide-Angle Pose or Lateral Dragonfly in Yin Yoga
31:14 Pigeon Pose/Kapotasana or Swan and Sleeping Swan in Yin Yoga with “Mind Like the Sky” meditation
39:55 Salamba Bhujangasana/Sphinx Pose
44:20 Thunderbolt Pose variation on toes/Vajrasana or Toe Squat in Yin Yoga with shoulder/arm stretches
47:03 Marjaryasana – Bitilasana/Cat – Cow variations
49:12 Supported Bridge and meditation on writing obstacles
51:58 Savasana / Final Relaxation variations
58:10 Reading on “overcoming obstacles” via Sutra 1.32 & 1.32
What inhibits or helps to maintain our yoga practice
Are you a yogi? A writer? A mother? All of the above? Or none. What is it that inhibits you from attending to what matters in your lives?
How do we define the distractions and obstacles we encounter? The ancient yoga sutras offer a refined list of obstacles. Is this an exhaustive list or are there other unnamed obstacles that you encounter?
D.K.V. Desikachar writes on how to overcome obstacles and distractions in his The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice. (All translations and quotes are from pp126-7 & 158-9.)
“There are nine types of interruptions to developing mental clarity: illness, mental stagnation, doubts, lack of foresight, fatigue, overindulgence, illusions about one’s true state of mind, lack of perseverance, and regression. They are obstacles because they create mental disturbances and encourage distractions.”
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1.30
- ILLNESS or ‘Vyadhi’ — “I must do something to improve my health before I can go on.”
- MENTAL STAGNATION or “Styana” — heaviness/lethargy caused by eating too much, eating badly, enduring cold weather, or simply by the nature of your mind’s mood.
- DOUBT or “Samsaya” — “a regular and persistent feeling of uncertainty.”
- LACK OF FORESIGHT or “Pramada” — in acting carelesslessly or hastily “we slip back rather than make progress.”
- FATIGUE or “Alasya” — Resignation or lack of enthusiasm and motivation is a serious obstacle.
- OVERINDULGENCE or “Avirati”: — Distraction or “when our senses gain the upper hand and begin to see themselves as masters rather than servants of the mind.”
- ILLUSIONS ABOUT ONE”S TRUE STATE OF MIND: Ignorance & arrogance or “Bhrantidarsana” — When “the feeling of having reached the top rung on the ladder is only an illusion.”
- LACK OF PERSEVERANCE: Disheartened paralysis or “Alabdhabhumikatva” — becoming disheartened and paralyzed when “we suddenly notice how much there still is for us to do.”
- REGRESSION: Lack of confidence or “Anavasthitatvani” — When “you may have reached a point you have never reached before, but you lack the power to stay there and fall back, losing what you have gained.”
In the final relaxation/savasana sequence in this Yin Yoga class, I read from Pantanjali’s Sutras on overcoming obstacles and distractions:
Sutra 1.32 “If one can select an appropriate means to seady the mind and practice this, whatever the provocations, the interruptions cannot take root.”
Sutra 1.33 “In daily life we see people around who are happier than we are, people who are less happy. Some may be doing praiseworthy things and others causing problems. Whatever may be our usual attitutde toward such peole and their actions, if we can be pleased with others who are happier than ourselves, compassionate toward those who are unhappy, joyful with those doing praiseworthy things, and remain undisturbed by the errors of others, our mind will be very tranquil.”
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