Leaning Yin

Ta-DAH!!!  I just finished a 30-hour yoga teacher training.  I have come to terms with my concern that I am one wheat grass shot and a Volvo away from becoming One of Those People, and I have even confronted my fear of spending seven-and-a-half hours focused on just one thing, no matter how helpful and healthful that one thing might be.  I have plunged deep into the dark waters of strange people, strange places, and strange ideas and emerged on the other side, exhausted, well-stretched, and pretty pleased with myself.  I will definitely chalk this up as an official step in the right direction--or at least a step in some direction--but I'm a long way from having a clue what direction this is.

This wasn't just any yoga.  This was yin yoga.  In yin yoga, the poses are all positions of gentle stretch that the practitioner holds in a state of ease for 3-5 minutes.  You are encouraged to use lots of props to take pressure off fragile joints or tender muscles, and doing it right means tweaking your position in nearly any way at all that gets you to your desired stretch.  Yin lacks a lot of the rigidity of its yang cousin, and in a city where yoga is more likely to be an overheated, nausea-inducing form of strength training than a restful meditative practice, it's a welcome chance to affirm the value of slowing down, not just sweating harder.

This was my first teacher training, so I had no idea what to expect, but I was still surprised to find so much of the weekend was spent on the theory and philosophy behind the practice, including the gory anatomical details.  As a once-a-week (in a good week) yogi, it's beyond easy to forget that today's secular, athletic yoga is the contemporary incarnation of an ancient tradition developed within the framework of a major world religion and comprehensive cosmology.  To put it in modern terms, yoga already has its own "why", whether we know it or not.  Even yin yoga.  

But there are millions of yogis around the world, whose practices range from occasional to daily, who have gotten immense benefits from one type of yoga or another, without any awareness of or belief in yoga's more transcendental elements.  Clearly there are physical benefits for those who come to yoga on a purely physical level, which points to the presence of scientifically-supported benefits.  I'm far from a skeptic when it comes to spiritual matters.  I'm perfectly willing to believe in the things I can't see, knowing that sight only offers a narrow spectrum through which to perceive the world.  I'm religious and a reasonably-regular church attender.  I'm petrified of ghosts.

I just don't want my science and my spirituality to meet unless that science is solid.  Taking things on faith means scientific proof isn't necessary, and if someone wants to introduce science into my spiritual equation, I want that science to be strong.  Otherwise, leave it out of the mix.  So while I'm sold on yin, it's because after only an hour's practice, I feel relaxed and energized.  I woke up this morning after a day full of yin without any pain, which is an extremely rare occurrence.  I can tell that if I keep it up on a regular basis, it will help me become more patient and down-regulate my normal state of physical anxiety.  Science tells me that less physical anxiety is either a cause or effect of less emotional anxiety, which in turn should contribute to less pain, better digestion, clearer thinking, and a lot of other really good things.

 I'm not completely sold on the fascia argument, though, which seems to be part of the yin equation.  Not familiar with the fascia argument?  Experience in yin yoga isn't a prerequisite to knowing about it.  If you've had a massage, seen a chiropractor, gotten physical therapy, or read anything health-related that's not squarely in the mainstream of medical science, you've heard of it.  It's the notion that the connective tissue that surrounds all of our organs and supports our entire body can be a force for good or for evil, and breaking up knots in that fascia will solve a host of evils.  If the fascia argument is right, all of my chronic pain issues and a body's worth of chronic muscle tension could be improved or even cured with a vigorous regimen of foam rolling and exercise.  Yin yoga is supposed to be a key to that by letting the practitioner relax the muscles enough in to then stretch the connective tissue that surrounds it.  

Maybe.  Or maybe not.  There are tons of voices on all sides, and I've only had a couple hours to research it so far.  My gut tells me that if resolving problems with our fascia could do so much good, some of my doctors would have told me to do it.  Big pharma would have found a medicinal remedy.  i would find something about it on the Mayo Clinic's website.  My gut is also happy to acknowledge just because science hasn't gotten there yet, that doesn't mean the theory isn't invalid.  Maybe it's solid as granite and medical science will catch up.  Maybe it's solid and science will ignore it completely.  Maybe it is complete and utter hogwash.

I'm not writing this off.  I'm going to keep up the research and keep up the stretching.  I'll get back to you with any results on either front.  In the meantime, if yin sounds at all appealing (and trust me, it should), look at your local studios for classes.  It will absolutely be a good use of your time.  And who know...maybe someday it will be me teaching that class!