Yin and Yang – of movement
The ultimate balance…
Most of us westerners have limited time on our hands, and when we do get to exercise we choose to, basically, smash ourselves. Have you noticed how training is getting harder, faster and heavier? Why is it that we feel the need to punish ourselves? Our bodies give us so much, they walk us through life, and we push, pull, jump and force our muscles to lift outrageous amounts of weight for what? A tight butt, toned arms and a six pack? What if we could have all of those things without the immense suffering?
I am, of course, referring to yoga. Now don’t get me wrong, I do ‘get it’, for most of my life I have chosen to spend a large amount of my free time moving, fast and hard. However having come from a background in training I have, in the past 4-5 years, moved further away from the popular sweat sessions in the gym towards bending, twisting and sweating it out on the yoga mat. Although this shift has served me to no end, I have had a recent realisation that I am still moving my body and living my life in a predominantly yang fashion. I practice Ashtanga yoga, one of the most masculine, yang styles out there, and of course I found it because this is my pattern, I enjoy discipline, pain and suffering. No seriously, I do. So when I came to spend some time in Bali I decided I would balance this out with some yin classes. I got up each morning and did my regular 2+ hours of smashing it out Mysore style and would then follow it up with and hour or so of Yin. Holy crap I had no idea what I was in for. I had imaged I’d just be laying around chilling out, breathing lots and opening up. I have come from a more restorative based practice when I began yoga back in my teens and 20’s, so I had in mind I would be reminiscent of my first teacher who talked of rainbows and white light and breathing in the sunshine. I was so very wrong. I have had my butt kicked, my insides turned out and moved into spaces that I didn’t even know were tight. It is in our very deepest layers of tissue that we hold the trauma from our past, and I have come face to face with some stuff that was not pretty, but it passed, I let it go. There is an amazing teacher over in Bali who uses tennis balls to release certain spots of tension in the fascia, just sit and imagine that for a moment…..What I have learnt has changed my world, this is what I have been searching for my whole life, the ultimate balance.
The difficult thing is finding time to fit it all in, I have a hard enough time getting people, who I know would benefit hugely, to come to one of my more challenging yoga classes as I know many people see yoga as a bit of a waste of time, it’s not ‘tough enough’ it’s not punishment enough, it’s too slow, it’s boring etc etc etc. So to add a restorative yin style practice into an already packed tight schedule is too much to ask, but what we need to look at is how much love do we choose to give to ourselves? How do you want to feel when you are walking around in your 50, 70 or 90 year old body? We don’t need to give up the suffering, it does feel good to sweat and push ourselves to our limits, but if it is balance you are looking for then take some time to give back, to nurture, to appreciate the beautiful body you have been gifted with.
“Yin is the quiet, the female, intuitive, receiving force that is associated with earth. The earth is the source of life; it provides us with what we need to survive. Yang is the strong, male, creative, giving force that is associated with heaven. The heaven above us is always in motion and brings about change.” Tao Te Ching
For more info on yin style classes go here