Yin yoga is based on the Taoist concept of yin and yang, opposite and complementary principles in nature. Yin is the stable, unmoving, hidden aspect of things; yang is the changing, moving, revealing aspect. In the body, the relatively stiff connective tissues (tendons, ligaments, fascia) are yin, while the more mobile muscles and blood are yang.
This practice is designed to help you sit longer, and more comfortably, in meditation by stretching connective tissue around the joints (mainly the knees, pelvis, sacrum, and spine). Yin Yoga involves variations of seated and supine poses typically held for 3 to 5 minutes.
Yin yoga poses stimulate and remove blockages in the body. This has the effect of balancing the body’s internal organs and systems. Yin yoga requires the muscles to relax around the connective tissue in order to get a stretch.
Becoming still in a pose and staying for a while creates mental gaps. Keeping the gaps empty creates the space for anything that wants to come up. Anxiety, happiness sadness, boredom, for example. Anything you suppress with all the on-the-go busyness in your life. Yin yoga gives you the time and space to allow those emotions, thoughts, and feelings you have kept in the shadows to be there
During a Yin yoga class just allow all those feelings to be there, but not identify yourself with them. Just become the observer of everything that arises in that space. All those stored away emotions, feelings and sensations now have a chance to come out. You have no idea how much energy it costs the body to keep all that suppressed. So the release you get from letting it all come out can also be just as big.