Miriam Hanson teaches Yin Yoga and Healing Sound at the Muggymoose Sky Studio monthly. In this class, she teaches this gentle nourishing practice along with the accompaniment of Healing Sound delivered by Bryce Kastning and Sarah Ina’amii. Following is a lovely piece written by Miriam about Yin Yoga and her experience with it. Thank you Miriam!
Yin Yoga is a necessary complement to a Yang Life in a Yang-Oriented Western culture. It's quiet, slow, cool, feminine, introspective, deep, yielding and receptive. It centers on acceptance of what is, rather than striving for what you think you want. I resonate with my Taoist teacher Michelle Pietrzak-Wegner's incorporation of the Tao Te Ching as a lovely companion to Yin, and so in my class, you will often find yourself contemplating a brief 2,500 year old reading, as well as being introduced to the Meridian Lines activated by the posture.
My first Yin Class was on the island of Roatan in the Caribbean where I lived for 12 years. Our yoga-teacher exposure was quite limited to the few brave teachers who were also adventurous travelers, winding their circuitous way through Central America to get to us, off the North Coast of Honduras, in the early aughts. At an Italian resort there, a yoga instructor living in CA organized a retreat to which she brought an adventurous group of yogis. Luckily, she decided to open these classes to local yogis, as well.
Valentina guided us Yin novitiates into our first class. I remember being in a wide-legged forward fold pose (called "Straddle" or "Dragonfly" in Yin) and feeling the bottom drop out of my iron-grip on my stressful life running a school I owned. I remember I began to cry as (what I know now) my connective tissues finally began to surrender years of stuck stress. I felt as if I was floating into an abyss, the edge of which I had always been fearfully cowering along, and it felt MAGICAL. I had thought that letting go would mean falling; I found that it meant transforming.
I have incorporated Yin into my weekly practice ever since. I always practice Yin once a week, and depending on the season, sometimes up to three times a week (rarely more than that). I have found that definite skeletal shifts have happened for me: where I once had a hitch in my step due to a twisted pelvis, I now experience much more balance and ease. My intention is to guide you to: experience your own body in a deeper, quieter way; increase awareness of chronic stuck stress; and practice stillness in body, mind, emotions and spirit.
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