Watch this short video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqDClqlJLBM

Read through the 2 PDF's below
 

Answer the Quiz Questions and submit to info@fullcircleyogaschool.com
 

Key Yin Yoga Benefits & Juicy Tidbits:

* Targets connective tissues including fascia, bones, and joints.

* Reduces stress

* Reduces anxiety

* Increases circulation

* Balances internal organs and improves flow of prana

* Balances our yang or fast-paced physical yoga practice

* Balances the internal organs and improves the flow of chi or prana

* Relieves tension

* Improves flexibility 

* Releases fascia

* Improves joint mobility 

* Increases circulation

* Encourages mindfulness and meditation

* Encourages us to reroute the mind

* The yin practice can help the body restore range of motion

* Yin yoga revitalizes the tissues of the body

* Yin offers a unique opportunity to cultivate gratitude for the body

* The yin practice forces us to slow down

* Yin yoga teaches self-compassion

* The long hold times of a yin practice offer the chance to sit with our emotions

* Yin yoga can help us become more resilient to stress

* Yin yoga can help us tap into the parasympathetic nervous system

* The stillness of a yin practice primes us for meditation

* Yin yoga cultivates balance

* Yin yoga is good for people with addictions

* Feeling release and relief

* Builds patience and receptivity

* Strong practice of seeing within

* Helps us process emotions and create space for clarity and solutions in our lives
 

In Yin we are carving out neural pathways of loving-kindness toward ourselves as we learn to feel deeply into our bodies just as they are.” The body doesn’t lie. 

Your edge is your edge and if you go much beyond it, you may hurt yourself. So in Yin you learn to listen to your body and accept its limitations. Developing the ability to feel into your body with compassion, and without judgement, leads you to begin to cultivate an awareness and understanding of yourself that extends beyond the body and the mat, into your everyday life.
 

Change is inevitable, and it is right there on our mats that we can learn to adapt to our ever-changing moods, frustrations and issues. Problems aren’t necessarily going to be solved during our practice, but in the quiet acknowledgement of seeing what’s present, solutions do often become much clearer.
 

Yin yoga as an “opportunity to crawl into ourselves and stay a while.” A method by which to take up “residence” in every corner of us, and in doing so, learn to “come home” to our bodies and minds.
 

Training yourself to be comfortable with discomfort – to stay still even when you desperately want to move – is how you develop strength, flexibility and openness, not only of the body, but also the mind.
 

In Yin you begin to learn you can relax your resistance and turn towards, rather than away from, what’s arising within, and in doing so, you begin to fully inhabit yourself and get to know yourself a little better.
 

With its quiet atmosphere unstained by striving, Yin allows us the space to fully metabolise emotions we often ingest but cannot completely digest.” Yin is closely linked to traditional Chinese medicine and chakra theory, and sometimes it really does feel like self-administered acupuncture or therapy.
 

Compare Yin tissue to a sponge soaked in butter. “When the butter is solid the sponge is stiff and hard to bend, but when it is melted it’s easy to twist and stretch the sponge… this is called a ‘phase change’. Holding a stress on connective tissue for several minutes creates a phase change in its fluids, which results in a lengthening of the tissue and a feeling of ease.”
 

Yin yoga and anatomy expert Bernie Clark explains, we hold only 41% of our bodily tension in our muscles. The remaining 57% is held in our connective tissues and joints (with a further 2% in our skin).
 

Along with Restorative, Yin is the most accessible of the physical yoga systems, in that it can be practised by anyone, regardless of age or ability. It doesn’t even require a mat – a carpet or blanket will do just fine. In Yin, you hold deep, floor-based postures in stillness for between three and 20 minutes. Using very little muscular effort, each student is encouraged to find their own individual ‘edge’ – the point of stress, but before pain – to the posture, as it is here at this precipice that we enable our bodies to begin to safely open.
 

But… isn’t stress bad?
 

Short answer: no! All tissues in the body need stress, lest they atrophy. When astronauts return from space they have substantially reduced bone and muscle mass because of the lack of gravity (aka: stress) on their bodies. Healthy stress is essential to a healthy body.
 

The gentle traction created in Yin works not on the muscles and blood (our ‘Yang’ tissues) but on our connective ‘Yin’ tissues – tendons, ligaments, cartilage, fascia and bone.