The Sparkline: New to Yin Yoga

Today I have the opportunity to try Yin Yoga, my friend in the community whose a member in the different gym have a free one week trial. I was curious with Yin Yoga since I already heard the name and some friends who experienced it said it was meaningful practice makes me more curious to try this. I have asked for last month availability but due to our schedule, it was delayed and somehow forgotten. Right after I done with my teacher training on Sunday, suddenly she brought up the topic again and this time, we agreed to try it together on Tuesday.


After I read the confirmation of class schedule, which is start at 4:30, I rushed from my home to the place. It was one point of traffic, I got stuck for 5 minutes but I could make it on time. It is not to find the park too though but I still got 10 minutes left, then I called her. Later I was waiting for her since I could not go through, and later she show up and told me to put my stuff in the locker room first.


I am a bit confused with the locker room since they used the electronic card so I asked another member there and they were helpful. Done with locker stuff, she was waiting out there and we proceed together to enter the class. The class already begin 15 minutes ago and there is a sweet mellow flute instrument flowing through the class, all member were quiet and hold to one pose, which is fire log pose. I am familiar with this pose but this class is Yin Yoga, so we use zero force and let the body fall to gravity.


In Hatha class, we are supposed to prepare the pose with keep the spine straight, open chest, and arms reach to the farthest possible. The focus of this exercise is to relax the knee and unite the shoulder. Yin comes in a different method, the spine fall naturally, following the gravity works, the shoulder relax and falling to land, in this pose, Yin focused on glutes and knee joints. We are using a props (yoga block) to put our forehead and we hold the pose for 5 minutes.


The transition from one pose to another goes smoothly, starting with the lift up the neck, then slowly straighten the legs.