Why a Comprehensive Yoga Class Needs Both Yin and Yang

If your yoga class is all movement, all effort, all flow and all doing, something is missing.

Most yoga classes today lean heavily toward yang: standing poses, muscular effort, repeated transitions, faster sequencing, and continual movement. None of those things are bad. We need yang. We need strength, mobility, heat and challenge.

But yoga was never supposed to be only that.

A good yoga class should contain both yin and yang—and not simply because Yin Yoga has become its own popular style of practice. I don't think you should have to sign up for a special Yin class to experience stillness, longer holds, breathwork or meditation. 

Those elements belong in yoga, period.

What Do Yin and Yang Mean in Yoga?

When I use the words yin and yang, I'm not talking only about two categories of yoga classes.  Applying Yin and Yang to describe a Hatha Yoga practice is part of looking at Indian Yoga through a Chinese lens.  

In modern yoga, Yang refers to the active side of practice: movement, muscular engagement, balance, strength, heat, and effort. Incidentally, the heat wasn’t meant to come from a furnace, but rather created organically in the body with asana and pranayama (but that’s another post). 

Yin is the quieter side: stillness, longer holds, release, breath, observation, and the willingness to stay somewhere long enough to notice what happens. Really, Yin is the meditative piece and the most ancient part, where we capture many of the cognitive, emotional, and healing benefits. Yet, it’s often what gets short shrift in fitness environments–especially in studios full of mirrors that limit your focus to outward appearances. 

Again, not that the fitness part of yoga isn’t worthy; it’s just the magic of yoga happens when we move back and forth between the two and observe ourselves (internally!) in the process. In Kripalu Yoga, we call it "dancing between the opposites."

We work, and then we pause. We move, and then we become still enough to notice the effects of the movement.

A long-held pose feels different after movement.  A quiet breath feels different after challenge. And a period of stillness gives the nervous system—and the mind—a chance to catch up with what the body has just done.

That's very different from racing through 50 minutes of poses with maybe a five-minute savasana (corpse pose) at the end– that most refer to as “final relaxation” as if to avoid any unpleasant reference to The Big Picture. 

How “Big Yoga” Became So Yang

Modern yoga took its cue (and business model) from the fitness industry which leaves us with some practical problems

Large studios need classes that fit neatly into schedules. Teachers may have 20, 30 or more students in a room. Classes need to start on time, end on time and feel sufficiently like a “workout” to people who are paying for one. Convenience is a top priority, so classes are running around the clock and anyone can drop-in, meaning instructors can’t spend time on subtle aspects that may be “over the head” of the casual student.

Something has to give. All too often, what gets cut is precisely the quieter part of yoga:

~ Pranayama (breathwork) gets shortened or eliminated, especially as it makes people look sort of funny in a house of mirrors.

~ Between the music and the play-by-play cues necessary for the less-initiated, there’s no space for quiet meditation. The result is an efficient class where mastery of choreography is conflated with mastery of yoga. Sure, you can fit a lot of poses into an hour( or less!); but, is efficiency even the point of yoga? 

Big yoga has created classes with plenty of doing and very little opportunity for being.

You Shouldn't Need a Separate Yin Class

I teach Yin Yoga and think a dedicated Yin practice can be wonderful. Spending an entire class working slowly and exploring longer holds offers something unique.

But somewhere along the way, we've started treating yin as if it belongs only in the class labeled YIN on the studio schedule.

I disagree. A well-designed Hatha class can have strong standing poses and long quiet holds. It can contain muscular work and periods of complete release. It can include movement and meditation.  It can challenge you physically and then give you enough time to experience what that challenge actually shifted within.

In fact, I think the contrast is part of what makes yoga so powerful.

Without yin, yang eventually just feels like more activity–more like a typical workout. No wonder health clubs and gyms teach it just like they would strength training and step aerobics–and even use the same instructors. Once you cull out the Yin, it is pretty much just another workout anyway, so why not?

The Pause Is Part of the Pose

One of the easiest things to cut from a yoga class is the space between things. But those spaces matter. You could call it “negative space.” The Japanese, those global aesthetes, even have a special word for it, called “ma.” It applies to art, conversation, and yes, even yoga.

What happens if, after a demanding standing sequence, you simply stop?

Can you feel your heartbeat? Your breath? Your circulation? Your digestion? 

Observe the “task-mode” impulse to move on to The Next Thing?

Those moments may look like nothing from the outside. But internally, a lot is happening. You’re going from focusing on gross muscle movements to something a lot more subtle. Observing subtle interoceptive sensations requires a high level of sustained, intense concentration.  

This is the runway to true meditation, to elevating up the hierarchy of mental states. You’re beyond concentration; you’re getting into dhyana territory! That’s where you lose track of time, forget about your problems, and have an overwhelming sense of peace. In Zen you’re in “Big Mind,” not the “Small Mind” of choreography and cues. In fact, you might even choose the least challenging version of the next pose as you surf the higher mind state.

Yoga gives us an unusual opportunity to expand ourselves within the empty spaces instead of constantly filling them. That is one reason I don't think a good yoga class should be judged by how many poses we managed to squeeze into it.  Rather, judge it on how it makes you feel while you’re there–not AFTER class.  All fitness makes you feel great when it’s over :) 

A Balanced Yoga Practice Isn't Passive

Yin doesn't mean easy, and yang doesn't mean advanced.

Stillness can be surprisingly difficult.  In fact, I’d say more people struggle with that than they do the basic yoga poses. 

A balanced practice asks us to develop both yang and yin capacities:

The ability to act—and the ability to stop acting.

The ability to exert effort—and the ability to release it.

The ability to move through space—and the ability to remain still enough to notice ourselves within it. We need both.

And when a yoga class moves thoughtfully between those two states, something changes. The practice stops being simply a sequence of exercises. Frankly, if it were just another workout, I would’ve gone back to tennis and training and ditched my yoga mat 20 years ago! 

If you're interested in the most well-balanced classes in terms of yin and yang yoga, then go for the longest classes. I offer two 90-minute classes, one on Saturday mornings and one on Monday mornings.