Really relaxed: Why Yin yoga is perfect for a gentle start to 2025 with exercise

WerYin-YogaTried it for the first time and might be disappointed. Because apparently nothing is really happening. No challenging asanas like Ashtanga or Hot, no dynamic sequences like in Vinyasa. Instead, a lot of silence, slow movements and, above all, “feeling within yourself”. But that's exactly what makes Yin yoga so easy, especially for beginners. And is the ideal start to a fitness program in the new year 2025.

WeilYin-Yogathe antipode is to all active, so-called Yang yoga practices, but also generally to our active, Yang-dominated everyday lives. His nature is gentle, nurturing and feminine. “Yin is about arriving passively in the postures and consciously letting the muscles relax. And by lingering deeper muscle layers,and reach the connective tissue,” saysVerena Wagner,Yin yoga teacher from Munich. WhoYin-YogaAs a balance to other yoga or sports, says Wagner, he learns to slow down his body and mind and re-ground himself.

Yin yoga, like most forms of yoga today, has its origins in Hatha yoga. In the late 1970s, the martial arts master Paulie Zink developed his own style in Los Angeles by combining Hatha with Taoist elementsand asanas that you have developed yourself. Zink called his style Yin. Paul Grilley, a student of Zink, modified Yin yoga using the anatomical principles of the human body and Chinese medicine. Grilley's student Sarah Powers, in turn, was the one who brought Yin Yoga to its current form around the world from San Francisco in the 1990s: Using her knowledge of the meridian pathways in the body, Powers developed sequences that stimulate our energetic channels and set the focus even more strongly on the breath. Grilley and Powers coined the passive style of Yin: Most poses are performed lying or sitting and held for up to five minutes.

Grilley and Power’s message is: “Every body is different. Listen to him and what he needs and get away from comparing and thinking about performance!” It worksYin-YogaSo it's deliberately not about looking at what my neighbor is doing on the mat, but about feeling inside myself. Wagner, who completed her training with the American Biff Mithoefer, knows: In the three to five minutes in which you hold your poses, your mind gets a lot of space. And the more space our mind has, the quieter it should become (we know this from meditation), the wilder it often races. So Wagner came up with an idea: “I started with live music in my lessons. Singing, playing the guitar – yoga combined with sounds became my hobby. To give the spirit another surface to lie on.”

Unlike types of Yang yoga, Yin yoga begins with assuming the posture. “When the body starts to get heavy, to open up, I bring the mind to breathe. So that it becomes easier to stay in the pose through breathing.” Wagner goes from mat to mat, checking which areas of the body may still be blocked. Try to solve them together with the students. And then the music starts.

So far, so relaxed – you might think. But the teaching of meridians and chakras makes Yin yoga an extreme challenge, especially mentally. “In Yin yoga the focus is on our lower body, in the first three chakras. Yin opens the groin and hips, exactly the regions in which a lot of emotional baggage is stored. Staying in the poses causes deep emotions to arise that we often don't even know exactly: Where does this come from? “What’s going on now?” says Verena Wagner. For them, Yin classes are a unique space to release physical and emotional blockages at the same time. How do we best approach this total body-mind package? “With a good teacher who takes us by the hand. And through a lot of repetition: 'Okay, try letting go again. Another body scan: Where am I still holding on?' And don’t think about the reasons at all, but lovingly try to let go of yourself a little more.”

If this calm endurance of active yoginis seems unusual in its passivity in the first few hours, that is exactly what this practice wants to achieve: that we learn to be loving and not too strict with ourselves. “Yin yoga is a style forand self-care. It's about giving yourself a chance and taking this gentleness with you into your everyday life: If it doesn't work today, then I'll just take a look tomorrow, because tomorrow it might look completely different again." That there is no good or bad , everyone on the mat becomes aware of this at the end of a Yin class at the latest: when the body has become more relaxed and the mind is calmer, but also more focused than before. Because we have freed ourselves from holding on and towards the big picture: that everything is in flow - panta rhei.

For Verena Wagner isYin-Yogaan anchor to always find herself, even in her often hectic job as a filmmaker. “Yin grounds you. Brings us back to our roots, to our intuition. If we let go and allow it. Practice it and don't give up right away, but just give it a chance." Through its meditative direction, Yin yoga brings us more focus and closer to our core. We get on the mat for 75 or 90 minutes. Immerse yourself in the exercises and thereby symbolically immerse yourself in ourselves. And we don't feed on the outside, but rather learn to trust and accept ourselves, exactly as we are. Come to feel: We are enough. “We don’t always have to change something. But you can be grateful for what is.”

Ardha Bhujangasana is the gentle sister of the little cobra. Lying on your stomach, your forearms are supported forward on the mat, your elbows are under your shoulders, your chest and your eyes are lifted without tilting your head back. Your benefits: The Sphinx stretches the chest area, strengthens the back and buttocks muscles and has an energizing effect. Because this opening of the heart frees oneself from deep-seated fears and creates courage and self-confidence for new paths.

The inversion pose (in Sanskrit: Viparita Karani) is the gentle alternative to shoulder stand. Lying on your back with your lower back slightly elevated, for example on a platform made from a tightly folded blanket, stretch your legs vertically - in the air or leaning against the wall. Its benefits: It is the perfect asana to wind down after a long day. Promotes blood circulation and digestion, works against varicose veins and stretches the back. Relaxes the nervous system and strengthens self-confidence.

Its Sanskrit name Bananasana describes the asana exactly: lying on your back with your arms stretched over your head. Pull your legs and arms to one side so that your body lies like a banana on the mat. Your benefits: The entire lateral fascia as well as the liver, spleen and lungs are stretched. The unusual asymmetry of the pose releases mental blocks and leads to intuitive sensing and feeling.

Text: Verena Mohr & Meike Mai