Clark Bernie - The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga

Y in is certainly in! In the 8 years since I wrote the first edition of The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga, the practice of Yin Yoga has expanded tremendously. It seems today that most studios in North America now offer at least one Yin Yoga class each week, and many have several on their schedules. It takes a long time to become an overnight success, and the pioneering work by Paul Grilley and Sarah Powers, spanning 3 decades now, has borne a mighty fruit. Yin is everywhere, which is very gratifying because balance is needed everywhere.

The first edition of The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga was a follow-on from my first book, YinSights. As time goes on, we learn new things and develop new perspectives. Years after writing YinSights, I felt the need to expand upon what I had written, to include more about the practice of Yin Yoga and de-emphasize the general philosophy and history of yoga. In the second edition, this evolution continues apace. You will find much more about the practice of Yin Yoga, including new sections on: how and why to use props in your practice; a more functional approach, emphasizing the concept of targeted areas; why Hot Yin is not an oxymoron and may be very beneficial for many people; the importance of stress in reducing fragility; understanding the nature of creep and the importance of counterposes, with a revised list of effective counterposes, including a full description of the lovely Golden Seed flow Paul and Suzee Grilley created; many new photographs of the postures and their variations for different body types; a current overview of the physiology of tissues and the energy body, reflecting new understandings in the science of fascia and cellular signaling; and many other updates too numerous to catalogue here.

Diminished in this edition are the stories of the developers and early teachers of Yin Yoga: Sarah Powers, Paul Grilley and his teacher Hiroshi Motoyama. Their stories are still available, but to make space for the new material, Paul Grilley suggested that I move these personal stories to the Web. So for interested readers wanting to learn more about Paul, Sarah and Dr. Motoyama, please visit www.YinYoga.com or their own websites. Also missing from this edition is one particular asana that never really resonated with me: the Camel. In my view, it is too yang to really be used as a yin posture, so I removed it (with Pauls blessingalthough it is still available on the website for those Camel fans who do love it). In its place, I added the Bridge, which I have come to love as a very yin-like backbend. Hopefully, you will love it too.

Another significant change is the de-emphasis of the traditional benefits listed for each posture. Benefits are still important, of course, but many yoga teachers over the centuries have made claims for the practice that are not borne out or are pure hyperbole. At best, the claims refer to anecdotes, which can be acceptable as evidence but are not considered strong science.

A woman once approached me after a Yin Yoga class. She had been coming every Sunday night for a year and was eager to share something important. A year ago, she said, I had very bad, chronic back pain. Nothing I tried helped me. And now, after doing your Yin Yoga classes for a year, my back is completely healed, like new! I smiled at her beaming face and marveled with her at this wonderful news. However, as she happily went away, I had to wonder, What cured her? I would love to believe it was the practice of Yin Yoga or my teaching, but in realityI just dont know. Maybe what cured her was learning to be mindful of sensations. Maybe it was calming her breath. Maybe it was getting away from her partner one night a week. Or being in a community. I cannot say that Yin Yoga cures back pain based on this one anecdote, but there is no doubt that her back pain had been cured. That was real. There is something about the practice that heals, even if we cant prove scientifically exactly what it is.

In the evolution of my teaching, I now prefer to cite benefits only where there is good reason to support the claim, rather than repeating time-honored beliefs that do not withstand scrutiny. The good news is that science does stand behind many benefits. Recent investigations into fascia have shown numerous pathways to optimal health. Likewise, studies have been conducted into the risks of certain postures, and where these have been documented, I have included them in this new edition.

Anicca, stated the Buddha. Things change. Impermanence is the only constant. The practice of yoga continues to evolve, as does our understanding and teaching of it. Who know what the next edition of this book may include, but I am sure that however the future unfolds, yin will still be in.

M any readers of my previous book, YinSights: A Journey into the Philosophy & Practice of Yin Yoga, wrote to tell me how much they enjoyed reading it and how valuable they found the practice of Yin Yoga. Along with many emails, there were also requests posted in the www.YinYoga.com Forum, asking for even more information: how to get into the poses described in the book and how to safely come out of them, how to do Yin Yoga for the upper body, whether Yin Yoga would be helpful for unique, special situations, and lots of other questions. Many readers asked about the Daoist history that also informed and influenced the development of Yin Yoga. The demand grew for a second edition of YinSights that would cover these and other details of the practice of Yin Yoga.

Unfortunately, a technical challenge arose: adding to the information already presented in