About Yin Yoga : What is Fascia?
Fascia.
You’ll hear yoga teachers speak about this mysterious and exotic sounding fa-sha in classes that explore the practice of Yin yoga.
What exactly is this oh-so-significant fascia? How can it help us broaden the experience of yoga asana (postures) as well as our movement through daily life?
WHAT IS IT?
The word fascia draws from Latin, meaning ‘band’ or ‘door frame’. It refers to the spider-web like network made of cells, collagen and elastane fibres, and ground substance that supports the network.
This delicate yet strong membrane wraps around everything in our internal body, from organs to joints, and is often referred to more generally as ‘connective tissue’. It is integral to our physical structure and our health: if our fascial body is removed, we would literally fall apart.
There are a number of videos that demonstrate the web-like structure of fascia. Watching this might open your eyes to what happens unseen as we create these meditative postures!
The network of fascia | video courtesy of Jean-Cleaude Guimbarteau.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Our fascia forms a vital sensory organ, just like skin - only instead of interacting with the external world, the fascial network is our connection with the internal world.
This network is the pathway for communications within the body. Healthy fascia promotes the responsive flow of signals throughout the body, resulting in a more articulate relationship between sensation, thought, and action.
Suffice to say, this ‘door frame’ is our entryway to a more integrated wholeness.
Yin Yoga, practiced with care and patience, provides slow, measured stress (a feeling of compression or stretch) to target areas of the body. It has the capacity to create long-term changes to this network of connections, and thus the structure of our internal felt experience.
The experience of any shape is always affected by particularities of anatomy, lifestyle, and countless factors of a given time and place. Our teachers can guide and support you towards a safe, embodied practice, but ultimately it is your own journey, and your curiosity, that take you deeper.
Yin Yoga provides a space for tuning into your felt sensation of body and environment; a space very much needed to balance the waves of a Yang world that is constantly 'doing' and switched to 'ON'. We can learn to be patient and attentive enough to dive below the loud noise of distraction, and listen into the deeper waters of the subtle, quiet truth.
Give yourself the time to grow more intimate your inner body. You might just observe this patience and attentiveness weave into your daily encounters with the outer world.
Look our for Part II of this Yin Yoga series where we will explore key principles that can help you navigate your practice.
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READY TO DIP YOUR TOES INTO YIN?
Check out timetable below, and book in for a class that supports your lifestyle.