The Difference between Yin Yoga and Restorative Yoga
Restorative and Yin Yoga are often confused and assumed to be the same style of yoga. Some yoga studios even use the class names interchangeably.
They are, in fact, different styles of yoga that employ distinct techniques and philosophical approaches. While some of the benefits of these practices are the same, the aim and methods not only differ, they are complete opposites.
Why do they get confused? At first glance, they appear to be similar practices because they explore mostly poses that rest close to the ground and often use props to support the body. Like most yoga practices, both Yin and Restorative Yoga can promote relaxation and stress relief.
Further confusion may come from the descriptive names “restorative” and “yin” which are not brands of yoga associated with an individual or codified sequence. As Bernie Clarke explains in a forum titled “Who Owns Yin Yoga” on the website yinyoga.com,
... the word 'yin' is an adjective and anybody can freely use this term to describe his or her practice. Yin and yang exist in complementary roles: a softer practice is yin compared to a hard practice, and even a hot room can be yin-like compared to a much hotter room. Indeed, the USA Trademark Office has decreed that a descriptive term (like Yin Yoga) cannot be trademarked --- no one can own the phrase 'Yin Yoga', thus anyone can use it.
While many styles of yoga are trademarked to distinguish and monetize a single teacher or guru’s teachings (Bikram Yoga, Forrest Yoga, Kaiut Yoga) — the pioneers of contemporary Yin and Restorative Yoga have intentionally left the landscape wild and alive, making it possible for wisdom to arise from many sources. Leading Yin Yoga teachers Sarah Powers and Paul Grilley acknowledge that the techniques are discoverable by anyone and have historical roots in both yogic and martial art traditions.
A more in depth exploration of the history of Yin and Restorative Yoga, including background on modern day pioneers is a great topic I will explore in another article. For the inquiry at hand, no one owns Restorative or Yin Yoga. However, the contemporary practices of Yin and Restorative Yoga were named and popularized by specific influential teachers. If you are seeking a Yin or Restorative Yoga training, look to the influential and wise teachers below and their students:
Yin Yoga Luminaries Restorative Luminaries
Paul Grilley B.K.S. Iyengar (deceased)
Sarah Powers Judith Hansen Lassiter
Bernie Clarke
Misunderstandings about yoga can also arise when teachers do not share where they are drawing inspiration from and with whom they are studying. Yoga classes are often creatively hybrid, drawing from multiple styles of yoga and borrowing from other teachings. There is nothing wrong with this. As in all creative worlds, co-inspiration expands and enriches the yoga culture. For both the sake of etiquette and stylistic clarity, yoga teachers should share their creative process and illuminate who their major influences are, what they’ve been studying lately and how it’s being assimilated into their teaching. Honoring teachers and muses and doing the appropriate research and integration is something all teachers should be tasked with.
Teachers and studio owners have a responsibility to educate themselves on the styles of yoga they offer.
While reading an article is not adequate, I hope that this break-down of the differences between Yin and Restorative Yoga will help shine a light on the value of both of these practices. Yin and Restorative Yoga are distinct in both aim and method.
The aim of Restorative Yoga is simple: deep relaxation.
Restorative Yoga promotes deep relaxation that is ideally achieved in a state of restful awakeness. While most restorative yoga teachers don’t mind if you fall asleep during a class, the value of wakeful relaxation positively impacts your physical systems and is an opportunity to reconnect with the emotional and spiritual layers of your being.
Restorative Yoga aims to remove physical discomfort and promote relaxation through body scans, gentle breathing techniques and encouraging a reconnection with feelings of peace. I would categorize Restorative Yoga as an ascension practice because it is aimed at cultivating the specific states of relaxation, joy and comfort.*
From the ease and comfort of a Restorative Yoga posture, you can exist in your “bliss body” called anandamaya kosha in Sanskrit. This layer of your being is non-dualistic. Rather than being in the Ego mind where your identity and storylines live, the bliss body is the part of you that merges with all that surrounds you. It’s a reunion with the energetic landscape from which everything arises and returns and is often felt as a pure and peaceful state. Yoga Nidra, another yogic approach that uses guided meditation, is often combined with Restorative Yoga to promote a transcendence to this blissful arena. The Restorative Yoga postures put the body at ease, and the guided meditation replaces our mental dialogue with a calm awareness of the breath, body, emotions and capacity for well-being.
The aim of Yin Yoga is more difficult to encapsulate. As I have come to understand Yin Yoga from my teacher Sarah Powers and personal practice, it is a framework for exploring our interiority and nourishing our “yin side.” Most of us are familiar with our “yang side” which is the part of us that is motivated, generative, action-oriented, progress driven and externally validated. Our “yin side” is content, receptive, fertile, quiet, still and often hidden. Consider your “yin side” the soil from which everything grows and your “yang side” everything that emerges from the soil.
Yin inquiry asks us to descend into the soil of our body, psyche and invisible realms to embrace everything that we find below the surface.
What we find is likely to be a wide range of sensations, thoughts and emotions. All is welcome and met in a Yin Yoga practice: comfort, discomfort, neutrality, essence and complexity. Because of Yin Yoga’s readiness to meet uncomfortable positions, and how it is taught in conjunction with mindfulness practices, I consider it a practice of descenion.* One of Sarah Powers’ guides to Yin Yoga is to “stay awhile” and respond tenderly to whatever arises in your system. Given the more challenging components of a Yin Yoga practice, one has to have both curiosity and resolve to explore the somatic and psycho-emotional depths that are possible.
A more practical understanding of the differences between Restorative and Yin Yoga comes from knowing the physical methods and psychological approach.
Yin Yoga and Restorative Yoga have completely opposing physical methodology.
Restorative Yoga intentionally unloads the joints, muscles and skeleton so that the entire physical body is relaxed for extended periods of time ranging from 5 to 20 minutes in each pose.
Yin Yoga intelligently stresses the joints and fascia through loading the physical body, utilizing both traction and compression, in poses for 1-10 minutes.
Restorative Yoga organizes the body into a shape that provides maximum comfort and support so that muscular tension is released and joint tissues relax. Similar to methods of sensory deprivation, the design of restorative yoga is to remove bodily discomfort and stimuli to achieve a state of deep relaxation. Props, and lots of them, are essential to Restorative Yoga. Props are used underneath and on top of the body to promote ease and maintain relaxation for longer periods of time.
Judith Hansen Lassiter says that, “During deep relaxation, all the organ systems of the body are benefited, and a few of the measurable results of relaxation are the reduction of blood pressure and the improvement of immune function, as well as improvement in digestion, fertility, elimination, the reduction of muscle tension and generalized fatigue.”
Yin Yoga poses target specific structures in the body through both traction and compression to improve joint health and deconstruct patterns of restriction. In most poses, the muscles are relaxed so that the healthy stress is applied to the myofascial tendon complexes, ligaments, bones and fascia. Once the muscles are relaxed, gravity exerts the perfect amount of gentle force on the body. The amount of time spent in each pose varies from person to person and depends on which area of the body is being focused on.
Yin Yoga poses can stimulate a lot of sensation as the body acclimates from the initial feeling of a muscular stretch to sensations occurring deeper in the joint sites. The physical benefits of this approach include improving blood flow to joint tissues, maintaining and reclaiming joint mobility, softening scar tissue and unwinding postural habits.
Props are not absolutely necessary in Yin Yoga as the benefits of the poses can often be achieved by simply being where you are naturally and letting gravity “do the work.”
If props are used in Yin Yoga they serve the purposes of:
Directing and/or intensifying healthy stress aimed at the connective tissues
Relaxing parts of the body that are not targeted (often the face and neck)
Adapting the postures to a wide range of bodies