The Difference between Yin Yoga and Restorative Yoga
The Difference Between Yin Yoga & Restorative Yoga
Restorative Yoga 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 have differing philosophical approaches, methodology and psycho-emotional focuses. While some of the benefits of these practices are the same, the aim and techniques not only differ, they are in a way opposite.
WHY DO THEY GET CONFUSED?
At first glance, they appear to be similar practices because they explore shapes that rest close to the ground and often use props to support the body. They both 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,
... 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.
When yin is used as an adjective, it is fair to say that Restorative Yoga is a yin practice. When restorative is used as an adjective, it is also fair to say that Yin Yoga is restorative.
When listing what styles of Yoga you teach or titling a class on a studio schedule it is important to be intentional about naming the class. If it is truly a Yin Yoga practice, call it Yin Yoga with capital letters for the beginning of each word, same goes for Restorative Yoga. You may list in the class description that Yin Yoga is restoring or you could avoid the confusion all together and use other words like replenishing. If you are offering Restorative Yoga, I suggest refraining from using the word yin, even as a descriptor.
There are instances where a Restorative Yoga shape is found in a Yin Yoga sequence. If the class is called Yin Yoga it should be 90% true to the aim and method. I encourage you to take training for each style of Yoga from one of the luminaries below and/or teachers who have been trained by them.
Yin Yoga Luminaries Restorative Luminaries
Paul Grilley B.K.S. Iyengar (deceased)
Sarah Powers Judith Hansen Lassiter
Bernie Clarke
AIM & PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH
The aim of Restorative Yoga is deep relaxation.
This is ideally achieved in a state of restful awakeness. While most Restorative Yoga teachers don’t mind if you fall asleep during a class, staying awake provides an opportunity to reconnect with different aspects of your consciousness.
The approach aims to remove physical discomfort through arranging the body in a comfortable position, doing body scans, gentle breathing techniques and encouraging a reconnection with a feeling of peace.
From the 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 is a reunion with the energetic landscape from which everything arises and returns and is often felt as a pure and peaceful state.
Yoga Nidra is a form of guided meditation and is often combined with Restorative Yoga to promote transcendence into anandamayakosha.
The aim of Yin Yoga is to stimulate the energetic body (the flow and distribution of chi according to Chinese Meridian Philosophy) for the benefit of body, mind and spirit. During the practice, a wide array of sensations, mental-emotional states and spiritual insights can occur — rather than trying to alter these experiences, they are met with compassion.
On a philosophical level, Yin Yoga is an exploration of your “yin side”. As I have come to understand from my teacher Sarah Powers and personal practice, it is a framework for exploring your interiority and nourishing your system.
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” as the soil from which everything grows and your “yang side” as everything that emerges from the soil.
PHYSICAL METHODS
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 each.
Restorative Yoga organizes the body into a shape that provides maximum comfort and support so that muscular tension is released and joint tissues lax. Similar to methods of sensory deprivation, the design is to remove bodily discomfort and stimuli to achieve a state of deep relaxation. Props, and lots of them, are essential and used underneath and on top of the body so that one can stay still for long 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 shapes target specific structures in the body through both traction and compression to improve joint health and deconstruct patterns of restriction in connective tissue. In most poses, the muscles are disengaged 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.
The poses can stimulate a lot of sensation as the body acclimates from the initial feeling of muscular tension to sensations occurring deeper in the joint sites. The physical benefits of this approach include improving blood flow to joint tissues, maintaining and reclaiming mobility, softening scar tissue and unwinding postural habits.
Props are helpful but not always necessary. The benefits 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
Softening parts of the body that are not targeted (often the face and neck)
Adapting the postures to a wide range of bodies
In conjunction with attending to the physical body, Yin Yoga works with the energy body by way of targeting the meridians (energetic channels mapped by Chinese Medicine and yogic sages who referred to them as nadis). All styles of yoga can have an impact on the energy body but very few intentionally target the 14 major meridians.
Meridians are located in the fascia of the body. Yin Yoga works directly with fascia, which is a collagen-rich highly conductive matrix. Poses are designed to traction or compress tissues/ and meridians to promote better energetic flow. The effect is like repairing a broken or kinked electrical pathway.
PSYCHO-EMOTIONAL APPROACH
Restorative Yoga promotes mental relaxation and teachers often encourage you to connect with feelings of joy and bliss.
In contrast, Yin Yoga employs mindfulness techniques to witness thoughts and emotions with empathetic awareness. As Sarah Powers reflects below on her personal experience, the benefits of ease and clarity often come, but the pathway taken to get there is different from Restorative Yoga.
The lengthy postural steadiness allows us to develop yin qualities of surrender and observance, a willingness to feel a greater tolerance for uncomfortable experiences. After doing my Yin poses strung together, I have found that a feeling commonly develops that is similar to the effect of a long acupuncture session. My body begins to feel very relaxed and at ease, while my mind feels a heightened sense of clarity and restfulness.
—Sarah Powers, Insight Yoga page 25
CONCLUSION
Both Restorative and Yin Yoga are valuable practices to explore. They provide relief from our overstimulating, agitating and exhausting lives. Both styles of yoga take us to a quieter and more still place that allows us to replenish our energy and reconnect with our whole being. With differing aims, methods and psychological focuses the medicine of each style may resonate with you at different points in your life.