So here's something embarrassing: last Tuesday, I found myself lying on my yoga mat at 6 PM, holding what's called "dragon pose" for five whole minutes while some lady on YouTube told me to "breathe into my hip crease." Two years ago, if you'd told me I'd be voluntarily doing this, I would've suggested you check yourself into a mental health facility.

But life has a way of humbling you. After twenty-five years of cycling, my body was a pretzel of tight hamstrings, cranky hips, and a lower back that felt like it belonged to a person twice my age. I tried everything: sports massage, physical therapy, foam rollers that looked like medieval torture devices. Nothing stuck.

Then my neighbor mentioned "Yin yoga." "It's different," she said, "You just lie there, and hold poses for like, forever."

Forever? That sounded like my own version of hell. I am the guy who checks his phone at red lights because thirty seconds feels too long. But desperation causes one to try weird things, and I was getting desperate with my back pain.

That first class nearly broke me; but somehow, it saved me too.

What Is This Torture They Call Yin Yoga?

Let me start by saying Yin yoga isn't yoga the way most people think of yoga. There's no flowing between poses, no sweat dripping on your mat, no pretzel-like contortions that make you question your life choices. It's more like... aggressive relaxation? If that makes any sense at all.

The basic idea is stupid simple: get into a pose, stay there for 3-10 minutes, try not to lose your mind. That's it. Paul Grilley, the guy who developed modern Yin yoga back in the 1980s, took inspiration from ancient Taoist practices and classical Hatha yoga. Apparently, monks used to hold poses for hours. Hours! Makes my five-minute holds seem downright reasonable.

But here's the kicker—while regular yoga targets your muscles (the stuff that responds quickly to heat and movement), Yin goes after your connective tissues. We're talking tendons, ligaments, and this weird stuff called fascia that basically wraps around everything in your body like plastic wrap around leftovers.

Think of your muscles like rubber bands—they stretch fast when warm, snap back quickly. Your connective tissues are more like leather. They need time, patience, and sustained pressure to change. That's why those long holds aren't just some sadistic invention—they're actually necessary to reach the stuff that really needs work.

How Yin Differs from Every Other Yoga You've Tried

If you've ever done a Vinyasa class, Yin will feel like you've entered an alternate dimension. In flow yoga, you might hold a pose for five breaths before moving on. In Yin, five breaths is just the warm-up. We're talking 3-5 minutes minimum, sometimes longer if you're feeling masochistic.

This time difference changes everything about how your body responds. Dynamic yoga keeps your muscles engaged and warm—it's basically strength training disguised as stretching. Yin does the opposite. You want your muscles to completely check out so gravity can work on the deeper stuff.

Temperature matters too. Hot yoga classes can hit 100+ degrees to make your muscles pliable. Yin classes stay around 80 degrees—warm enough that you won't injure yourself, cool enough that you're not getting an artificial flexibility boost from overheated muscles.

The mental game is completely different too. Flow yoga keeps your brain busy with transitions and sequences. Yin forces you to sit with whatever comes up—boredom, anxiety, that random argument you had with your brother in 1987 that your brain apparently thinks is still relevant. There's nowhere to hide when you're stuck in butterfly pose for five minutes straight.

My First Yin Experience: A Comedy of Errors

Picture this: it's a Wednesday evening at Boulder's Little Yoga Studio. I walk in expecting something gentle and relaxing—maybe some light stretching while New Age music plays in the background. Instead, I find myself in what can only be described as a furniture showroom that happens to have yoga mats scattered around.

Props everywhere. Bolsters, blocks, blankets, straps. It looked like someone had robbed a Bed Bath & Beyond and deposited the loot in a yoga studio. The instructor, Bari Campbell, starts explaining how we might need "support" for the poses we'll be holding for "several minutes each."

Several minutes? My longest relationship with a yoga pose had been about thirty seconds, and that was pushing it.

We start with something called half-butterfly. Sit down, bend one leg, fold forward, stay there for five minutes. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. So very wrong.

First thirty seconds: "Okay, this is fine. Kind of nice actually. Very zen."

One minute: "Is that clock broken? That was definitely more than a minute."

Two minutes: "Every cell in my body is screaming to move. This is torture."

Three minutes: "I'm going to die here. They'll find my body twisted in this ridiculous position."

Then something weird happened around minute four. My body just... gave up fighting. Like it finally accepted that we weren't moving anytime soon and decided to make the best of it. I sank deeper into the pose, and this wave of release washed over me that I'd never experienced in any other form of exercise.

When we finally came out of the pose, I felt like I'd been disassembled and put back together with better engineering. It was bizarre and amazing and slightly terrifying all at once.

The Science Behind Why This Crazy Stuff Actually Works

My engineer brain needed to understand what the hell had just happened to me, so I went down a research rabbit hole. Turns out, there's real science backing up this whole "lie still for five minutes" approach.

Fascia—that connective tissue I mentioned—used to be considered the boring wrapper around muscles. Medical schools barely taught it. Researchers ignored it. Then scientists started realizing that fascia is actually this complex, interconnected network that affects everything from movement to pain to posture.

When fascia gets tight or "sticky" (technical term: adhesions), it can create problems far from the original issue. My IT band pain that showed up at my knee? Probably connected to tight fascia in my hips and lower back—areas I'd never even thought to stretch.

Here's where it gets interesting: muscle tissue responds to quick, elastic stretching. But fascia needs what's called "plastic deformation"—sustained pressure over time that creates lasting changes in the tissue structure. Five minutes of gentle pressure can literally reshape how your connective tissues behave. Thirty seconds of aggressive stretching just pisses them off.

The nervous system stuff is equally cool. Those long holds activate your parasympathetic nervous system—your "rest and digest" mode. Most of us spend our days stuck in sympathetic overdrive (fight or flight), which is great for escaping saber-toothed tigers but terrible for modern life.

When you hold a Yin pose for several minutes, your nervous system eventually gets the message that there's no immediate threat and downshifts into recovery mode. Heart rate slows, blood pressure drops, stress hormones settle down. It's like your entire system just hit the reset button.

Learning to Sit with Discomfort (Also Known as the Mental Bootcamp)

The physical component of Yin was challenging, but the mental aspect totally caught me off guard. As a cyclist, I was accustomed to pushing beyond discomfort-it's basically the sport. But Yin was asking something different: to just be present with discomfort and not attempt to escape it.

"Athletes often override their pain barometer," Bari explained during one of my early classes. "Part of Yin practice is relearning how to listen to your body. That can take a while."

She wasn't kidding. Those first few months were like learning a new language—the language of sensation. There's sharp pain that means "get out now." There's muscle tension that means "you're working too hard." And then there's this deep, spreading sensation that means "yes, this is exactly what we're looking for."

Learning to distinguish between these different types of discomfort required completely rewiring my relationship with physical sensation. Instead of automatically trying to escape anything uncomfortable, I had to learn to breathe into it, explore it, sometimes even befriend it.

The mental stillness was equally challenging. With no flowing movements to distract my brain, I was forced to deal with whatever thoughts and emotions decided to show up during those long holds. Some days that meant work stress. Other days, random childhood memories. Sometimes just the overwhelming urge to check my phone or adjust my position or do literally anything other than stay present with what was happening.

But here's what I discovered: when you can't escape, you eventually learn to adapt. Those racing thoughts start to settle. The urge to fidget decreases. You develop what psychologists call "distress tolerance"—the ability to experience difficult sensations without immediately trying to fix or escape them.

This skill, it turns out, is incredibly useful off the mat too.

The Prop Game: Why More Stuff = Better Practice

One thing that surprised me about Yin was its emphasis on props. I came from a cycling background, where many cyclists pride themselves on how little gear they take, so a Yin class was like stepping into a yoga store.

However, I quickly learned that props are not just for crutches, they are smart tools to allow you to practice smart. The goal is not to muscle your way into poses, it's to adopt sustainable positions when you can fully relax while time does the work for you during the long holds.

And my setup can look ridiculous; with my mat, two blocks, a bolster, a blanket, and sometimes a strap, I look like I'm getting ready to camp for the weekend. Yet each prop has a purpose.

For example, dragon pose is essentially a low lunge where you hold the lunge for 3-5 minutes, targeting the hip flexors. Without yoga blocks, I would have to white-knuckle on my forearms, shoulders scrunched up to my ears, shallow and panicked breath. With the blocks under my hands for support, I can actually relax into the stretch while gravity starts to act on me.

The props also make the practice accessible to everyone. Can't sit comfortably in butterfly pose? Sit on a bolster to elevate your hips. Finding the forward fold too intense? Rest your torso on a bolster placed across your legs. There's no shame in using whatever support you need—in fact, it's encouraged.

This was initially humbling for someone who prided himself on being "strong enough" to do poses without assistance. But Yin taught me that using props isn't about weakness; it's about working smarter, not harder.

Essential Poses That Changed My Life

Over two years of practice, certain poses have become my go-to remedies for the various ways modern life beats up my body. These aren't necessarily the most Instagram-worthy poses, but they're the ones that create real, lasting change.

Butterfly pose became my salvation for tight hips. Sitting with the soles of your feet together, knees falling wide, you simply fold forward and surrender to gravity. It sounds simple, but after five minutes in this pose, I'd feel like someone had performed surgery on my hip joints.

What I love about butterfly is how it teaches you about your unique body. Some people can fold forward dramatically in this pose; others barely lean forward at all. The magic isn't in how deep you go—it's in finding your personal edge and staying there long enough for something to shift.

Caterpillar pose is basically a seated forward fold, but held long enough to actually access your posterior chain. This one works everything from your calves to your neck, but the real target is the fascia along your entire back body.

The key insight with caterpillar is that you're not trying to touch your toes or keep your back straight. You're allowing your spine to round, creating traction along the back body that you can't get from traditional stretching. It goes against everything you learn in dynamic yoga, but that's exactly what makes it work.

Sphinx pose provides the perfect counterbalance to all that forward folding. Lying on your belly with your forearms on the ground, you create a gentle backbend that opens the front body. For someone who spends hours hunched over bike handlebars, this pose is total medicine. What makes sphinx special is its availability, it's not an advanced backbend that requires years to develop—it's a gentle opening, and it is available to anyone. Hold it for five minutes, and you will feel the spaces in chest and spine opening that you didn't even know were closed.

Dragon pose may be the most impactful pose in the Yin repertoire. Starting in a low lunge with your back knee down, you sink your hips forward and down, opening up the entire front-side of your hip flexors.This directly addresses one of the biggest issues facing modern humans: chronically tight hips from sitting.

Dragon can be intense—sometimes brutally so. But it's also infinitely modifiable. You can keep your hands on blocks, rest your forearms on the ground, or even fold forward over your front leg. Each variation accesses slightly different tissues, making this one pose a comprehensive hip rehabilitation program.

Reclining twist is how I end every Yin session. Lying on your back with your knees dropped to one side, this pose gently wrings out the spine while encouraging complete nervous system relaxation. It's like a full-body sigh.

The twist action massages your internal organs and releases deep spinal muscles, but the real magic is in how it shifts your nervous system into recovery mode. I've never come out of this pose feeling anything other than completely relaxed and centered.

The Unexpected Benefits That Snuck Up on Me

When I started Yin, I was looking for two things: better flexibility and less back pain. I got both of those within a few months. But the real benefits—the ones that actually changed my life—were things I never saw coming.

My cycling performance improved dramatically, but not in the way you'd expect.I didn't become incredibly faster or stronger after practice. But I developed this unbelievable body awareness that facilitated small adjustments I needed to make before a problem became a problem. To say the hours I spent tuning in to the small nuanced sensations in Yin poses were good for me would be an understatement when I compare that to how I noticed patterns of tension on my bike before they became pain.

Sleep was the other area of difference. I had always been a light sleeper with lots of racing thoughts and restless nights. Before too long I was sleeping like a rock. After about 2 months of commitment to regular local sessions of Yin practice, I was finally getting relief from insomnia. For me, there was a physiological quality to the softer Yin practice that resonated with and reset my nervous system, in a way I had never felt possible after any amount of physical exercise.

But the biggest change was mental. Through the paradox of learning to sit with discomfort in poses, I had learned how to deal with stress differently off the mat. Traffic snarls, deadlines at work, and conflicts in relationships, all of the things that would have made me a ball of anxious pacing in the past felt like manageable challenges now. They weren't easier, they didn't become any less complex, I just had a totally different relationship to discomfort.

I became less reactive, as well. The road rage I experienced during the worst bus commute? Gone. The urge I had to catastrophize with issues at work? Suppressed. It was as though Yin Practice gave me an internalized 'pause' button I could do push to pause the chaos of life.

When Yin Gets Real: Dealing with the Dark Stuff

Let me be completely honest here—Yin isn't always the peaceful, relaxing experience it's marketed as. Sometimes those long holds bring up stuff you weren't planning to deal with during what was supposed to be a simple stretching session.

Physical discomfort is the easy part. You learn to distinguish between "good pain" (deep, spreading sensation that indicates beneficial tissue change) and "bad pain" (sharp, hot sensations that mean you need to back off immediately). The emotional stuff is trickier.

There is something about passive, sustained stretches that can release not just physical tension but emotional holding patterns. On numerous occasions, during hip opening poses, I have wept waves of unexplained sadness; I felt sudden bouts of anger during backbends, and I suddenly became overwhelmed by inexplicable anxiety during forward folds. Such occurrences are not uncommon during yoga, and instead, are signs the practice is working at a deeper level.

The whole point to yoga is to develop a ability called "emotional regulation" (i.e., feeling hard feelings without being overcome by them). This will prove useful to you beyond the yoga mat, as you move through similar experiences in non-yoga life.

Sure, some days are simply just plain hard. There are times when you are in a pose on the mat for 5 minutes, and you are fighting the urge to just get out it, working with the discomfort of holding and resisting the practice mentally. It is often the hard practices that lead you to the largest breakthroughs, both physically and emotionally.

Who Should Be Careful with Yin

While Yin is generally safe for most people, there are some situations where caution is warranted. People with osteoporosis need to avoid poses that involve sustained spinal flexion, as the prolonged pressure can increase fracture risk. Those with joint hypermobility might find that long holds exacerbate their instability rather than helping.

We're actually going to need to give some added consideration for pregnant people, particularly in their third trimester, as the hormone relaxin boosts flexibility within your joints. A pregnant person is already more likely to overstretch or cause trauma to their connective tissues. While almost all poses can be adapted for pregnancy, it is still vital you are working with a teacher who is not only familiar, but comfortable making adaptations to poses.

Anyone with an acute injury, should generally wait until the first healing phase has passed before considering Yin. Yin may be incredibly therapeutic for chronic conditions, but after a fresh injury requiring rest and medical care is not the time to consider it.

Sometimes there is also a psychological component to be noted. If an individual is working with trauma, or severe levels of anxiety, there may be instances where those long holds can elicit pretty strong emotional responses. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is still good to have the appropriate guidance and support in place when/if it happens.

Building a Practice that Actually Sticks

The great thing about yin, is it does not take a lot of time. For a commitment of 2-3 times weekly, for 45-90 minutes at a time, you can notice sizable changes in your flexibility, stress levels, and overall well- being. There is a good relationship with active forms of exercise, as opposed to turning you into a couch potato.

In my experience, the seasonal approach has worked very well for me. In winter months when I am not cycling as much, I do more Yin (sometimes 4-5 times per week, depending on the weather). In summer months when I'm cycling more, I may only do Yin 1-2 times weekly. I naturally ebb and flow with the seasons and feel it is very sustainable.

With yoga, consistency matters more than intensity. Strength training often requires progressively overloaded instruction, but Yin works through a cumulative phenomenon. Decreasing stress levels, increasing ranges of motion, and thus creating enduring change can happen with regular practice at a moderate level, instead of rare extremely intense sessions.

Part of the reason why the home component is so vital is because while classes give you the direction of how to do things and provide a communal space, having a simple sequence of poses you can practice at home is the only way you will practice sustainably. I have also developed a 30-minute "emergency" sequence that I can do at home, or anywhere I am when I am feeling tight or stressed.

Setting Up Your Space: The Practical Stuff

The space you create for Yin is more important than you realize. Who would want to do a Yin practice in a room where they were uncomfortable? With the Yang practice of yoga, we might be able to push through the unideal conditions, but with Yin we cannot do something effective until we are adequately supported and feel comfortable.

Let's consider temperature. If it is too hot, your muscles may artificially relax and you won't be able to access deeper tissues. If it is cold, you may find that the entire time is spent fighting tension. For me, 78-80 degrees is ideal. No doubt warm enough to prevent injury, but cool enough that the work is happening in your connective tissues.

Similarly, lighting is important. Harsh fluorescent lights will keep your nervous system in an alert mode, while darkness may make it hard to maintain proper alignment. Soft, warm lighting in the desired environment is where it is really at; it creates the opportunity for you to introspectively work without falling asleep.

My basic equipment at home is a yoga mat with some cushioning support, two blocks, a bolster (you can also use a couch pillow that is firm enough), a blanket and strap. You don't need to have expensive props to functionally support you through your yoga practice, but having the level of support that is needed is the difference between a practice that is sustainable and one where you suffer.

I have practiced both in fancy studios with premium prop equipment, and in a hotel room using pillows and towels; while either can provide a different experience, the experience is somehow enhanced when we use props. But ultimately for me, the most important prop is our willingness to slow down and pay attention.

The Community Aspect: Finding Your People

Having an accidental benefit of Yin practice has been the community it has brought me within. Certainly, there is a pattern with Yin classes that draws people dealing with similar challenges (chronic pain, stress, the need to slow down in a fast world and find stillness). There is something that exists with the common experience of sitting with discomfort that develops true relationship.

The Yin community itself is also a pretty inclusive community. While certain aspects of fitness culture might embrace extremism, generally, the Yin practitioner really takes value in sustainability, self-compassion and finding their own journey as opposed to competing against others. It is a rallying call that, for me, is significantly different because it includes everyone no matter their age, existing flexibility, and relative experience level.

Women and online community engagement has become significantly important too. Certainly during the pandemic, when we couldn't attend in-person classes, which again, felt extraordinary, the virtual sessions and online forums kept practitioners engaged and connected. Even after that, they provide significant continued engagement and inspiration by creating groups to provide accountability for those who want to practice at home.

What I most appreciate about the Yin community is the focus on process rather than achievement. There is no winner in Yin yoga; everybody just shows up, does the work, and supports others in their own way.

Integration: Taking Yin Principles Into Daily Life

The ultimate measure of any practice is how its influences bleed over into your life outside practice hours. With Yin, the bleed over happens almost unconsciously because the practices directly transfer to useful daily skills—your tolerance of distress, awareness of body and ability to stay present in the moment, all fundamentally useful skills when facing daily challenges.

I notice it the most in my approach to physical discomfort. Rather than immediately reach for ibuprofen, acetaminophen, or some other device to "fix" every ache and pain, I have learned to pause and investigate. Is this feeling alerting me to something potentially significant, or is it just my body responding typically to having been active? This evening out of my awareness of discomfort has saved me many minor, preventable inconveniences and discomforts from moving into larger macro issues.

The mental skills transfer even more seamlessly. Difficult conversations, frustrations at work, and even waiting in line at the grocery store—all situations that previously evoked impatience or anxiety now feel distinctly more manageable, albeit not because they are objectively easier, but because I have a more functional relationship with discomfort itself.

Perhaps, most valuable of all, Yin helped me realize that rest and recovery are not only acceptable evils in breaks between being productive, but rest and recovery have inherently positive value as activities themselves. This understanding has enhanced climate change not only my physical health, but also the totality of my relationship with ambition and achievement.

What Two Years of Practice Has Taught Me

To look back on this journey, I am astonished by how much has transformed. My body feels more spacious, resilient and aware. My mind feels calmer, less reactive and more present.But the biggest change is in my relationship to discomfort itself.

I used to view discomfort as a problem to be solved, usually as a signal I needed to fix something. Now, I know that discomfort is often just information--it is data about what is occurring in my body and mind, without needing an interruption or for me to react in the moment.

This shift comes with a ripple effect to all domains of my life. I have greater patience for myself and others. I have an increasing ability to be in the moment rather than being driven to achieve and do better. I have found great value in process over outcome and presence over productivity.

Yin also taught me a whole new level of surrender. In a culture that values pushing through and power over, learning to yield and let be felt revolutionary. It turns out sometimes the most profound change comes not from being a doer but in realizing I can stop doing altogether.

The Future of My Practice.

As I write, I am planning tomorrow's Yin sesssion. It probably won't be novel--45 min in my living room, working through my go-to sequence. But I know those blase sessions are quietly transforming my body and mind in ways I could not achieve before, and more robust forms of exercise will never achieve.

I continue to deepen my practice. Some of the poses used to seem impossible for me, are now accessible. Others that once felt easy have continuously revealed additional complexity. I think this ongoing personal discovery keeps things new and interesting for me even after a little over two years.

I am also starting to wade into the more philosophical aspects of Yin, engaging with Taoist ideas of balance, wu wei, and perhaps that the most powerful use of energy is in the act of doing nothing. These ideas extend way beyond the yoga mat to how I accept and navigate work, relationships, and life in general.

If you are considering embarking on a Yin practice--my only advice would be approach it with curiosity, rather than have expectations. Don't worry if you are flexible enough or patient enough. The practice will meet you where you are at and with time, gently create a space for more.

For a world that seems awash in demands for more speed, heightened intensity and more productivity, Yin gives something radically different: a reprieve, an invitation to slow down, tune in and simply be with what is. It is more than exercise, in a strange way, it is an exercise in being a human, consciously and compassionately.

And if I am honest? Maybe that is just what we all need at this moment in time.