Yin Yoga Teacher Training in Rishikesh, India

You learn to practise the postures on Yin principles — seated and reclined positions held for three to five minutes, using blankets, blocks and bolsters for support. Yin targets the deeper tissue rather than the muscle, which is what makes it possible to sit comfortably in meditation afterwards.

The full Yin posture vocabulary is covered:

• Melting Heart Pose
• Ankle Stretch Pose
• Banana Pose
• Half Butterfly Pose
• Butterfly Pose
• Camel Pose
• Cat Pulling its Tail Pose
• Caterpillar Pose
• Child’s Pose
• Dangling Pose
• Deer Pose
• Dragon Pose
• Frog Pose
• Happy Baby Pose
• Reclining Spinal Twist
• Saddle Pose
• Shoelace Pose
• Snail Pose
• Sphinx Pose
• Seal Pose
• Square Pose
• Squat Pose
• Straddle Pose

Anatomy taught for the mat rather than for an exam — how to find safe, stable alignment in a posture you are about to stay in for five minutes, and what is actually happening in the tissue while you do.

• Tissues — muscle, fascia, ligament, tendon and bone, and which ones Yin is for
• Joints and movement
• The body’s systems and how long holds affect them
• Compression and tension — why one student folds flat and another never will, and why that is skeletal rather than a lack of effort
• Reading a body before you ask it to hold a shape

Compression and tension is the single most useful idea a Yin teacher can carry. It is what stops you pushing a student toward a shape their skeleton will not make, and it changes how you teach every other style too.

Yin is the one yoga style that borrows openly from Chinese thought, and a basic understanding of Taoist philosophy shows how the practice affects the key tissues of the body and how to classify them as Yin or Yang.

• Yin and Yang — two opposite and complementary forces
• The history of Yin Yoga
• The body meridians — the energy channels of Chinese medicine, and how the postures map onto them
• Tattvas of Yin
• The elements
• Chakras
• Nadis
• Physical and energetic aspects of the practice
• The relationship between yogic philosophy and yin philosophy

Yin only makes sense against Yang. Where Yin is passive, cool, long-held and aimed at connective tissue, Yang practice is active, warming, rhythmic and muscular — and a practitioner who does only one of the two ends up unbalanced in a way that eventually shows.

• What makes a practice Yang, and why the body needs both
• Muscular, dynamic asana as the counterweight to long holds
• Warming the body before deep Yin work, and when not to
• Strength and stability around the joints that Yin opens
• Sequencing Yin and Yang together in one class
• Reading which one a student in front of you actually needs

Yin is meditation with something to do, so the two are taught together. The long holds give you somewhere to put the attention, which is why people who cannot sit still often find their way into meditation through this style.

• How to sit in meditation
• How to breathe in meditation
• How to relax in meditation
• How to focus the mind
• Breath awareness meditation
• Chakra awakening meditation

In a Yin class the teacher spends most of the time not talking, which is harder than it sounds. You learn to offer modifications, props, alignment corrections and physical assists, and then to step back and let the posture do its work.

• The art of teaching yin postures
• Building teaching skills
• Building communication skills — and knowing when to say nothing
• Preparing for a class
• Managing a class
• Overcoming teaching challenges
• Teaching small groups and private sessions to build confidence