What Is The Difference Between Vinyasa and Yin Yoga?
Sometimes I think there is no purpose in writing these types of articles (Google knows everything), but then I have a student approach me at a community centre or a neighbourhood house and ask, what is the difference between vinyasa and yin yoga? What is the difference between hatha and yin yoga?
So here I am writing this blog post :)
Outside of asana classes with a set sequence (typically the 26and2 hot yoga or Ashtanga yoga), it can be a challenge for the yoga student to parse out a class description to determine if the class will be best suited for their yoga needs.
Hatha Yoga in Context: Traditional Yoga and Modern Postural Yoga
A hatha class can mean a lot of different things dependent on the teacher and the space that the teacher is entering into. Ashtanga yoga is another one. It can refer to the set sequence created by Pattabhi Jois or it can refer to Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga.
Modern postural yoga* has many different styles of yoga that can be confusing to decipher. Even when I was a student in my teacher training, I asked what was the difference between (“capital H”) Hatha and (“lowercase h”) hatha. We had been discussing Hatha Yoga as a school of yoga but then also talking about hatha yoga as an asana-based style of yoga that was slower and gentler.
The confusion arises because hatha yoga has different definitions based on the context in which you use the term. In the premodern yoga context, it is a school of yoga that believes asana can prepare the mind for meditation in order to awaken kundalini shakti.
In the modern postural yoga context, you walk into a hatha yoga class and you can expect an asana-based class that isn’t as fast-paced as a vinyasa yoga class. A hatha yoga class moves slower but there can still be a flow. A related question I get is what’s the difference between hatha yoga and yin yoga.
In the modern postural yoga context, a hatha yoga class moves slower than a vinyasa class but it will have more movement, and more active movement, than a yin yoga class.
When it comes to distinguishing the characteristics of a yin yoga practice, there are two points that I often share to students:
1. Yin Yoga Is A Modern Invention
This is important to acknowledge because there should be no misinformation that yin yoga is an ancient style of yoga. It’s a modern invention created by Sarah Powers and Paul Grilley that has been popularized by teachers like Bernie Clark.
2. Yin Yoga Favors A Functional Approach of Yoga Over An Aesthetic Approach
I was speaking once with a yoga practitioner who just finished her 200 hour vinyasa training, and I casually said that it doesn’t really matter if your knee goes over your ankle in Warrior 2 and she immediately refused to accept this information. I then told her she could look into the functional approach of yoga that I learned in yin yoga and left it there.
The truth is that while vinyasa teachers receive anatomy education, alignment cues in vinyasa yoga often defer to aesthetics. It looks nice when your joints make a 90 degree angle (we love symmetry) but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the safest or even the right movement for your body.
I once received a targeted Instagram ad on how to practice yoga that horrified me. It was a woman holding an incorrect pose with a man shaking his head and his fingers pointing no before cutting to a clip where the man moves the woman’s body into the “correct” form of the pose. If you see an ad similar to this, please disregard and delete. It’s not only inaccurate based on what we know about how bodies work, but it also serves to further alienate the student from listening to their body, which is what this practice is meant to bring us into closer connection to.
Yin yoga is defined by its functional approach that is encapsulated by these two maxims: “everybody’s bodies are different” and “if you’re feeling it, you’re doing it.”
This means that looking the same as every able-bodied person isn’t important so much as if you are sensing into your body. We know that what we feel and what we see are two very different things. We prioritize the interior state of yoga here over conformity to an “ideal” shape.
Yin yoga was the starting point of me seeking out trauma-informed yoga. While my Yin yoga training did not explicitly discuss trauma-informed methodology, what I learned about why and how to practice yin yoga overlaps and intersects with what I have been trained in trauma-informed yoga and trauma education.
Yin yoga is a modern style of yoga, but what I have learned about yin yoga has shown me that it is an inclusive understanding of the physical body. It is also thoughtful in how it brings together different maps of the body for deeper insights of the body and the self. This is to say that although white people came up with this style of yoga, this bringing together western maps of the body (science and fascia) and eastern maps of the body (Daoist meridians and energy) feels intuitive. At least for me.
The philosophy of yin yoga is also rooted in the scientific discovery of fascia, our connective tissue that has parallels to the Daoist concept of energy in yin and yang.
Yin Yoga Is Passive Stretching of Fascia
Yin yoga is an asana class where you will be passively stretching your connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, joints) for longer periods of time, as this is the best way to stretch your connective tissue. As opposed to your muscles that enjoy short, repetitive movements.
There are 3 principles of yin yoga and they are to:
Come into the pose to an appropriate depth.
Resolve to remain still.
Hold the pose for time.
Passive stretching means that you do not engage your muscles. When we passively stretch our fascia tissue, we build flexibility and range of motion. Sometimes we think it’s our muscles that stop us but it may be our fascia that is shortened, constricted, tightened that prevents us from certain range of movement.
Fascia is “a collection of stiff and elastic fibres and water filled vacuoles (bubble wrap, pockets of air) which forms a 3D body-stocking that invests and supports all other tissues.” This definition basically means that fascia acts like the sausage casing for our sausage insides. Fascia is also comprised of collagen and elastin, which is why practices like yoga keep us looking youthful and plump, due to how it boosts our collagen production.
Some say that you should never stretch a ligament or tendon. But tendons and ligaments can stretch. They just don’t stretch a lot. The point is more that we should not overstretch them, just like we shouldn’t overstretch muscles.
Because fascia are stiff fibres, they are often considered yin-like as opposed to the yang-like muscles. Yin is receptive, cold, dark. Yang is light, active, warm. You can see where the name of this style of yoga comes from where fascia corresponds to the meridians in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Daoism. Meridians are where chi flows from.
Yin Yoga Is Not Restorative Yoga
When you hear the words “slow” and “passive”, you might assume yin yoga is, therefore, a restorative yoga class.
Not necessarily. And for me, I would say not at all.
Restorative yoga is meant to be relaxing. Yin and yang are relative terms… so it makes sense that yin yoga is also a relative practice. In comparison to vinyasa yoga, a yin yoga class may be considered restorative but it has the potential to be more activating due to the longer holds. When you hold poses, it can be more challenging than flowing through various shapes like in vinyasa yoga.
Vinyasa Yoga: Dynamic Movement Characterized By Sun Salutations
Tirumalai Krishnamacharya is who we can trace the origin of vinyasa yoga to. At least as we know of it today. It is Krishnamacharya, after all, that taught B.K.S. Iyengar of Iyengar Yoga and Pattabi Jois of Ashtanga Yoga, both influential teachers that popularized yoga asana in the west.
When I was exploring Ashtanga Yoga, going to the local ashtanga studio, I learned about the three pillars of Ashtanga Yoga, which comprises ujjayi breathing, bandhas (subtle energy locks), and drishti (your gaze point that would help you to focus and concentrate and bring the attention inwards during practice). These pillars are what characterized the Ashtanga practice.
In T.K.V. Desikachar’s The Heart of Yoga, the breath is what is emphasized in the physical practice. Without the breath continuous in each movement, it is not yoga.Vinyasa krama is a “correctly organized course of asanas progressing appropriately toward a desired goal.” There can be dynamic or static practices. A dynamic class would be vinyasa whereas a static practice would be hatha or yin. Desikachar states that a good yoga practice will:
Warm up and loosen the whole body at the start of a session.
Practice an asana dynamically before holding it.
Have a simple counterpose to each asana.
The legacy of Krishnamacharyaa’s teachings lives on in his son, Desikachar and you can still see this when you walk into a vinyasa class.
The bare bones of it are sun salutations, flowing sequence towards a “peak pose” and the cooldown. Regardless of what style you learn it, these elements are prevalent in a vinyasa class.
Sun Salutations
You would typically open up your vinyasa class with multiple reps of sun salutations that serve to warm up the body. You will also encounter mini sun salutations throughout the practice. If you’ve ever heard your teacher say, “take your vinyasa”, you probably know that they want you to move from Downdog, Plank, Chaturanga, Updog, back to Downdog. This is also the building block of a sun salutation, of which there are common variations that include Warrior 1, Chair pose, Eight-Angle pose etc.
Flowing Sequence
A vinyasa class is also “flowy” meaning that the transition from one pose to the next feels seamless, flowing from one shape into the next. Desikachar says that the practice is dependent on the goal so there is no set sequence. A vinyasa class is good for students who like to try new sequences. There are different ways to create the structure of a flow, and this is based on the particular philosophy of the teacher and the school.
When it comes to the peak pose or the main asana, I have learned that having a peak pose is not trauma-informed. It reinforces a hierarchy of ideal shapes. I have learned to be more mindful of how I facilitate and market my classes to be sensitive to this distinction. I am careful not to promote one way of accessing a pose and instead of fixating on a peak pose, I will highlight the shape family that it belongs to. Emphasizing the theme of the practice is hip opening rather than the specific shape that the hip opener must take are ways that I stay trauma-informed.
I work with a peak pose in constructing my vinyasa classes because I find it helps me stay focused on what to work with, whereas I work with a shape family for my yin classes.
Cooldown
The cooldown is often the counterpose. For every pose, we do a counterpose. Counterposes have also changed over time. Some counterposes we now know are not the best for our bodies. For example, extreme backbending after deep forward folding is not the best thing for our spine.
I hope you enjoyed this article and if you’ve practiced with me, I suspect you’ll have a deeper understanding of my yoga philosophy and practice as a yoga asana facilitator.
*When I use the terms, “modern” and “premodern”, it is a shorthand to refer to yoga before British colonization and yoga after British colonization and specifically at the turn of the twentieth century. I do not claim the connotations the word “modern” has with progressive values, advanced technology etc. when I am using this term. I hope to have a better term to refer to these time periods and shifts.
Resources
Let’s Talk Yoga Podcast: Why You Should Be Fascinated By Your Fascia with Pooja Virani
Written By: Irene Lo