The Therapeutic Virtues of Yin Yoga
Or The Modern Meridian Theory
S.Pucelle
As a postural practice, Yin Yoga offers different angles and themes to explore.
The mechanical and anatomical aspects of the physical body, through the prolonged application of tension and compression to targeted areas and the stimulation of connective tissue. The practice also involves an energetic approach via TCM or the chakra system. It thus promotes the circulation of our vital energy, our health and our homeostasis. Regular practice of yin yoga contributes to the holistic coherence of our being and creates a bridge between the astral body and the body of thought or causal body, relating to the psychological aspect of the practice.
Qi Regulation
From a medical and energetic point of view, the body's vital energy, known as Qi/Prana, must circulate throughout the body at all times if the system is to remain healthy. When Qi/Prana stagnates, this creates an imbalance that manifests itself as a deficiency or excess in the meridian system. At best, it's a feeling of discomfort. If it is recurrent, it will evolve into a pathological form.
All modes of exercise mobilize the body's Qi/Prana, and the alternating contractions and relaxations of the muscular system are well known to encourage the movement of energy in the body, which includes all forms of yoga.
What's special about yin yoga is that it applies passive traction to the body's connective tissues (fascia, ligaments, joint capsules, cartilage and tendons). To target connective tissues, its practice suggests an attitude of relaxation in the posture by disengaging muscular action. Maintained over a prolonged period, posture exerts stress on connective tissue, which in turn undergoes mechanical adaptation.
This regular application will first strengthen the connective tissues, increasing their resilience and adaptability. Then, when the posture is released, Qi/Prana is encouraged to move into its respective network.
Practitioners have no control over how the body uses this impulse to reorganize the flow of Qi. Nevertheless, the sense of well-being that emerges from the practice indicates a beneficial reset, which can easily be felt on a physical and emotional level.
By analogy, let's imagine the body as a multitude of tubes inside other tubes, such as fascia, muscle fibres, veins, capillaries, bones and so on. Everything is a tube inside with something circulating inside. Let's take a garden hose where water flows freely to spray the flowers. Suddenly, because of a knot, the water stops flowing; upstream, the water accumulates as an excess, and downstream, the lack of water is perceived as a deficiency. The gardener solves the problem by untying the hose, and instantly the water starts flowing again. The excess upstream rushes into the pipe and gushes out at the end, and finally, the stream resumes its normal course.
The practice of Yin Yoga acts in a very similar way. By holding the posture, we don't encourage the circulation of Qi but create tensions and compressions creating restrictions in our range of movement. When the posture is released, like water from a garden hose, the movement of Qi is stimulated. This specific part of the practice is called "the rebound.
The stimulation of connective tissue in yin yoga practice leads to energetic movement in the meridians, improving not only the flexibility of the physical body but also our energetic balance. As a result, the practice is not limited to increasing the amplitude of movement.
Experienced yogis will reach their maximum amplitude after a few years of practice, so we may well ask: why continue practising postural yoga?
Because the body's flexibility fluctuates, and tensions recur regularly depending on our level of stress, fatigue and quality of life, there is a physiological shortening of our tissues that we can delay.
Because after each practice, you feel energetically different.
When you spend hours in deep meditation, with a frugal diet and a very calm, sedentary lifestyle, you can feel the energy moving through your body. This is a very tangible thing, and when energy stagnates, it disrupts health and meditation. Practising and releasing asanas enables movement and Qi reharmonization.
Modern Meridian Theory
The poses are necessary to stimulate the joints and encourage them to maintain a healthy energy system. Modern meridian theory explains very clearly why we do yoga: if we don't work on connective tissue and joints, we compromise the body's energy system.
It is essential to stimulate the joints with moderate exercise, not only to maintain a full range of motion but also because the circulation of energy is vital to nourish, heal and maintain all tissues in good health. Connective tissues should be referred to as meridian tissues. From an anatomical point of view, connective tissues only serve to hold the different parts of the body together, so when scientists cut out the tissues to find the organs, then the connective tissues to find the meridians, it was the meridians they cut out. It changes everything to see connective tissues as living, pulsating tissues that circulate energy within the meridian system.
If you open an anatomy book and look at where connective tissue is found in the body, you'll see that it's ubiquitous.
Classical yoga writings refer to the nadis, of which there are 350,000. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika highlights 72,000 nadis in the body, 10 of which are considered important, with 3 representing the essential system: Ida, Pingala and Sushumna. After that, we never heard about the others.
The vital force must circulate in every cell of the body. All forms of yoga stimulate the body's meridians, but Yin yoga is unique in its stimulation of the joints. Yin yoga does not develop strength, coordination or balance. It is not a complete system in itself, which is why it is called Yin and not Taoist.
What are meridians?
For a long time, conventional medicine had great difficulty in proving the existence of meridians, as it was simply impossible to locate them during dissection until modern meridian theory was developed.
How did all this knowledge and understanding of the meridian network develop? And how does it work?
This is what Dr Motoyama established 40 or 50 years ago. He came to practical, pragmatic scientific conclusions to assert that meridians are neither nerves nor blood vessels. They are channels of water in the body called "liquid crystals". Our teachers, Paul and Suzee Grilley played a decisive role in the advancement and transmission of these theories.
Dr Motoyama researched this area and emphatically stated that meridians are the opposite of blood vessels. In the latter, we find a tube made of collagen fibers, like an artery or vein, inside which circulates a liquid, be it lymph, blood or something else. You'd expect to find the same elements when looking for the meridians, but the problem is that they're not structured in this way.
It is important to know that there are very fine films of water all along the different layers of connective tissue. Water is ubiquitous in the body; we're mainly made up of water - 90% of our molecules and 60% of our body weight are made up of water, most of which is found in connective tissue and blood.
In fact, muscle and connective tissue contain far more water than blood. The body contains only about 4 litres of blood, which represents a third to a quarter of the actual volume of liquid. The rest of our water volume is found in the skin, muscles and organs. Water is therefore immanent to the organism, without which almost none of the chemical reactions we know to be essential to life could take place.
The discovery is that the water in cells is not liquid. It is in the form of a gel called a liquid crystal. We usually think of water as a random collection of molecules, and it is only considered to have a structure when it is immobile in the form of ice. There is an intermediate phase in the body where water is no longer liquid; it is no longer a molecule, no longer random and is completely ordered.
Gerald Pollack and James Oschman have developed the latest research on this subject, the two most recent talking about the incredible amount of water in the body and things we never knew existed.
The Hydrophilic Nature of Yin Yoga
Water is present everywhere in the body, but where it is structured and has a direction, this corresponds to a meridian. What's special about the liquid-crystal phase of water is that it structures the meridian, and this water structure conducts electricity and Qi along the meridian. The meridian is a very loose structure, but it's structured, so the negative and positive of the water align and the Qi flows.
Dr Motoyama has been measuring Qi accurately and precisely for decades. How much electricity does this system conduct? How fast does it conduct electricity? How much energy can it hold before it spills out and can no longer support it? He measured all these parameters.
When science tried to find tangible evidence of the location of meridians, researchers did what they knew best - anatomical dissections. But when they started dissecting corpses, they found no trace of the meridians because the first thing that happens at death is that all the body's fluids dissipate and fall away.
Dr Motoyama searched for and found coiled hyaluronic acid molecules, the only remaining evidence that this was once a meridian.
These hyaluronic acid granules form lay lines that are completely overlapping on the ancient meridian maps described in the classics of Chinese medicine.
Hyaluronic acid has a high molecular weight and is a natural constituent of connective tissue. It is naturally present in our bodies. However, its quantity diminishes drastically with age, and it is estimated that by the age of 50, our stock is already halved. Hyaluronic acid has a formidable moisturizing action, since each molecule is capable of binding more than 1000 to 5000 times its weight in water, like a sponge!
Qi from a living body moves into the meridian and creates the meridian, but ceases to circulate and disappears at physical death, causing the meridian to dissolve; there's now nothing left to find. The only physical shreds of evidence of the existence of meridians after death are the H.A granules.
Conclusion
So there is a phase change in tissue and water quality that occurs during yin yoga practice. This explains what happens when we release the asana and feel the rebound.
The following description summarizes the process of practice: yin yoga is the moderate application of tension and compression to encourage a healthy phase change in the tissues, also known as fascia.
By mechanically manipulating the physical body, we also build bridges to the realization of the well-being of our astral and causal bodies.
The astral body, or emotional body, is where the energy of the meridians (Jing Luo in China or Nadis in India) will be at its full potential and can be called the Pranamaya Kosha in Hindu tradition, the energetic envelope containing prana (Prana also manifests itself to some extent in the physical body). Pranamaya Kosha is therefore the essential envelope of the physical body sustaining life. This layer of our being is the most interesting for yogis, as it forms the bridge between the physical and psychological aspects of a person.
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