Anna Magdalena Gmaj

Fascia  and  Yin  Yoga:  It’s  a  Match!     If  you  have  yet  to  become  aware  of  the  part  that  your  connective  tissue  plays  in   your  wellbeing,  read  on.  And  if  you  have  yet  to  realize  what  a  regular  yin  yoga   practice  may  have  to  do  with  it,  all  the  more.       Remember  the  time  when  you  were  at  school  and  you  were  learning  about  the  human   body?  You  were  told  to  eat  the  right  foods  for  the  health  of  your  liver  or  that  you  should   stay  physically  active  to  maintain  strong  muscles.  You  were  probably  also  given  lots  of   information  about  your  heart,  your  brain  or  your  bones.  I’ll  bet  though  that  nobody   brought  your  attention  to  fascia,  or  connective  tissue.       What  is  fascia  and  why  should  you  care?     For  years  science  has  considered  it  to  be  an  unimportant  something  that  „only”  fills  the   space  between  our  skin  and  more  significant  insides.  Wait…  what?  Is  it  possible  that   such  a  huge  part  of  our  body  –  the  one  that  covers  every  little  muscle,  bone,  nerve  and  all   the  internal  organs  –  has  no  effect  on  our  overall  wellbeing?  Well,  now  more  and  more   people  from  different  fields  start  to  realize  that  the  answer  is  “no”.     Our  fascia  is  a  matrix  of  collagen,  which  somewhat  resembles  a  spider  web.  When  it’s   healthy  and  relaxed,  it  can  stretch  and  move  freely.  This  has  an  immediate  impact  on   how  swiftly  our  body  adapts  to  the  situation  we  are  in  and  how  much  energy  we  have  to   act  upon  it,  indirectly  influencing  our  ability  to  manage  stress  and  the  quality  of  our   everyday  lives.       What  can  go  wrong  and  can  you  make  it  right  again?     The  problem  starts  when  it  becomes  constricted  due  to  emotional  or  physical  trauma,   inflammation  or  scarring.  Depending  on  the  part  of  our  body  that  has  been  put  under   excessive  pressure,  it  can  produce  symptoms  like  headaches,  chronic  pain,  tiredness  or   restricted  motion.  In  other  words,  when  there  are  restrictions  in  our  fascia,  it  becomes   infuriatingly  hard  to  feel  at  home  in  our  own  bodies.     Thankfully,  there’s  always  something  we  can  do  to  keep  or  restore  balance.  Actually,   we’ve  been  blessed  with  quite  a  few  healing  modalities  that  work  with  fascia.  The  most   obvious  one  is  myofascial  release,  a  technique  that  focuses  on  applying  gentle  pressure   on  the  fascial  tissue.       Let  Yin  Yoga  work  its  magic     However,  what’s  really  essential  to  keeping  a  healthy  fascia  is  a  certain  kind  of   movement,  the  one  that  lies  at  the  heart  of  yin  yoga.  As  many  professional  athletes  found   out  the  hard  way,  typical  exercise  won’t  help  you  release  tension  from  fascia.  What  you   need  is  slow,  long  and  mindful  stretches.  In  time,  those  will  allow  you  to  let  go  of  the   stuck  patterns  and  restore  flexibility.       There’s  no  doubt  that  the  process  can  be  challenging  for  those  who  are  used  to  a   dynamic  practice.  In  fact,  nowadays  most  of  us  feel  like  we  have  to  live  fast  to  keep  up,   thus  losing  the  calmness  of  our  “Yin”  in  the  overwhelming  “Yang”.  What  we  sometimes   fail  to  notice  is  that  we  not  only  keep  giving  away  our  life  energy,  we  don’t  even  know   how  to  use  what  we  have  left.       We  try  to  move  through  our  inner  blockages  with  force  and  only  hurt  ourselves  more.   Has  running  straight  into  the  wall  ever  worked?  Instead,  let’s  really  bring  awareness  to   what’s  stopping  us,  to  our  traumas  and  pain.  If  we  give  it  time  and  treat  it  with  calmness   and  compassion,  our  energy  will  find  a  way  to  flow  freely  again.