by Colleen O’Malley
About three years ago, my dear friend Jessica and I traveled to a weekend “Power Yoga” workshop led by a well-known yoga instructor named Bryan Kest. At the time, Power Yoga was my thing. I loved a vigorous practice in a studio room heated to 95 degrees and this weekend promised to deliver!
During the morning of the second day, Bryan announced that the afternoon session was going to be a 90-minute practice consisting of long held poses done completely on the floor. I recall how my heart rate went up and my mind immediately went to how I was going to get out of attending the session.
Years of running had left me with injuries and inflexibility in some parts of my body. The thought of staying still in a series of poses for a long time felt tortuous and intimidating to me.
Ultimately though, I knew that my resistance was something I needed to explore so I showed up with trepidation after lunch. During the first part of the class, I struggled with staying in the room, but then I began to notice subtle shifts. My mind became quieter and the room brighter. I could hear sounds that I had not attended to before like the rustling of the leaves on the trees outside of the window and the gentle chirping of the birds. By mid-class, a delicious feeling of contentment had washed over me and I felt a freedom and openness in my body that I had not experienced before. This was my introduction to Yin yoga and I knew I had to learn more about it.
If you’ve never tried Yin, I would highly recommend it. Sometimes called “the quiet practice,” Yin is a healing practice that targets the joints and connective tissue of the body and increases your range of motion. What I love about it most though is its meditative quality and the sense of calmness and well-being I feel after a class. It is truly magical.
Colleen Teaches Flow & Yin on Fridays at 6:15pm and Candlelight Yin on the fourth Sunday of each month at 7:00pm.
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