ixFOREWORD
Yin yoga has exploded in popularity—and for good reason. We would all
be well served by adding yin practice to our routines, and Travis’ book is an
excellent guide for doing just that. Grounded in his personal experience of
discovering the potential for yin yoga to heal and strengthen, Travis expertly
leads you on a path to this transformational practice.
I first met Travis at a teacher training on yoga medicine, myofascial release,
and Chinese medicine I led in Spain, where we were able to connect and
share a common interest in the powerful physical effects of these practices.
There are many elements that make yin practice so powerful, and the effects
on the fascia are one important part. Fascia is a type of connective tissue that
creates a three-dimensional scaffolding, interconnected from head to toe to
support and protect. Working with the fascia is an important facet of physical
healing, regardless of whether that is done by another person (as in massage
and other forms of bodywork) or by yourself (as with self-myofascial release
methods and yin yoga). Maintaining movement in the fascia is important so
that tissues can easily glide past each other and maintain proper hydration,
neurologic feedback, pliability, and elasticity.
Tight and restricted fascia can become a source of tension to the rest of the
body, producing pain or restricting movement—an all-too-common scenario
in our modern times. Although hatha yoga practices can slowly retrain the soft
tissue over time, working directly on the fascia with yin yoga can dramatically
speed up soft tissue changes and assist in maintaining pliability and strength
of the fascia and other connective tissues. Yin yoga is an excellent method
of stimulating self-healing, and I use it with a variety of patients, including
professional athletes, caregivers, doctors, mothers, and office workers. As a
yoga teacher and as a health care provider, I believe this type of yoga practice
is still an extremely overlooked aspect of tissue health and overall wellness.
Another aspect that is important to acknowledge is yin yoga’s effect on
the body’s vital energies. Subtle energy, or chi, is often referred to as our life
force or energy on the verge of materializing. A yin practice allows us to be
introspective as a way of better adjusting to the fluctuations of this energy in
the body. In Chinese medicine, health is depicted as the delicate balance of
yin and yang. In this book, Travis’ simple explanations of these concepts help
the reader understand the importance of balancing these opposing forces of
yin and yang in our lives, helping the reader to more easily identify how to
amplify health and wellness on a daily basis.
We spend so much of our day-to-day life motored by the adrenaline-fueled
sympathetic nervous system (SNS, the fight or flight system) that our parasym-
pathetic nervous system (PNS, the rest and digest system) can weaken and lose