87T.E. What’s your favorite yin yoga pose?
J.B. My favorite yin yoga pose has evolved. [laughter] I want to say it’s shoelace
pose. I love that one because not many poses in yoga really focus on putting
the hips into internal rotation, it tends to be an externally rotated dominant
practice.
T.E. What’s your least favorite yin yoga pose?
J.B. I’m going to say caterpillar. [laughter]
T. E. Why should people make the time for yin yoga?
J.B. A lot of people are attracted to the yang energy. They want the pump. I
think that once people realize that, then they know they need to add more of
a parasympathetic-style aspect to their life. A lot of the diseases that plague
mankind, especially in the West, are the diseases of overexcitement, where
you have way too much tension and inflammation and toxicity accumulating
inside of the body. We need to tap into the part of the system that restores,
that regenerates, that deals with our growth and development, that allows for
our immune system to get turned on, and that allows for our energy system
to get turned on. Yin is how you reboot, restart your system, get your energy
levels back up, and shift out of fight or flight. And there’s a part of me that
wants to just say, “Don’t be such a fool; there’s another part of your body that
needs to be fed and nourished, and you’re only doing the hard pounding, the
charging, and your body needs a chance to refresh.”
Or we could just say it’s good for your joints and it’s good for your ligaments.
It’s going to open you up, you’re going to be more flexible, and you’ll have
better performance in various aspects of your life. Because the people who are
just pounding with the yang only, are tapping into half of the story, and they’re
missing out on the other half.