Amrita 6: Asana through the ages - Magazine - Page 24
In exploring this perception, we can take a closer look at the
non-physical connotations of the Yin Yoga practice. Yin Yoga
began as Yin Yang Yoga, developed by American martial artist
Paulie Zink. Zink fused Kung Fu, Taoism and yoga to create Yin
Yang Yoga. This fusion was then further developed by American yoga teachers and researchers Paul Grilley and Sarah Powers. Somehow through Grilley and Powers Yin Yang Yoga became known as Yin Yoga. The essentialist cosmological
concepts of Yin and Yang which underpin Yin yoga are found
in the Ancient Chinese classic text Daodejing and equate to
feminine and masculine. They are derived from an even earlier
ancient Chinese text the Yijing which describes the feminine
concept Yin as Kun and the masculine concept Yang as Qian.
In the Yijing, the masculine concept is heaven and dominant
while the feminine concept is earthly and submissive. There
are parallels to draw between Kun and Qian and Siva and Sakti,
Prakriti and Purusa in classical Yoga philosophy. In both these
essentialist spiritual traditions the feminine and the masculine
are complementary and part of each other. In both, the feminine is described as relating to the material realm act to manifest the divine masculine metaphysical design. Kun and Quan
become Yin and Yang in the slightly less ancient Chinese Taoist
philosophy. Taoism circumvents the earlier concept of masculine superior divinity in a concept of Tao or ‘the way’. This way
of being is to move beyond the masculine and the feminine
through balancing them within the individual, but Tao goes
further and recommends that the feminine aspect be adopted
by all men in their interactions with the world. Describing the
most desirable qualities as unassertive, softness and acquiescence, qualities of Yin yoga’s approach to asana. Both classical
Yoga and Taoism then set out to harness the feminine concept
in the spiritual path to move beyond the material realm toward
the higher masculine divine, beyond shape, form and gender
as an essential universal situation of all humanity.
“As we have discovered the Yin without the
Yang is only half a cosmological philosophy.”
In this context then it is hugely significant that the Yin Yang
Yoga of Paulie Zink becomes known and practiced as solely Yin
Yoga. As we have discovered the Yin without the Yang is only
half a cosmological philosophy, so why is the Yin Yoga so popular today?
We can look for clues in another sphere of feminine thought
– western academic critical cultural theory. One academic understanding of femininity is shaped by the performed feminine
and masculine gender roles in their subservience to power relations between hierarchical structures of capitalist society and
the intersections of race and class and gender identity. In contrast to the spiritual feminine, the academic understanding presupposes ‘tabla rasa’, the blank canvas, as the foundation belief
underpinning human experience. The table rasa theory supposes persons inscribed with socially constructed identities,
independent of any essential or universal shared divine human
spirituality. Therefore, persons inhabiting a socially constructed
22 AMRITA Issue 6 / Spring 2021
