One of The Yin Story

 Other than "Qi Deficiency", aging or "imbalances of Qi", 

the misalignment of your lower spine is one of the common reason

why you start to have frequent soreness/pain that bothers you. 4/3/2021

Yin teaches us to recognise our needs to stay grounded, still and relax. And hopefully we can cultivate a strong practice to feel the “balance”. And eventually find the balance in life. This is always my aim in teaching.

Sadly, quite often we can feel the imbalances in physical body as well as the mind. Either part can affect our emotions and state of “balance”.

Nowadays, we can find “what is Yin Yoga” or “How to do Yin Yoga” online easily. If yin is something that we can practice based on a few theories and pictures, then I think the world will be problem-free, stress-free... Because Yin is not like computer programming course, “clicking” on buttons and creating instructions.

It took me years to feel the “balance”. Even after teacher training courses and some workshops, I didn’t really know how to find balance in life. Each course served me at the exact time to answer my quest back then. I learned about Chinese philosophy and meridians of the body in a ttc, learned about a lot of body movements, anatomy and some Indian philosophy from another ttc, learned about quieting the mind and mindful living from a beloved teacher, and many more workshops.

I worked in commercial beauty salons before attending all these courses, and that was my really down time in my personal life. Didn’t even know all the negative things I experience back then were due to my deep insecurity and unable to pick myself up and take up my responsibilities in life.

So I spent all the savings for the first ttc (yes it was not cheap and I have to stay in a big city for months, jobless while attending it). Certain about the course would bring me a new force, new knowledge, new career and new “me”.

But I crawled back to beauty work and continue living in the city away from home, back to the “old” me but at least with some new “knowledges” . That was when my secondary school mates just finished their university lives and wanting to go out to work.

And then I attended another ttc after I have saved enough for that.

... ...

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And then I met a dear friend that brought me many important lessons and good memories. Thankful for everything she shared. I saw from her and her family, what living mindfully should be, saw the passion and wisdom from each one in the family. To me, I really felt home with them in a foreign country, they simply planted so many good seeds in my life by just living truly, passionately and mindfully.

*the real learning is in our daily lives. And the real teaching must addresses the issues in our daily lives as well.

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In the past 10 years of purely teaching Yin, I always struggle to infuse the meaning of yin in a class. Usually only a few will continue learning if it’s a group class. And eventually I start to doubt about myself and my class. What the real meaning?

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After 10 years now, I started to include CAT relaxation techniques in Yin to fulfil the needs for balance. I’m not a physician, not expert in meridien or Qi, I seldom talk about them in the class. Currently, I feel so connected to CAT techniques because of the simple and clear method and tools to allow practitioner to confront the real “problem” in the body and mind. (Finding balance without even talking about balance)

So many layers and perspectives where all I have learned previously can finally be EXPERIENCED, and I can teach based on my own experience, more interestingly, every Catalist is so excited to learn from the student’s progress (from the direct feedbacks of the body and mind).

Meaning, you feel your pain/imbalance/area to be care for, very clearly, and with proper guidance, you know exactly what to do in the practice. And therefore, you definitely feel the change