Hypermobility & Yin Yoga

Different degree of flexibility in the joints

She is laying on her yoga mat, next to mine. Classical music is playing and in the background the instructing words from our instructor Paul Grilley. For an esthetic oriented yogi with no knowledge of the fact that every individual’s bones are like no others, it probably looks like we are practicing two totally different styles of yoga. In fact, we are both practicing same Yin Yoga pose, with the aim to affect same part of the body. Janet Lau, with her flexible joints and bones that allows for a greater range of motion is beautifully wrapped in her own arms and legs, while I in comparison barely can move before I find the stretch. Our teaching colleagues are humorously saying that at least I am ”Janet of Life” with my background in the police force and stories outside the mat. On the mat I’m far from Janet, and what is often negatively referred to as hypermobile. Something that often causes confusion with both students and instructors, and unfortunately keeps a huge part of the students away from Yin Yoga.

Focus on muscles or bones and ligament?

The first question a yogi needs to ask themselves before their practice is whether the purpose is to work with muscles or bones/ligament. Do you want to strengthen the muscles in order to stabilize your joints or do you want to stretch your ligaments to increase flexibility of your joints? All of us needs to do both, and this text explores option two: to stretch the ligament of the joints.

To create a somewhat simple foundation and understanding for how we need to practice yoga in different ways and with different attitudes, we can refer to muscles as Yang tissue and bones as Yin tissue. Yin tissues includes ligament (fascia). To perform yoga in regards to owns purpose, a yogi needs to understand the difference between muscle and ligament sensations. Muscle stretch feels in general sharper and more shallow and is often easy to recognize. Ligament sensations are deeper, due to the reason that ligament is the tissue on the deep that keeps the bones parts together.

You are unique

We know that we are all different. We see that on the surface. But it’s not as clear that our deepest joints also are different. Fact is that your bones are not the same anyone else. The length of your femur, the depth of your hip pit, the thickness of your femoral head and the space between your ryggkotors kotutskott. hundred percent different from anyone else’s. And this is of enormous importance, since it affects the extent of the range of motion you have the possibility to do in yoga.

Tension vs compression

In yoga there are two crucial things that decides how deep we can go in a pose. Tension or compression. In practice this means that you assume the pose you will be limited by tension, which involves tension in you muscles/fascia, or an anatomical stops where your bone parts near and your are in compression. After weeks, months, or years of yoga you might get rid of your tension, which means you will end up in an anatomical stop. This in turn means that bone meats bone (often with tissue in between, that bounces), and there is a stop. You will never be able to pressure through this in your skeleton, and sometime we need (our ego?) accept that our skeleton doesn’t allow us to perform certain poses, regardless how often we hear that we need to breath more and pressure deeper.

Find balance

For some, like my colleague Janet, the skeleton allows a great range of motion which often entails hypermobility. Does this mean that Janet is not allowed to practice Yin Yoga with the possibility of injuring herself? Well, you can exaggerate and over-do pretty much everything. You can practice Yang Yoga and injure yourself, and similarly Janet can practice Yin Yoga with as much effect as anyone else. You just need to understand the difference in how you should practice and find your own balance in how deep you can go, whether it is Yang or Yin Yoga.

The shape of your bones

The first thing we must let go of is that hyper mobility is something negative. It is simply ”the shape of your bones”. If you are very flexible in your joints, you probably need to practice one part Yang Yoga to stabilize your joints but you should and need to practice Yin Yoga. In the correct way, with the right attitude.

Theory of exercise

ALL tissues in the body needs exercise, in accordance with its type. Yang tissue is trained in a Yang way, that is muscles work out with repitition, movement and several breaths. Yin tissues, active living tissues in the body, must exercise, but in a Yin way with an Yin attitude, that is static with stillness and several minutes. When risk and injuries occur in Yin Yoga it depends on the fact that Yin Yoga is practiced with Yang attitude.

Why do we practice Yin Yoga?

In Yin Yoga we recreate full motion in our joints. The older we get, the more our fascia is dried out, which makes our joints contract. On an energy level we want to stretch our ligament to open up a flow of chi/prana in our meridians/nadis, that is said to stagnate in particular our joints. For a student with skeleton that allows big rang of motion, it means that a free flow of chi/prana needs to be created. As mentioned, Yin tissues are active living tissues that needs to be stretched to avoid stagnation.

Guidelines for students with and without hypermobile joints

When we practice Yin Yoga, we assume a pose with the aim to stretch a particular area (target area). For some, the pose is felt immediately. For others, with bones allowing for a wide range of motion must go deeper in the pose to be able to stretch where they want. In this respect it is important to make sure to hold the feeling of stretching focused on the muscle group is aimed at. Let us take the example of Dragonfly Pose which aims to stretch the muscle group along the inside of the thigh, our adductors. If the stretch is very close to the joint, that is close to the ligament in the hip joint or along the inside of the knee, it is a good idea to adjust the pose so you feel it in the ”stomach” of the adductors, namely the central to the middle of inside thigh. We are not only targeting ligaments in Yin Yoga, but also the fascia that surrounds and penetrates our muscles. With this in mind, you can move the stretch towards the muscle fascia and hold the stretch more moderately around the ligament.

Hypermobile Janet on why she practices Yin Yoga


There are many flexible people over here in Asia and we love Yin Yoga. For me, there are a few things I get from yin which I couldn´t get from yang:

• A platform to meditate. 

• It helps me relase my emotions. Being flexible in poses doesn't mean we cannot feel the stretch. Especially the rebound. In my earlier days (when I was working through the tension), many poses stirred up my anger and frustration. By learning to hang in with the pose, I learned to recognize my emotions and stay with discomfort.
• I've noticed that when I'm challenged by emotional storms or when my body are about to get sick, my body becomes a lot tighter (might not look tight on the outside but it feels VERY tight), and afterwards I usually feel more nourished and supported.
• Yin helped me gain my flexibility a lot quicker than yang, and it helps me maintain the flexibility. (I don't get as open if I only do yang), especially since I do a lot of handstands and stuff, my body can become relatively tight (again maybe not to the eyes of general public), so yin helps me maintain my full range of movement.
• The nourishment, healing and quietness of yin cannot be replaced by yang.

Yin Attitude

So dear yogis, practice Yin Yoga with a Yin attitude. Yin Yoga is not about how deep you can go in a pose. It is about finding the sensation from the inside, and hold it for x minutes. Bernie Clark’s mantra can be helpful in Yin Yoga: ”If you’re feeling it, you’re doing it”.

Written by: Sofie Ringsten