Why are we talking about Meridians in Yin Yoga classes?

I have a confession to make, and a soft regret to share.

For 7 years now in my yin teacher trainings I have been teaching my budding yin teachers all about the primary channels of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), and I kind of wish I had never done that.

In fact, I have now removed all information about

Chinese Medicine theory from my live in-person trainings.

And if I'm being completely honest, I would like to see the yin yoga community moving far away from talking about meridians in classes altogether.

If we have not met, hi, my name is Dr Karina Smith.

I am based in Melbourne Australia.

I have been teaching yin yoga since 2014, and I have been training and qualifying yin yoga teachers since 2018.

I have trained with some of the best yin teachers in the world including Paul Grilley and Bernie Clark.

I completed my qualification in Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine in 2019.

So, not only am I a yin yoga teacher trainer, but I am a Dr of Chinese Medicine;

an acupuncturist and herbalist.

Therefore I feel qualified to talk about this topic,

and I absolutely welcome you to chime in!

Part of my motivation is to unburden you as a teacher of Yin Yoga, from any expectation that you are supposed to be talking about Chinese Medicine in your classes.

You never have to mention meridians, TCM, organs, or seasons in your classes at all, and they will still be incredible classes that provide deep rest and nourishment to your students.

Because, isn't that really what this is all about?

Being of service to our students, rather than expecting ourselves to be walking libraries of knowledge?

Before I was qualified to teach yin or legally stick pins in people, almost everyone I met was so excited for me that I was learning Chinese Medicine,

as they would remark,

Chinese Medicine is

the "perfect complement to yin yoga".

Why?

Who started this whole notion that yin yoga stimulates the energetic meridians of the body?

I mean, don't get me wrong, it does, but all kinds of movement stimulate the meridians of the body; running, cycling, walking, vinyasa yoga,

even going to the gym!

Who started this ideology that yin yoga has an exclusive special impact on the meridians, and who started the idea that meridian stimulation can be achieved by stretching our connective tissue?

And what makes yin yoga such a special way to access this energetic flow in the body, wouldn't all types of movement do this?

Wouldn't Hatha Yoga, flow yoga, Bikram yoga all do this too?

And then, wouldn't all kinds of physical activity and sports be able to stimulate the flow of Qi in our meridians as well?

I am constantly pondering questions such as these.

After all my years of yoga practice, training yoga teachers, and sticking needles in people, I would honestly would love to know!

Don't get me wrong, I have sat at the feet of brilliant teachers such as Bernie Clark who have shared compelling ideas and correlations around fibroblasts changing shape under the microscope, the same way they do, when human connective tissue has been stretched compared to tissue being manipulated by an acupuncture needle. Suggesting that something similar is happening in the body when an acupuncture needle is turned and retained for 20 mins, as when human tissue is held in a long stretch.

I share this information in my own trainings because it is fascinating!

(If you are interested in this, check out the work of Helene Langevin).

It is undeniable that the before and after of a good yin yoga class can be profound, especially for calming the mind, settling the nervous system,

and relaxing the whole body.

I also have no doubt, that yin yoga is a deeply healing practice.

I have heard many personal accounts of the incredible outcomes people have received from a regular yin yoga class in their week.

It's just that, I have reached a point in my professional career, and my own observations in yin yoga that I am now questioning a lot of what I myself have been doing, and I am a little concerned about the kind of verbiage and eastern medicine reductionism being offered within public yin yoga classes.

Genuine Question:

If you are a teacher who talks about meridians in your classes, how are you explaining the "why" or the benefit of stimulating that meridian to your students?

Maybe you tell the class that a particular yin shape stimulates the lung channel, or the spleen channel.... but what do you say next?

What does this stimulation of the meridian do?

What expectations or complete vagueness are you offering to the class?

I recently went to a public yin yoga class (which honestly, I rarely do), and the teacher was talking about the "urinary tract meridian" and kept mentioning that by stimulating this meridian we were balancing all of the emotions in our bodies.

I'm not sure about you, but that made me cringe.

Are we really balancing out our emotions in the body by stimulating meridians through stretching?

Or is that a kind of "clutching at straws" remark, because this person does not truly understand what they are saying, and perhaps even why they feel they need to say in it a yin class?

I have a couple of theories as to why these two paradigms have been overlayed with one another, as well as a few key concerns, and I know I'm going to offend people with these theories:

Here are some theories:

1. In the early days of Yin Yoga when people were dubious of its benefits and nervous that long holds would be injurious to the joints (which we know is not true as long as you are not being overly aggressive with your practice), the idea that this yoga was healing the body through stimulation of meridian lines might have helped it to gain some more legitimacy at the time?

2. The martial arts and energetic influences of Paulie Zink and Hiroshi Motoyama encouraged people to feel into the energetic flow of the practice of yin yoga, and people started making their own intellectual connections between the meridian lines, the organs, the emotions, and therefore deduced that particular yin yoga shapes on particular yin yoga meridians would clear/treat/balance everything to do with that meridian?

3. Humans can't help but grasp at small pieces of information as they learn them, and they make their own connections and assumptions about meanings and outcomes.

Qi flow through the meridians is undebiable, and all kinds of human movement will stimulate Qi flow. However, trying to assert specific benefits of poses in relation to meridian lines is a slippery slope, and telling a room of students that "dragon will release anger from their hips", or "a forward fold stimulates the kidneys", or "lateral stretching will help them make better decisions because the gallbladder is being stimulated", are but some of the problematic and confusing things to students.

What do you think? Agree? Fiercely rebut?

Did you know you can leave a comment for this blog?

The biggest aspect of confusion is talking about human organs.

Alas, the primary meridians are named after organs in the body,

which means as a teacher, if you mention the Bladder channel, or the Lung channel, a student may naturally connect their expereince and sensations directly to their organ. This is especially problematic if they leave the class with unwanted or unfamiliar sensations in their musculature, they may begin to connect that sensation to a worry about that particular organ's health!

Here is my best example, and I refer to this all the time.

Let's say a teacher was inspired to create a yin sequence around the Bladder and Kidney meridians (I have been there, and done this, and I have classes on the internet of this exact notion).

So you can imagine there are a few forward folds included in this sequence, which will very likely target the deep thick fascia of the lower back.

Now, during the rebound (please tell me there is a rebound), if a student feels a strong, deep ache emerging from their lower back connective tissue, as the tissue itself is rebounding (a very common sensation), and/or this deep ache lingers for the rest of the day, the student may reflect back to how often they heard the teacher mention the Kidney channel...

and the most obvious connection they will make is,

"oh my back hurts after that class,

there must be something wrong with my Kidneys"

This is a huge problem!

Our students come to class with enough on their minds and hearts, they don't need to leave class concerned something might be wrong with their Kidney organs because their thoracolumbar fascia (lower back) was aching during a rebound and the teacher kept talking about the Kidney meridian during the class.

I was recently a guest on "A Yin Yoga Podcast" with the amazing Nyk Danu.

We had a much deeper and longer conversation about my concerns.

The link is below if you want to tune into the episode.

I want to share a couple of my concerns about why Yin Yoga and Chinese Medicine need to stay in their own lanes:

1. The primary meridians of TCM dive deep into the body and organs, and are not really appropriate to reference if we are talking about stretching and moving, the more appropriate set of meridians to speak about are the Sinew channels, not the primary channels. (If you are curious to learn more about the sinews, please listen to the podcast episode where i go into lots of detail).

2. Most students come to class to drop in and receive the practice. It is difficult for them to do so if the teacher is giving a mini lecture on all the aspects of a particular channel or medicinal system. The student's brains will stay in information processing mode, rather than drop into deeper states of relaxation.

3. Chinese Medicine informaton is confusing. Most yin yoga teachers dont really know what they are talking about, let alone the students. It is really easy to implant unecessary health concerns into the students minds by trying to connect the dots between their current understanding of western medicine, layered with a Chinese Medicine tidbit they heard in a class. This is not useful.

4. I have been studying this medicine for 10 years now, and I am barely scratching the surface of understanding the full depth of this medicine. A Yin Yoga class is not the place to teach this information (humbly coming from someone who was teaching this information, and has now seen just how problematic it is).

Ok, now that is a lot of me critiquing what is happening in our beloved Yin Community, and I am also humbly critiquing myself!

We are all ever evolving, learning and growing.

I'd love to leave you with some constructive tips:

(For a full read on How to sequence with Chinese Medicine in a useful way,

check out this previous ARTICLE I wrote).

• Chinese Medicine is super inspiring, AND you don't have to mention anything about meridians to still be using them in your planning and your intention for your class (see article link about for lots if ideas on how to do this).

• Make your classes relatable for humans: themes that we can all connect to such as gratitude, vulnerability, rest, balance, grounding, reconnecting back to self, etc are going to be far more impactful than giving a mini lesson about the Lung Channel in TCM.

• Less is more: your students need time to sink down into the class. Please don't make your classes too information heavy.

• The silences that you offer in class are profoundly important for your students to have time to digest, sift, and process all the things they have no time or space to do so, in the rest of their life.

• Speak to the elements rather than the organs in the body. Way less confusing, and a lot less chance of unintended medical worry.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read about my current views.

I truly hope this opens up healthy discussion within the yin yoga community, because my intention is to provide safe, restful and useful yin classes for our amazing students.

Lots of love,

Karina x

Listen to the Episode below for the full rant!

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE