The Five Yin Yoga Asana Archetypes (As Taught By Paul and Suzee Grilley)
Please note that this is my understanding and interpretation of Paul and Suzee’s teachings and any errors or mistakes or misinterpretations are mine and mine alone. :)
Some notes on asana taxonomy: Depending on your background and training, you will likely refer to yoga asana either by their Sanskrit or English, Westernised names (referred to as ‘Western names’ for the rest of this article). This might confuse you when you hear Yin teachers speaking about asanas whose names are unfamiliar to you. Yin Yoga has its own pose classification system; Paul and Suzee Grilley (and others in the Yin Yoga community) have ‘renamed’ asanas to reflect the need for the practitioner to treat them as a different pose due to the inherently different nature of a Yin practice. For example, eka raja kapotanasna (the variation where you fold over your front leg), commonly known as pigeon, is renamed sleeping swan in a Yin Yoga practice to emphasise the need to approach this pose in a less active, more supported, and relaxed manner. It is completely valid to refer to these poses in any way that your students understand - at the end of the day being a good teacher is about being relatable to the students and meeting them where they are in their education about Yoga and in their practice. I personally prefer some Yin names in my classes and also use Sanskrit and ‘Western’ names depending on the audience. In this article I will refer to the asana by their Yin names for ease and clarity, seeing as this is an article about Yin Yoga theory and practice. Note too that the list of asana in the archetypes are not exhaustive - there are many creative ways to access target areas and I would invite you to explore them!
Archetypes are notably recurrent themes that we experience when moving our body in asana. They are motifs, patterns, and help us to classify and understand the biomechanics of shapes that we use in (Yin) Yoga practice. Paul Grilley and his wife and teaching partner Suzee Grilley have devised five main archetypes that encompass the majority of the asana experienced in the Yin Yoga practice. (There are seven, they claim, that encompass the totality of Yoga asana.)
These archetypes are useful tools to adapt your own practice to your unique body and for understanding how to adapt students to the intention of your class. They allow for a greater scope of practice and understanding them will make you a better teacher. Guaranteed.
The idea of archetypes is built on the fundamental idea of target areas, that is, the parts of the body (joint segments/myofascial groups) targeted by the asana. As a teacher of the physical aspect of Yoga, we are trying to affect a physical or energetic shift, and the idea of target areas is our ‘how-to’, the way we execute our intention in a personal practice or in a classroom environment.
Let’s say you want to teach a class to support the flow of Qi on the Gallbladder Channel (Meridian). You might be able to sequence, in a class of 20, pigeon pose to work this outer thigh and buttock area, and it’ll work great for 80% of the class. 20% may not be able to access this pose due to physical limitations or injury (let’s say some have reduced external rotation and some have trouble extending the back femur/hip. Using the archetypes as created by Paul and Suzee, you are able to offer the remaining 20% of the class options to access this area that are more accessible and they’ll a) enjoy the class better and b) feel more purposeful in their practice knowing that they’re getting the same effect as the rest of the class in a more appropriate and comfortable position.
Some examples of alternatives for these students are: wall pigeon (takes the back hip out of the equation, allows for more control of depth of pose, creates more support through the use of the floor), or shoelace pose (relies less on external rotation, instead the knees are stacked and the student creates the stretch through flexion at the hips) or even a supine cross-body twist (accesses the ITB and glute area without relying on external rotation of the femur, support of floor). All these poses, while LOOKING vastly different, still access the same TARGET AREA - this means that each student is effectively accessing in their body the most potent stretch for their GB channel. Individual, personalised, conscious practice. Isn’t that what we’re all aiming for?
The archetypes and their physical and energetic intentions are mapped out below. Take note in your own practice and in the feedback from your students what the effects of the poses are having and develop your own vocabulary for the lived experience of these shapes.
SHOELACE
Primary Physical Target Area: Gluteus muscle group (Glute medius, maximus, minimus, ITB, external rotators and piriformis possibly, GOGOQ). (Note: Possible to target the spine and other joint segments in these asanas, but the primary target is the outer hip and outer thigh.)
Primary Energetic: Gall Bladder channel (Liver Yang).
Asana examples: Sleeping Swan and variations, PE-style ‘butt’ stretches like Thread the Needle, Shoelace, Broken Shoelace, Square, supine foot in strap twist (across the body), Wall Swan, etc
CATERPILLAR
Primary Physical Target Area: Spine, hamstrings
Primary Energetic: Urinary Bladder channel (Kidney Yang)
Asana examples: Forward bends - think Caterpillar, ½ Butterfly, Butterfly, Snail, etc
DRAGONFLY
Primary Physical Target Area: Groin
Primary Energetic: Liver/Kidney channels.
Asana examples: Straddle-style poses, Frog, Dragonfly, ½ Dragonfly, Supine foot in strap (out to the side), etc
SADDLE
Primary Physical Target Area: Quads, Hip Flexors
Primary Energetic: Stomach/Spleen, Kidney channels
Asana examples: Backbends (with a hip flexor stretch), Sphinx, Seal, Saddle, ½ Saddle, Dragon, Swan, etc
TWIST
Primary Physical Target Area: Spine, possibly Pecs, or Lateral body
Primary Energetic: Urinary Bladder channel (also can affect Liver, Spleen, Heart, Lung, Small Intestine, etc depending on the type of twist, though typically we do a twist for the spine thus the UB channel)
Asana examples: Reclining Spinal Twist, Twisted Roots, Rolling Panda, Twisted Dragon, Seated Spinal Twist, etc
The archetypes are useful because not every person can perform all poses from all archetypes. The nuance of practice and teaching is knowing how to find the target area through intelligent asana choice. Depending on your physical makeup and your unique state of being at the time of practice (which will affect the hydration of your fascia etc), you may opt to select a different asana from each archetype category. If your student’s are limited in their range, you, as a wide, educated, intelligent teacher, are able to select asana using the idea of archetypes and your understanding of biomechanics, anatomy, and energetics to assist that particular student in finding the target area in their unique body.
The functional approach to Yoga has NOTHING to do with how the pose looks. The purpose of yoga asana, as Paul puts it, is to ‘harmonise the flow of Qi in the body.’ We do this by applying appropriate stress to a target area; again, to quote Paul: “Do you feel the stress in the target area?” Good asana teaching is based on an intentional selection of the pose that will best affect change in the target area in each student’s body, not a uniform sequence that students are expected to conform to.
Note that stress as a concept here is a desirable outcome of time spent in a pose accessing the deepest layers of tissue. Appropriate stress stimulates the tissue to adapt and change, and in time, become stronger. There is a misconception that stress is bad, but the whole premise of Yin Yoga is based on applying intelligent stress to the tissues of the body to affect physical and energetic change. This is NOT restorative practice, though the effect of physical and energetic shift experienced via the practice can be restorative.
I hope this article has highlighted for you some useful tips on teaching varied populations and helps you adapt your own practice and teaching in order to better serve yourself and your students.
xx Tahnee