By Bernie Clark
January 13, 2025
This question was asked of me recently: “I’m curious to know your point of view about the rebound as you don’t talk about it in your book. My yin yoga teacher says it is important from an acupuncturist point of view and I find it amazing. Is there any chance you could give me an insight of how you see rebound?” This article is my answer; it investigates the rebound, what it is, how it is used and whether it is an essential part of the practice or not. I hope the answer will be of interest to many people.
Relax between postures
In many modern yoga classes, especially in the more active styles, students go directly from one posture to the next with little time spent recovering from the previous pose. This is especially so in flowing, vinyasa classes and power yoga practices. In slower-paced classes, the teacher may offer a few seconds for the students to linger in a counter-pose, but Shavasana is typically reserved for the end of the class. This was not the way yoga was taught decades ago.
Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, India (1887–1963) was a renowned Indian spiritual leader, yoga master, and founder of the Divine Life Society. Many of his disciples became well known as well and wrote dozens of books about the Sivananda style of yoga. One of the teachings was to relax before, during and after asana practice. Swami Satyananda Saraswati, a direct student of Sivananda, suggested in a 1969 book that relaxation should be practiced whenever the body becomes tired. The tension must be consciously released throughout the body. Usually, the longer the relaxation period, the better it is, but between asana postures, one or two minutes is sufficient.1
Swami Satyananda was a notable influence on Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama, a Japanese scientist, student of Chinese medicine, Shinto priest, yogi and teacher. Satyananda wrote the introduction to Dr. Motoyama’s 1981 book called Theories of the Chakras and Emancipation. In this book, Motoyama described many aspects of yoga practice including asanas. Like Satyananda, he recommended shavasana to be done whenever one is fatigued. He claimed that it will relax and energize the body, filling it with prana and balancing our energy. He also recommended shavasana before and after an asana session as well as between postures.2
Dr Motoyama was one of three influential teachers of Paul Grilley. Paul often gave Motoyama credit for providing an understanding of the energetic effects of yoga. Paul read Theories of the Chakras in the early 1990s and resolved to meet and study with Dr. Motoyama. I remember Paul saying that the idea of resting for a minute after every yin yoga posture was something he learned from Motoyama. The posture he preferred to adopt was one he called Pentacle. To do Pentacle lie on your back with legs and arms widely but comfortably spread, sink into the floor, wait, relax, and see if you can feel the flow of chi or energy within. He suggested doing this for one to five minutes whenever you felt the need.
In 2002 Paul released his seminal book, Yin Yoga – Principles and Practice. It is a short, succinct, precise summary of yin yoga. Paul wasted no words. He wrote, “Learning to relax in poses like the Pentacle helps us to feel and release tensions that are deep within us. Not just gross skeletal muscles but subtle tension in the eyes, heart, diaphragm, stomach or skull can be isolated and relaxed. This healthy habit helps us to distance ourselves from negative tensions and deal with them more effectively.”3
Paul went on to say, “…it is often difficult to feel chi and blood moving in our bodies while we are practicing the poses. The effort required to do them often obscures the subtle sensations. But, if we relax in Pentacle after practicing a difficult posture, then it is quite easy to feel the blood and chi rush into or out of certain areas of our body. Even the discomfort that we feel in the joints we have been stretching is a form of chi and we can learn to observe it objectively. This practice is a great aid to learning to guide the chi when meditating.”4
Of note, nowhere in the first edition of Paul’s book, does he use the term “rebound”.
Creep and Counterposes
My first teacher of yin yoga was Sarah Powers. In 2003 I found a video she produced and that was my introduction. Later I had the chance to attend several in-person trainings with her and eventually Paul. My own style of teaching yin yoga developed out of Sarah’s teaching overlaid with Paul’s approach. At this time Paul had not begun to use the term “rebound.” It was not mentioned in his book or Sarah’s book, Insight Yoga.5 Where Paul offered students Pentacle after every yin yoga posture, Sarah did not. Her options between postures aligned more with the way I was taught to teach Hatha yoga. After each pose, rest in an easily accessible shape. For example, after Swan, do Child’s Pose for a minute or two; after Half Shoelace, lean back on the hands which are behind you for a little while. Thus, for Sarah, each pose was followed by a brief period of rest but not in Pentacle, but rather in some sort of counterpose which either moved the body in the opposite direction or allowed the body to relax.
Counterposes are a regular feature in Hatha yoga. They make sense if you understand the concept of creep.6 All materials when subject to a constant stress over time elongate, become thinner and weaker. That is called creep.7 Living materials adapt to this stress and recover, but it takes time for the recovery to happen. The longer the stress, the greater the creep and the longer it takes to recover. In yin yoga, since the postures are held so long, a refractory period is definitely a good idea after each pose. Paul’s way of offering this refractory period is through one or two minutes in Pentacle. Sarah uses postures that vary depending upon which yin yoga pose the student was just in. My approach is more like Sarah’s, but I generally offer students a choice: lie down in Shavasana and become still, or move into a counterpose that I will specify depending upon which pose we were doing, or move in whatever way your body is craving. I do not describe the relaxation pose of Pentacle, but Shavasana is very similar. In her 2021 book, Lit from Within, Sarah uses the term Shamasana, which she defines as a “lying meditation.”8
The key is – after each yin yoga posture, some time is required to dissipate the creep that has crept into the tissues. We experience this as a sense of fragility. We have been literally pulling ourselves apart and the body needs some time to recover. We can reduce the recovery time by either moving the body in the opposite direction (counterpose) or by being still for a while, or by muscularly engaging to shrink the body. This tightening of the body is another form of counterpose. While all of these methods can work to reduce creep, Paul’s suggestion goes beyond physical recovery.
Time for Rebounding
In the same year that I released my book, The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga, Paul released a second edition of his book, celebrating the 10th anniversary of its original publication. In his second edition, he introduced the term “rebound”. Since I had not heard him use this term earlier, it was not addressed in my book.9
Paul acknowledged that our joints can feel vulnerable and fragile after a long-held pose, however, the feeling is temporary and should soon pass.10 He explained, “Poses temporarily block chi and blood from flowing in some areas and redirect it towards other areas. The rebound is what we feel after we release the pose and relax on our backs …. when we relax on our backs we can calmly focus on the sensations of chi. This can manifest either as a sense of pressure dispersing away from an area and spreading throughout the body or as a more specific feeling of energy in our spine or legs. After a minute or so the sensations morph and change into a general feeling of peaceful calmness that is not centered in any particular area.” 11
“The short-term effects of yin practice are the opposite of the long-term. The feeling immediately following a long yin pose is a sense of fragility and vulnerability. Sometimes you can feel a rebounding contraction building up that seems as if it will grow into a painful spasm, but if you stay calm during the process you will find the dreaded painful spasm does not come, and the rebounding wave will reach a crescendo and then subside …. Some students become alarmed at these sensations and immediately roll to their side and hug their knees or do some other simple counter pose. It is certainly permissible to do counter stretches after a pose, but every once in a while resolve to lie on your back and calmly observe the rebound without reacting.”
I have quoted Paul at length above because his teaching is so valuable and it is best to hear directly from him. (Actually, it is best to go out and buy Yin Yoga: Principles & Practice, Second Edition, and study it! It is less than 150 pages and is easy to digest.)
Do You Need to Rebound?
Never is never right and always is always wrong. You do not need to do anything. Yin yoga is not a dogmatic practice filled with rules and regulations. There are no yin yoga police that are going to arrest you or shame you for doing your practice in whatever way you choose. Your only guide should be, is this working for you? For that reason, I continue to offer options. Rebound after every pose if that feels good, proper and right for you. If not, try a counterpose such as the ones Sarah offers in her books and teachings. Or, go within and listen to what your body is craving and spontaneously and organically move in whatever way you feel guided to do. Whatever your choice is, do it with awareness. That is the only way to know if the selected approach is working for you. And if it is, great! If it is not, next time try something different. If you always prefer and enjoy resting in Pentacle or Shavasana after every pose, savour the rebound!
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1 “The importance of this series of relaxation poses cannot be over-emphasized. They should be performed before and after the asana session and at any time when the body becomes tired. … the tension in all the muscles must be consciously released. The muscles often seem to be completely relaxed but, in fact, tightness still remains. … In general, the longer the better although a minute or two is sufficient between asana practices.” Satyananda Saraswati, Swami. Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha. Munger, India: Yoga Publications Trust, 1969. Pages 85-86.
2 Motoyama, Hiroshi. Theories of the Chakras: Bridge to Higher Consciousness. Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1981. Pages 40 – 44.
3 Grilley, Paul. Yin Yoga: Principles and Practice. Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 2002. Page 23.
4 Grilley, Paul. Yin Yoga: Principles and Practice. Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 2002. Page 32.
5 Powers, Sarah. Insight Yoga: An Innovative Approach to Integration of Yoga, Buddhist Meditation, and Eastern Approaches to Healing. Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 2008.
6 See my February 5, 2016 article Creep and Counterposes for a more detail description of creep.
7 There is much more happening physiologically to our tissues during a posture, such as changes to the state of the water in the interstitial tissues, and changes in heat and pH levels. To describe all this would require a much longer article, so once again, please refer to Creep and Counterposes.
8 Shamasana is a unique word. I have never asked Sarah where she came up with it, but it seems suspiciously like a portmanteau of Shamata (which means calm abiding) and asana. That does evoke a lovely image of calmly abiding in a Shavasana shape. See Powers, Sarah. Lit from Within: Yoga, Teachings, and Practices to Illuminate Our Inner Lives. Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 2021, page 46.
9 I do mention the rebound in my second edition of the Complete Guide to Yin Yoga, but I do not describe it in depth. Perhaps if I do a 3rd edition, that oversight will be corrected.
10 Grilley, Paul. Yin Yoga: Principles and Practice. Rev. ed., Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 2012, page 20.
11 Grilley, Paul. Yin Yoga: Principles and Practice. Rev. ed., Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 2012, page 27.