Beyond the Meridian Map: The Evolving Practice of Yin Yoga

A new series on energy, fascia, and the future of practice

Mar 30, 2025

Welcome back to From Scratch—a space for practicing, unlearning, and beginning again. Each week, we explore how Yin Yoga, meditation, and Chinese Medicine offer steady ground in an ever-changing life.

Here’s how the week flows:

🪷 Sunday – A written reflection on Yin Yoga, Chinese Medicine, or the path of practice in everyday life
🧘 Tuesday – A Meditation Experiment—a short meditation reflection to encourage experimentation in your practice
🪔 Thursday – A Yin Practice Lab—a recorded class that explores the week’s theme through your body

These offerings are designed to unfold into one another: reflection leads to attention, attention lands in embodiment.

If you’re reading this as a free subscriber—welcome. If you’d like to deepen your experience with weekly guided meditations, full Yin classes, and essays like this one, I’d love to welcome you into the paid circle.

🌀 This post also marks the beginning of a new ongoing series on how Yin Yoga is evolving—expanding the “meridian” lens of Traditional Chinese Medicine into a more holistic, systems-based, integrative view of practice. I’ll be sharing insights, research, and reflections in this space, and I’d love to hear your questions as part of the conversation.
One of today’s reflections was sparked by a thoughtful student email.

Beyond Channels and Into Wholeness: The Evolution of Yin Yoga

There was a time when I confidently told my students:
This pose stimulates the Liver channel. That one targets the Stomach channel. By holding this shape, we’re balancing the Metal element and clearing grief.

It was neat. It was satisfying. It felt like a formula—plug in a pose, get an energetic result.

And for a while, it made reasonable sense. It aligned with my acupuncture studies and the early teachings I received in Yin Yoga. But over time, something started to tug at that certainty:

The body is never that simple.

Channels (inaccurately called “meridians”) aren’t pipes that turn on or off depending on a stretch. Fascia doesn’t function in isolation. And Yin Yoga isn’t just about targeting a single channel—it’s about engaging with the body, energy, and spirit as an interconnected whole.

This post introduces a wider view of Yin Yoga—how my understanding is evolving, and how that evolution invites a more integrated relationship with your own body.

The Old Model: Yin Yoga as Meridian Therapy

For a long time, Yin Yoga has been explained through the lens of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM):

Each posture targets a specific channel or meridian
Channels correspond to organ systems, emotions, and seasonal cycles
Holding a pose stimulates the channel, harmonizing Qi flow and rebalancing the organ and its associated emotional tone

In this view, a forward fold stretches the Urinary Bladder channel, which connects to the Water element, which supports Kidney energy, which relates to fear. Ergo, a long forward fold balances fear.

That was the model I first learned. And for a time, it served. But eventually, I started seeing where it fell short.

The Limits of the Old Model

It’s not that the channel model is wrong. It’s that it’s incomplete.

The body doesn’t work in isolation. No posture targets just one channel—every pose influences the whole system.
Fascia is a whole-body network. The connective tissue we engage in Yin Yoga is a continuous, fluid-rich web that responds in interconnected ways.
Qi doesn’t flow only through channels. Energy is dynamic. It responds to breath, attention, mood, nervous system tone—not just shape.

Every pose influences circulation, hydration, tissue remodeling, energetic tone, emotional resonance, and nervous system regulation.

The body is not a machine. It is an ecosystem.

A Student's Question: Is That Too Reductive?

Recently, a student emailed me this question:

“I’m finishing a TCM intro course and I remember you said the Kidneys and Bladder are the root of our Qi. So it makes sense to include postures that relate to those organs. But in the Foundations training, you also said we don’t have to just stretch the inner legs or the backline to affect those channels. The newer way of thinking sees all poses as supporting the whole system. So… if I say to my students something like, ‘Dragonfly targets the inner legs to nourish Kidney Qi, and that helps support the whole system,’ is that too reductive?”

This is exactly the kind of question I hope more of us keep asking. Because it sits right at the intersection of tradition and evolution.

Here’s my response (and the details will get unpacked more in future essays):

It’s not wrong. But it’s not the whole story.

That kind of language—“this pose supports the Kidneys”—can be helpful when it gives students something to orient to. But we hold it as symbol, not as mechanism.

The shape might affect the area of the channel. But so does the breath. So does the state of the nervous system. So does the quality of attention, the season, the time of day, the emotional context. A posture is part of the story—not the whole.

This is why I encourage teachers to hold these frameworks lightly. They’re helpful tools for deepening awareness—not blueprints for specific results.

Yin Yoga 2.0: A Holistic Approach

Here’s how I think about Yin Yoga now:

🕸️ 1. Fascia as a Full-Body Network

Fascia is the structural fabric of our being—a continuous, fluid-rich web that transmits force, energy, and information. Yin Yoga engages this network to support adaptability, hydration, and vitality.

🌿 2. The Body as an Ecosystem

Rather than targeting parts, we engage with systems. Every posture touches connective tissue, Qi, breath, nervous system, lymph, and emotion.

🌀 3. The Five Elements as Interwoven Forces

Rather than isolating one element per pose or season, we see all Five—Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal—as always in motion. A forward fold isn’t just about Water. It might also ground Earth, soothe Fire, or release Metal.

How This Changes Practice

Instead of asking, Which posture targets this organ?
→ Ask: What is the full-system impact of this pose?
Instead of trying to fix an element
→ Notice how all Five Elements arise and shift through the body
Instead of scripting an outcome
→ Invite an experience

This shift won’t make your teaching less grounded. It will make it more alive.

🧘 A Yin Yoga Practice for the Whole System

For paid subscribers, this Thursday I’ll share a 60-minute guided Yin Yoga session that explores this more integrated view.

Rather than aiming to stimulate a single channel, we’ll explore how fascia, breath, attention, and stillness create a unified, transformative field.

Paid members receive:

Weekly essays on Yin Yoga, Chinese Medicine, and meditation
Weekly Meditation Experiments
Weekly Yin Practice Labs

If this rhythm of reflection and practice supports you, I’d love to welcome you to practice along and join the conversation.

💬 What Do You Think?

I’d love to hear from you:

Has your own view of Yin Yoga changed over time?
Do you find the energetic language of TCM helpful, limiting, or both?
What frameworks or experiences help you relate to the body’s wholeness?

Drop a comment below—I read every one and would love to hear your thoughts on this reflection.

Here’s to evolving maps, curious minds, and soft landings.
Josh