Chapter 8 Playing The Edge

A large part of the art and skill in yoga lies in sensing just how far to move into a stretch. If you dont go far enough, there is no challenge to the muscles, no intensity, no stretch, and little possibility for opening. Going too far, however, is an obvious violation of the body, increasing the possibility of both physical pain and injury. Somewhere between these two points is a degree of stretch that is in balance intensity without pain, use without abuse, strenuousness without strain. !ou can e"perience this balance in every posture you do. #his place in the stretch is called your $edge.% #he bodys edge in yoga is the place just before pain, but not pain itself. &ain tells you where the limits of your physical conditioning lie. 'dges are marked by pain and define your limits. (ow far you can fold forward, for e"ample, is limited by your fle"ibility edge) to go any further hurts and is actually counterproductive. #he length of your stay in a pose is determined by your endurance edge. !our interest in a pose is a function of your attention edge. In daily life, he we can to remain within a familiar but limited comfort *one by stating away from both our physical and mental edges. #his would be fine e"cept that as aging occurs these limits close in considerably. +ur bodies tighten, are range of movement decreases, and our strength and stamina diminish. ,y consciously bringing the body to its various limits or edges and holding it there, gently nudging it toward more openness with awareness, the long, slow process of closing in begins to reversed itself. #he range e"pands as the edges change. Sensing where your edges are and learning to hold the body there with awareness, moving with its often subtle shifts, can be called $playing the edge.% #his is a large part of what youll be doing in your practice. !our skill in yoga has little to do with your degree of fle"ibility or where your edges happened to be. -ather, it is a function of how sensitivity you play your edges, no matter where they are. #his is a very freeing idea. .ormally, we have an idea of how the posture $should% be. /e have ideas about how deep we should be able to go into a pose, but we should look like while we are there, and how long we should be able to stay. /e are often more aware of what we arent than what we are. #his idea of the $completed% or $ideal% posture as a specific destination somewhere it the future is often a lurking presence in the back of our minds as we do the poses. ,ecause of this, there will necessarily be a gap between where you are in the posture and where you think you should be. #his gap, more often than not, contains a subtle frustration, a conflict, a feeling that where you are is insufficient0or worse, who you are is insufficient0and that if you were truly doing yoga properly and were a $good% or $evolved% person, you would be somewhere other than where you are. If this is the case, your practice will be permeated with the effort of going somewhere else. It will be future1oriented, the present moment being, significant only as a stepping stone to the future. And you will miss being present. 'nvisioning the postures in advance can yield dramatic results, however. And watching someone else do and advanced and difficult posture that you would like to achieve can be especially helpful, both because you see it is possible and can be performed with ease, a because your nervous system0simply by watching0receives a tremendous about of nonverbal information about how to perform the pose correctly. (aving that information in your nervous system and the back of your mind as you practice can make that pose easier for you, as one as you use it as a general guidelines that you understand will be

e"pressed differently in your body. #he way to reali*e these changes is by focusing your attention on the process of what you are doing. #his involves flirting with the tight spots, your edges, with sensitivity and attention. #he main thing to understand is that there is no such thing as a $completed% or $ideal% posture. 'ach posture is an ever1evolving, constantly moving energy phenomenon that is different from day to day, moment to moment, and person to person. If the process sensitively flirting with your edges and achieving perfect energy flow is not merely the means to achieve the pose0it is the pose. #his is what the physical aspect of yoga is fundamentally all about. !our body is limited in movement not only through its genetic makeup, but through the conditionings that have accrued over the years. As you age, this become more and more apparent. !oga is a way of e"ploring these limits. Its not a matter of $(ow can I attain this or that final posture2% Its a matter of gently pressing into the various edges you encounter within the template structure of each particular posture. And your edges and limits will change as a by1product of this e"ploration) you will change.

Intensity and Pain

!ou should never be in pain to as you practice yoga. !our practice should not be a painful ordeal, but rather an e"pression of joy. &ain is most easily defined as a sensation you do not like, and it always involves a natural withdrawal mechanism. /hen you put your hand on a hot stove, for e"ample, instantly you take it off. ,efore youre being aware that your hand is on the stove, its off. #his is a built1in self1protective device. #he same withdrawal mechanism is activated whenever a yoga stretch begins to hurt. 3uscles clamp down and contract in order to protect themselves from overstretching. #hey are suddenly less willing, fearful, and they resist the stretch0 naturally. And they do this, to whatever small or large degree, before you are even aware its happening. #his is blatantly at odds with your initial intention to stretch, open, and e"pand your physical boundaries. #herefore, by pushing into pain you are actually working against yourself. /hat foot is on the accelerator, and one foot is on the brake. &ushing and working hard are fre4uently appropriate and can be thoroughly enjoyable at the right moments, but they should never result in pain. !ou may want to approach pain and get near it, but not actually be in it. !ou want to be in the place where it $hurts good,% where you know you are dealing with what needs to be dealt with0the contracted parts of your energy field0but where its not so intense that you resist, tighten up to protect yourself, or prevent yourself from going too far. #he ideal state for practice is to be as willing and rela"ed as possible, as nonresisting as possible, so that one part of you is not in opposition to another. !ou can then comfortably press your edges open. #he practice becomes one of being rela"ed and willing at your deeper edges) and this isnt necessarily easy. Its difficult to stay rela"ed in the midst of a high1intensity stretch. !ou want to stay within your comfort *one where you are safe and, at the same time, press into the various tight areas. ,y pressing, stretching, and breathing into your tight areas, you can ease them open, thereby e"panding the boundaries of your comfort *one. Its like being inside a bubble and gently pressing outward from inside to e"pand its shape, so that you e"perience more space and comfort within the bubble. &ain lurks just beyond your deepest edges as a reminder that you have gone too far. Its important for anyone who spends time nudging edges open with yoga to have a

healthy understanding of pain0and to have a feeling for the distinction between pain and intensity. #he word pain actually stands for a variety of different possible sensations raging anywhere from sharp and intense to subtle and dull. &hysical pain may arise from a variety of causes) a pulled muscle, for e"ample, or from a stretch thats too intense. &sychological pain often involves the feeling that you are in a place you dont like, doing something you would rather not be doing. (erein lies one of the reasons for the fre4uent confusion between intensity and pain. A powerful stretch, whether or not you have gone too far, will generate an intense sensation. Someone who is not used to intensity or is e"cessively worried about getting hurt may be afraid of the intense sensation and resist it. Resisted intensity becomes pain. #herefore, even relatively mild levels of intensity can be e"perienced as pain if you go beyond your psychological edge. If fear prevents you from going deeper or staying longer in a posture, it is wise to avoid overriding the fear by being brave or courageous, since this makes injury more likely. Instead of pushing past psychological limits, open more slowly by finding a less intense level of stretch just before fear enters. (old the position there as you deepen the breath, rela", and acclimati*e to the stretch. ,y playing the edge of fear like this, you never have to e"perience psychological discomfort. #his can have a very profound influence on all aspects of your life. +ne of the things you learn in yoga is to enjoy working with intensity. Intensity is simply more $energy% at any given moment, more feeling. (appiness and sadness, for e"ample, can both the e"perienced with more or less intensity. If you are unable or unwilling to deal with an increase in intensity, however, not only in your yoga but in your daily life as well, your range of life e"perienced will necessarily remain limited and narrow. !oga can teach you to enjoy an learn from a broader range of e"perience. It will encourage you to seek out and process more intensity. #he more you do this within the safe area of yoga practice, the more it will influence all of your life. #his is not as intense as it may sound. 3ore intensity isnt even noticeable as you become open and strong. #his has two distinct advantages. 5irst, youll will be able to allow more pleasure into your life. 3ore good will come to you because you are open and receptive, no longer pushing it away. !ou will e"perience more joy and find yourself able to handle the heightened intensity of happiness. (avent you noticed that even in the midst of joy, something you thought you wanted, there is often a part of you that wants to turn it off2 +r at least turn it down a bit2 Its difficult to handle intensity of any kind, even if you like it. !oga can change this for you forever. As you are able to generate more energy and process more intensity in the poses with enjoyment and full willingness, you will correspondingly be able to receive and process more goodness in your life. Secondly, yoga teaches you to e"perience the so1called $negative% emotions and intensities without being overly disturbed by them, the having to run away from then. #hey will feel less intensive than they previously would have. !ou will then be able to learn from the $bad% and painful e"periences in life without being bowled over by them. And therefore, because your full range of life e"perience is being broadened and enlarged in all directions, you are now able to learn from both the $good% and $bad,% making your life that much richer. It is important to learn how to generate voluntary intensity deliberately and willingly, by deepening the breath, increasing the current, strengthening your lines, and flirting with the various edges that arise in each pose. #his is best learned in postures that are easy for you. In these postures any intensity you e"perience is largely self1generated. 6earn to create voluntary intensity in these easy poses and an the early stages of any pose

you do, and then delicately press into your tight areas in order to nudge them gently to greater openness. #his will prepare you for the intensely pleasurable sensations that come with the territory of advanced yoga. Intensity is pleasurable when you are prepared for it, when you are able to let go into it) it becomes unpleasant when you resist it or generate too much. Skill in yoga involves creating the perfect amount of intensity0not too much, not too little.

Minimum and Maximum Edges

'very pose has a $minimum edge% and a $ma"imum edge,% as well as a series of intermediary edges between these. 3ost of us are aware of the ma"imum edge, it is the easiest to detect. #his is the point where the stretch begins to hurt. It is the furthest point of tightness beyond which you should not go. If you were to force yourself beyond this point, you would definitely be in pain and might easily hurt yourself or pull a muscle. #he minimum edge is where you sense the very first sensation of stretch, the very first hint of resistance coming from your muscles. 5or e"ample, bending over and touching your toes may ta" you to the ma"imum, but about halfway down 7or less8 you can sense the first edge. #his is where you initially become aware of a stretch. It is important to be aware of your very first edge, your minimum edge. #aking your time to open that edge is like preparing to go through a series of gates. !ou must go through the first gate before you can go through the second, and the second before the third. #he real key to depth in postures is going slowly, making sure you have thoroughly opened your early edges. As you come into a pose, look for your very first edge. 9o not rush past it. /hen you feel that edge, stop. Stop moving, deepen the breath, clarify your energy lines, and wait for it to open. !ou will know the first edge has opened when the sensations of stretch begin to diminish. At that point you will naturally want to go deeper into the posture. -ather than having to push your way in, you will feel drawn into the pose. As you are drawn deeper, a new edge will soon appear, and the sensations of stretch will come back. /ait for the sensations at this new edge to diminish before going deeper. 9o this over and over. /ait for the sensations of stretch to diminish somewhat and then go deeper. It will feel as though you are sneaking into the pose, not barging your way in. &roceed slowly, edge by edge and gate by gate. Apply pressure and wait for the musculature to open. #hen you can move deeper into the pose, apply more pressure, all the while orchestrating the tone of the pose with the breath and current, and waiting for the musculature to open and the sensations of stretch to diminish. :ontinue working like this until the musculature will no longer release. #hen stay where you are and be motionless. -etain the sense of energy and stretch, and release every hint of strain. ,e as rela"ed as you can be) do and dont1do. /hen you sense that it is nearly time to come out of the pose, delicately accelerate your energy for a moment. 5inally, release the stretch altogether and come out of the pose. /hile you are at each new subse4uent edge, deepen the breath, define and clarify your lines, and pay close attention to the actual feelings of the stretch. ;eep tabs on whether you are enjoying yourself or not. If not, why not2 5ind a way of doing the pose that is enjoyable. And then be interested Are the sensations increasing2 If so, its a sign that you are too deep in the posture and should back off a bit. Are the sensations staying the same2 If so, stay where you are, deepen the breath, and wait for the sensations of stretch to diminish. And when the sensations of stretch have diminished somewhat and you are able to rela" with intensity, you will instinctively know it is time to go deeper.

&roceed step by step, edge by edge, paying close attention to what you are doing, being sensitive to be changing sensations of stretch. -emember, yoga is essentially an awareness process wherein you attend to these subtle shifts in sensation and feeling. #he attention you give to these changing sensations of stretch is what e"ercises and develops your sensitivity. !ou will become sensitive to subtler and subtler sensations. /hen the sensations of intensity no longer diminish at the new edge, it means your muscles are not yet ready for a stronger or deeper stretch. !ou can flirt with these tight areas by pressing into them gently, by changing the strength and character of your breathing, by increasing and decrease the current in your lines, by staying in the posture longer, or by doing several repetitions of the pose0but do not force your way through them. -espect your tight edges. 6ure them to greater openness. #he more you do this, the better youll get at it. Instead of telling your body when to move or what to do, youre learning to wait until its ready. !ou wait off the inner feeling to tell you when to move. !ou listen for the inner cue to action, and this becomes easier and easier to detect. /hen you feel the energy flowing freely and the sensations of intensity beginning to wane, thats the sign. If you go too fast, however, the sensations will increase instead of diminish. #here will be pain0a roadblock to the free flow of energy. #his is feedback that you have gone too deep, too fast, too soon. ,e interested in the feedback youre receiving from your body while you are in the pose. 6ets take an imaginary pose and rate it from one to ten. $+ne% is the beginning of the pose. $#en% is as far as you can go before reaching pain. #here is no pain in the one1to1ten range, though the sensations of stretch will become increasingly intense has you approach ten. Anything beyond ten we will not consider. As you proceed from one to ten, the intensity will gradually increase. At one you will not feel much, but somewhere around two or three you will feel your first edge. 3ost of the time we rush past these early edges, looking for the real stretch deeper in the pose. Its important, however, to find your first edge and acclimati*e yourself there before deepening. It is the opening of this early edge that allows the later, deeper openings to occur. If youre early edges are not fully open, your body will not be ready for the intensity of the deeper e"tensions. Somewhere around eight or nine and inching into ten is what I would call your ma"imum edge, the deepest e"tension or degree of intensity you are now capable of sustaining without pain or discomfort. -emember, never push yourself into pain. It your limits in a posture are marked by pain, and if the intensity of the stretch continues to increase as you come closer and closer to your ma"imum edge, how do you tell the difference between pain and intensity2 'asy< #he answer is obvious. If you do not like the sensation and you do not want to be there, its pain. Its totally up to you. #his is your yoga. !ou are not here to punish yourself or do something you dont want to do. !ou are learning to generate an intensity that is attractive, pleasurable, that you like and want. Its something you are actually looking for. At your ma"imum edge, just before pain0but not in pain0is and intensity that is e"tremely pleasurable. #herefore, go slowly. #ake your time. 9ont mess that perfect point. Increase the intensity of the pose gradually and deepen the pose with care. #his will teach you to enjoy and assimilate greater amounts of energy and intensity. #he feeling1toned of a perfectly orchestrated strong stretch at a deep edge has a seductive 4uality to it. Its intense, pleasurable, e"hilarating, and invigorating. !our body will like it. #his should not be surprising, however, because by stretching your body to full openness, you are praying yourself from the constraints of tightness, contraction, and pain. !ou are increasing your internal energy flow, flushing new life through your system, opening and nourishing yourself at very deep levels) and all of this

is good for you and therefore feels good. ,ut if you unawarely press too deeply, too 4uickly, into a posture, then the pleasurable and attractive sensations of intensity will become painful and unattractive. If you happen to go too far into a stretch0$too far% meaning you do not light it0than ease out of the pose until you do. :enter yourself in your breathing, regain composure, and then slowly go in again, being more careful this time. ,e clear about this if you start not liking the stretch for any reason, then move out of the pose until you find a place you do like. -easons for not liking where you are can be physical or psychological. !ou may be stretching the muscle too much, or you may not be in the mood. 'ither reason is valid. .ever be in a place you dont want to be. If you do not like it, change it. Adjust. 5ind the degree of stretch you can totally immerse yourself in. Sometimes you will want to flirt for seriously with your various resistances and with the common reluctance to stay with an intense, and perhaps uncomfortable, sensation for an e"tended period of time. ,ut doing this when you want to do this is different from doing it when you do not want to. If you avoid feedback and spend a lot of time being uncomfortable or in pain, you are not going to enjoy doing yoga. !ou will not look forward to your practice. !ou will not be working with the principles of opening. And by encountering unnecessary tension and resistance, you go not be doing your body any good, either.

Edges, Breathing, and Wholeness

Since your movements and stretches will be coordinated with your breathing 7$3ove when you breathe, and breathe when you move%8 the most subtle and sensitive way to play your edges and fine1tune the feel of your stretches is with your breathing. /ithout the sensitive use of your breathing, your stretches cannot be precise. #he muscles and lines are not sensitive enough in themselves, nor sufficiently delicate, to fine1tune they stretch accurately. #he overall feeling in your muscles and body is the sound of yoga. #he sound is a feeling, a tone, a feeling1tone) its very much like singing a note. And if $ sharp.% :ontinual readjustment is necessary to stay perfectly tuned. I usually create a line of energy that is slightly flat, just below perfect tension and with low current. I then deepen the breath as I increase the current to fine1tune the line. #his enables me to press delicately into an edge from the insight out without invoking the stretch1refle" withdrawal mechanism) and if I happen to go too far, I soften my breathing, that all the edge somewhat, decrease the current in my lines, then try again. In this way it is possible to create a strong current of energy in any given line, or flirt with a ma"imum edge, or perform a difficult and advanced posture without forcibly pushing beyond physical and psychological edges. #he moment you do that, remember, your intention will fragment, and your attention will wander. !ou will begin to resist what you are doing, part of you wanting to continue and part of you wanting to stop. #he hallmark of practicing yoga probably, however, is wholeness, whole1 heartedness, not being in conflict. #he idea is too generate wholeheartedly the optimum intensity of energy by consciously creating and increase or decrease in current. !ou then use this energy to e"tend your boundaries and limits, to e"pand your comfort *one, basically0both physically and psychologically speaking. !oga is not about $ pushing through the pain,% $ overcoming the pain,% $ no pain, no gain,% or about being e"cessively willful. It you are having to be brave and courageous in order stoically to withstand e"cessive intensity, you are pushing too hard. !ou are forcing the issue,

fighting. Never fight yourself. !oga is not about fighting. #here is no advantage to this and there are many disadvantages. 'ase up when necessary. Intensify when appropriate. &ractice skillfully. #he optimum degree of intensity is the amount that elicits your ability attention) sometimes this will be a lot, and sometimes this will be a little. #he correct amount is the amount that helps you be one1pointed and whole. It is the amount that feels perfect to you now. #oo much is a strain, and too little is not sufficiently interesting. !our mind will wander in either case. Getting $better% at yoga means getting better at generating the perfect degree of current, intensity, breath, and feeling so that, in that moment, you are consciously one with what youre doing0whole, not conflicted, and e"actly where you want to be. #herefore, learn to be more interested in the feeling1tone of your body than in how deep you are in the posture. 6earn to create and energy flow that is attractive to you. 9o this by pressing into your edges with the perfect degree of current and the perfect pitch of breath. -eali*e this is not a function of how fle"ible you are. A stiff body can do this just as beautifully as a fle"ible one. #he beautiful inner music0the inner feeling 0is the yoga, not the achievement of elaborate postures. And be assured, your body will grow more beautiful and become strong and fle"ible by being played beautifully. #his is where the concept of push and yield most meaningfully displays itself. #he art of yoga lies in how well you play your edges, how delicately you flirt with your limitations, how well you lure yourself deeper into the postures, how sensitively you balance the desire to achieve results with the rela"ing of non1desire and surrender, and how thoroughly you immerse yourself in the process and enjoy what you are doing. And again, the primary tool you use is your breathing. !our breathing orchestras the feeling1 tone of the poses as it brings them to life. ;eep in mind that the various poses are like maps into your body. (aving a map, however, does not infer a specific goal or a predetermined destination of where you should be in the pose. #he idea is too use the map to e"plore0to look deliberately for tight, blocked areas within yourself0open them, and thereby create lines of clean energy flow. #his re4uires that you be delicate, deliberate, and e"actly, not in the sense of $blueprint,% but in the sense of being increasingly inwardly sensitive for the specific alignment and intensity of stretch that feels most right. #his entails pressing for greater depth in the poses, greater openness, yet also remaining passive and yielding. !ou knock on the door, breathe, wait, then go deeper when the musculature lets you in. =se your breathing and energy lines to nudge into your edges, being watchful and patient. 9o not barge in, but also dont just remain passive. Apply pressure in specific areas, increase the intensity gradually, breathe, and wait for them to release. 6ovingly persuade the tight areas to open, breath by breath by breath. :ommunicate nonverbally to the various tight areas that it is in their best interest to rela" and open. !ou this by finding easy places in the poses where you can establish an energy flow, then bring this flow into the contracted area. Again, never push yourself into positions that cause you to resist the stretch physically or emotionally. Always start from comfort and safety, and only increase the stretch after youre comfortable where you already are. #hen feel free to go after your deeper e"tensions and stronger stretches. =se as much ambition and desire as you want. &ush as much as you want. 6et go as much as you can. ,ut learn to do all of this with sensitivity. 9eepen the breath and increase the force in your lines at relatively easy stages, then wait and be patient. !our body will open and let you in when its ready. ,y staying at easy stages of the pose longer, you will increase your strength and endurance.

!ou will need these in order to hold the increased fle"ibility that will accrue through time and practice. Skill in yoga is a matter of harmoni*ing your breathing with your energy lines as you flirt with your edges. Its a matter of getting all three just right, of changing them when necessary, and of adjusting and readjusting in order to create the feeling1tone that is the most attractive to you in that moment. Its a matter of adjusting the tension and stretch of your muscles, and the pitch of your breathing, too produce the perfect feeling1tone. !ou can make it e"4uisite. #he more perfect it is, the more one1pointed and focused your mind will be.