"Playing the Edge"

In daily life, we tend to remain within a familiar but limited comfort zone by staying away from both our physical and mental edges.

Your skill in yoga has little to do with your degree of flexibility or where your edges happen to be. Rather, it is a function of how sensitively you play your edges, no matter where they are. ~ Erich Schiffmann

I taught a class the other day and asked my students to "be" the poses or the essence of the name of the pose. For instance in Cat/Cow (Marjariasana/Bitilasana), I asked them to be a cat with back rounded up to the ceiling and to be a cow with high hips and shoulders and arched back. Then I asked if they found it easier to be one than the other. "Are you fine with being a cat, but you don't want to be a cow? Notice that and see if you can be both." Later a student said to me, "you're the only one who can get away with saying, 'be a cow' in class." That made me laugh and appreciate my students for playing the edges with me.

Edges come in many forms... physical, mental, emotional, psychological, endurance, balance, breath, and more. They are the place before pain, a feeling of unease or difference, or an urge to avoid or become distracted. Edges change day to day, pose to pose, and breath to breath. I like to think of them as the edge of my comfort zone which can be found in yoga and in life. As I become aware of my edges, sit with them and gently lean or breathe into them in some way, they may open or change. This is a reason why yoga and life are never boring. There is constant change and always something to become aware of. With my Yoga Comfort Zone  there are beautiful paradoxes of stillness and movement, limited and unlimited, ease and unease.

I played an edge in starting this blog, starting my website, and when I became a Yoga teacher. Every pose holds a different edge. My favourite at the moment is the edge between silence and noisy thought found in Corpse Pose - Savasana.

Core asset... find your comfort zone and live on the edge :)

Where do you find yourself "playing the edge?"