When practicing the postures, it is important to "find your edge" or experience the balance of not going so far in a stretch that you cause injury, but going far enough that your body is challenged. The following
is an excerpt from the book "Yoga, the Spirit and Practice of Moving
into Stillness" by Erich Shiffmann.
A
large part of the art and skill in yoga lies in sensing just how far to
move into a stretch. If you don't 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. You can experience
this balance in every posture you do.
This
place in the stretch is called your "edge." The body's edge
in yoga is the place just before pain, but not pain itself. Pain
tells you where the limits of your physical conditioning lie. Edges are
marked by pain and define your limits. How far you can fold forward, for
example, is limited by your flexibility edge; to go any further hurts
and is actually counterproductive. The length of your stay in a pose is
determined by your endurance edge. Your interest in a pose is a function
of your attention 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. This would be
fine except that as aging occurs these limits close in considerably. Our
bodies tighten, our range of movement decreases, and our strength and
stamina diminish. By 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 reverse
itself. The range expands 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."
This is a large part of what you'll be doing in your practice. 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.
This
is a very freeing idea. Normally, we have an idea of how the posture "should"
be. We have ideas about how deep we should be able to go into a pose,
what we should look like while we are there, and how long we should be
able to stay. We are often more aware of where we aren't than of where
we are.
This
idea of the "completed" or "ideal" posture as a specific
destination somewhere in the future is often a lurking presence in the
back of our minds as we do the poses. Because of this, there will necessarily
be a gap between where you are in the posture and where you think you
should be. This gap, more often than not, contains a subtle frustration,
a conflict, a feeling that where you are is insufficient - or worse, who
you are is insufficient - and 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
future-oriented, the present moment being significant only as a stepping
stone to the future. And you will miss being present.
Envisioning
the postures in advance can yield dramatic results, however. And watching
someone else do an 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, and because your nervous system - simply
by watching - receives a tremendous amount of nonverbal information about
how to perform the pose correctly. Having that information in your nervous
system and the back of your mind as you practice can make that pose easier
for you, as long as you use it as a general guideline that you understand
will be expressed differently in your body. The way to realize these changes
is by focusing your attention on the process of what you are doing. This
involves flirting with the tight spots, your edges, with sensitivity and
attention.
The
main thing to understand is that there is no such thing as a "completed"
or "ideal" posture. Each posture is an ever-evolving, constantly
moving energy phenomenon that is different from day to day, moment to
moment, and person to person. The process of sensitively flirting with
your edges and achieving perfect energy flow is not merely the means to
achieve the pose - it is the pose.
This
is what the physical aspect of yoga is fundamentally all about. Your 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 becomes
more and more apparent. Yoga is a way of exploring these limits. It's
not a matter of "How can I attain this or that final posture?"
It's 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 by-product of this exploration; you will change.
Intensity
and Pain
You
should never be in pain as you practice yoga. Your practice should
not be a painful ordeal, but rather an expression of joy. Pain is most
easily defined as any sensation you do not like, and it always invokes
a natural withdrawal mechanism. When you put your hand on a hot stove,
for example, instantly you take it off. Before you're even aware that
your hand is on the stove, it's off. This is built-in self-protective
device.
The
same withdrawal mechanism is activated whenever a yoga stretch begins
to hurt. Muscles clamp down and contract in order to protect themselves
from overstretching. They are suddenly less willing, fearful, and they
resist the stretch - naturally. And they do this, to whatever small or
large degree, before you are even aware it's happening. This is blatantly
at odds with your initial intention to stretch, open, and expand your
physical boundaries. Therefore, by pushing into pain you are actually
working against yourself. One foot is on the accelerator, and one foot
is on the brake.
Pushing
and working hard are frequently appropriate and can be thoroughly enjoyable
at the right moments, but they should never result in pain. You may want
to approach pain and get near it, but not actually be in it. You want
to be in the place where it "hurts good," where you know you
are dealing with what needs to be dealt with - the contracted parts of
your energy field - but where it not so intense that you resist, tighten
up to protect yourself, or prevent yourself from going too far.
The
ideal state for practice is to be as willing and relaxed as possible,
as nonresisting as possible, so that one part of you is not in opposition
to another. You can then comfortably press your edges open. The practice
becomes one of be relaxed and willing at your deeper edges; and
this isn't necessarily easy. It's difficult to stay relaxed in the midst
of a high-intensity stretch.
You
want to stay within your comfort zone where you are safe and, at the same
time, press into the various tight areas. By pressing, stretching and
breathing into your tight areas, you can ease them open, thereby
expanding the boundaries of your comfort zone. It's like being inside
a bubble and gently pressing outward from inside to expand its shape,
so that you experience more space and comfort within the bubble.
Pain
lurks just beyond your deepest edges as a reminder that you have gone
too far. It's important for anyone who spends time nudging edges open
with yoga to have a healthy understanding of pain - and to have a feeling
for the distinction between pain and intensity.
The
word pain actually stands for a variety of different possible
sensations ranging anywhere from sharp and intense to subtle and dull.
Physical pain may arise from a variety of causes, a pulled muscle, for
example, or from a stretch that is too intense. Psychological pain often
involves the feeling that you are in a place you don't like, doing something
you would rather not he doing.
Herein
lies one of the reasons for the frequent 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 excessively
worried about getting hurt may be afraid of the intense sensation and
resist it. Resisted intensity becomes pain. Therefore, even relatively
mild levels of intensity can be experienced 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. Hold the position there as you deepen the breath, relax,
and acclimatize to the stretch. By playing the edge of fear like this,
you never have to experience psychological discomfort.
This
can have a very profound influence on all aspects of your life. One of
the things you learn in yoga is to enjoy working with intensity. Intensity
is simply more "energy" at any given moment, more feeling. Happiness
and sadness, for example, can both be experienced 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 experience will necessarily remain limited and narrow. Yoga can
teach you to enjoy and learn from a broader range of experience. It will
encourage you to seek out and process more intensity. The more you do
this within the safe arena of yoga practice, the more it will influence
all of your life. This is not as intense as it may sound. More intensity
isn't even noticeable as you become strong and open.
This
has two distinct advantages. First, you will be able to allow more pleasure
into your life. More good will come to you because you are open and receptive,
no longer pushing it away. You will experience more joy and find yourself
able to handle the heightened intensity of happiness. Haven't 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 off? Or at least turn it
down a bit? It's difficult to handle intensity of any kind, even if you
like it. Yoga 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 experience the so-called "negative" emotions
and intensities without being overly disturbed by them, without having
to run away from them. They will feel less intense than they previously
would have. You will then be able to learn from the "bad" and
painful experiences in life without being bowled over by them. And therefore,
because your full range of life experience 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.
This is best learned in postures that are easy for you. In these postures
any intensity you experience is largely self-generated. Learn to create
voluntary intensity in these easy poses and in 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. This 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 intensity - not too much, not too little.
Every
pose has a "minimum edge" and a "maximum edge," as
well as a series of intermediary edges between these. Most of us are aware
of the maximum edge; it is the easiest to detect. This 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.
The
minimum edge is where you sense the very first sensation of stretch, the
very first hint of resistance coming from your muscles. For example, bending
over and touching your toes may tax you to the maximum, but about halfway
down (or less) you can sense the first edge. This is where you initially
become aware of a stretch.
It
is important to be aware of your very first edge, your minimum edge. Taking
your time to open that edge is like preparing to go through a series of
gates. You must go through the first gate before you can go through the
second, and the second before the third. The 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. Do not rush past
it. When you feel that edge, stop. Stop moving, deepen the breath, clarify
your energy lines, and wait for it to open. You 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. Rather 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. Wait for the sensations at this new edge to diminish before
going deeper.
Do
this over and over. Wait 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. Proceed slowly, edge by edge and gate by gate.
Apply pressure and wait for the musculature to open. Then you can move
deeper into the pose, apply more pressure, all the while orchestrating
the tone of the pose with the breath and current, again waiting for the
musculature to open and the sensations of stretch to diminish. Continue
working like this until the musculature will no longer release. Then stay
where you are and be motionless. Retain the sense of energy and stretch,
and release every hint of strain. Be as relaxed as you can be; do and
don't-do. When you sense that it is nearly time to come out of the pose,
delicately accelerate your energy for a moment. Finally, release the stretch
altogether and come out of the pose.
While
you are at each new subsequent edge, deepen the breath, define and clarify
your lines, and pay close attention to the actual feeling of the stretch.
Keep tabs on whether you are enjoying yourself or not. If not, why not?
Find a way of doing the pose that is enjoyable. And then be interested:
Are the sensations of stretch increasing? If so, it's a sign that you
are too deep in the posture and should back off a bit. Are the sensations
staying the same? 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 relax with intensity,
you will instinctively know it is time to go deeper.
Proceed
step by step, edge by edge, paying close attention to what you are doing,
being sensitive to the changing sensations of stretch. Remember, yoga
is essentially an awareness process wherein you attend to these subtle
shifts in sensation and feeling. The attention you give to these changing
sensations of stretch is what exercises and develops your sensitivity.
You will become sensitive to subtler and subtler sensations.
When
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. You can
flirt with these tight areas by pressing into them gently, by changing
the strength and character of your breathing, by increasing and decreasing
the current in your lines, by staying in the posture longer, or by doing
several repetitions of the pose - but do not force your way through them.
Respect your tight edges. Work with them sensitively. Lure them to greater
openness.
The
more you do this, the better you'll get at it. Instead of telling your
body when to move or what to do, you're learning to wait until it's ready.
You wait for the inner feeling to tell you when to move. You listen for
the inner cue to action, and this becomes easier and easier to detect.
When you feel the energy flowing freely and the sensations of intensity
beginning to wane, that's the sign. If you go too fast, however, the sensations
will increase instead of diminish. There will be pain - a roadblock to
the free flow of energy. This is feedback that you have gone too deep,
too fast, too soon. Be interested in the feedback you're receiving from
your body while you are in the pose.
Let's
take an imaginary pose and rate it from one to ten. "One" is
the beginning of the pose. "Ten" is as far as you can go before
reaching pain. There is no pain in the one-to-ten range, though the sensations
of stretch will become increasingly intense as 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. Most of the time we rush past these early edges,
looking for the real stretch deeper in the pose. It's important, however,
to find your first edge and acclimatize yourself there before deepening.
It is the opening of this early edge that allows the later, deeper openings
to occur. If your early edges are not fully open, your body will not be
ready for the intensity of the deeper extensions. Somewhere around Eight
or nine and inching into ten is what 1 would call your maximum edge, the
deepest extension or degree of intensity you are now capable of sustaining
without pain or discomfort. Remember, never push yourself into pain.
If
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 maximum
edge, how do you tell the difference between pain and intensity? Easy!
The answer is obvious. If you do not like the sensation and you do not
want to be there, it's pain. It's totally up to you. This is your yoga.
You are not here to punish yourself or do something you don't want to
do. You are learning to generate an intensity that is attractive, pleasurable,
that you like and want. It's something you are actually looking for. At
your maximum edge, just before pain but not in pain-is an intensity that
is extremely pleasurable. Therefore, go slowly. Take your time. Don't
miss that perfect point. Increase the intensity of the pose gradually
and deepen the pose with care. This will teach you to enjoy and assimilate
greater amounts of energy and intensity.
The
feeling-tone of a perfectly orchestrated strong stretch at a deep edge
has a seductive quality to it. It's intense, pleasurable, exhilarating,
and invigorating. Your body will like it. This should not be surprising,
however, because by stretching your body to full openness, you are freeing
yourself from the constraints of] tightness, contraction, and pain. You
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. But if you unawarly press
too deeply, too quickly, 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 stretch - "too far" meaning you
do not like it - then ease out of the pose until you do. Center yourself
in your breathing, regain composure , and then slowly go in again, being
more careful this time.
Be
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. Reasons
for not liking where you are can be physical or psychological. You may
be stretching the muscle too much, or you may not be in the mood. Either
reason is valid. Never be in ~ place you don't want to be. If volt do
not like it, change it. Adjust Find the degree of stretch you can totally
immerse yourself in.
Sometimes
you will want to flirt more seriously with your various resistances and
with the common reluctance to stay with an intense, and perhaps uncomfortable,
sensation for an extended period of time. But 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. You will not look forward to your
practice. You will not be working with the principles of opening. And
by encountering unnecessary tension and resistance, you will not be doing
your body any good, either.
Edges,
Breathing, and Wholeness
Since
your movements and stretches will be coordinated with your breathing ("Move
when you breathe, and breathe when you move") the most subtle and
sensitive way to play your edges and fine-tune the feel of your stretches
is with your breathing. Without the sensitive use of your breathing, your
stretches cannot be precise. The muscles and lines are not sensitive enough
in themselves, nor sufficiently delicate, to fine-tune a stretch accurately.
The
overall feeling in your muscles and body is the sound of yoga.
The sound is a feeling, a tone, a feeling-tone; it's very much like singing
a note. And if a particular line of energy is not tuned just right, it
will either feel "flat" or "sharp." Continual 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 fine-tune the line.
This enables me to press delicately into an edge from the inside out without
invoking the stretch-reflex withdrawal mechanism; and if I happen to go
too far, I soften my breathing, back off 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 maximum
edge, or perform a difficult and advanced posture without forcibly pushing
beyond physical and psychological edges. The moment you do that, remember,
your intention will fragment, and your attention will wander. You will
begin to resist what you are doing, part of you wanting to continue and
part of you wanting to stop.
The
hallmark of practicing yoga properly, however, is wholeness, wholeheartedness,
not being in conflict. The idea is to generate wholeheartedly the optimum
intensity of energy by consciously creating an increase or decrease in
current. You then use this energy to extend your boundaries and limits,
to expand your comfort zone, basically - both physically and psychologically
speaking. Yoga is not about "pushing through the pain," "overcoming
the pain," "no pain, no gain," or about being excessively
willful. If you are having to be brave and courageous in order stoically
to withstand excessive intensity, you are pushing too hard. You are forcing
the issue, fighting. Never fight yourself. Yoga is not about
fighting. There is no advantage to this and there are many disadvantages.
Ease up when necessary. Intensify when appropriate. Practice
skillfully.
The
optimum degree of intensity is the amount that elicits your fullest attention;
sometimes this will be a lot, and sometimes this will be a little. The
correct amount is the amount that helps you be one-pointed and whole.
It is the amount that feels perfect to you now. Too much is a strain,
and too little is not sufficiently interesting. Your 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
you're doing - whole, not conflicted, and exactly where you want to be.
Therefore,
learn to be more interested in the feeling-tone of your body than in how
deep you are in the posture. Learn to create an energy flow that is attractive
to you. Do this by pressing into your edges with the perfect degree of
current and the perfect pitch of breath. Realize this is not a function
of how flexible you are. A stiff body can do this just as beautifully
as a flexible one. The beautiful inner music - the inner feeling - is
the yoga, not the achievement of elaborate postures. And be assured, your
body will grow more beautiful and become strong and flexible by being
played beautifully.
This
is where the concept of push and yield most meaningfully displays itself.
The 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 relaxation of non-desire 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. Your breathing orchestrates the feeling-tone
of the poses as it brings them to life.
Keep
in mind that the various poses are like maps into your body. Having a
map, however, does not infer a specific goal or a predetermined destination
of where you should be in the pose. The idea is to use the map to explore
- to look deliberately for tight, blocked areas within yourself - open
them, and thereby create lines of clean energy flow. This requires that
you be delicate, deliberate, and exact, 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. This entails
pressing for greater depth in the poses, greater openness, yet also remaining
passive and yielding. You knock on the door, breathe, wait, then go deeper
when the musculature lets you in.
Use
your breathing and energy lines to nudge into your edges, being watchful
and patient. Do not barge in, but also don't just remain passive. Apply
pressure in specific areas, increase the intensity gradually, breathe,
and wait for them to release. Lovingly persuade the tight areas to open,
breath by breath by breath. Communicate nonverbally to the various tight
areas that it is in their best interest to relax and open. Do 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 you're comfortable where you already are. Then
feel free to go after your deeper extensions and stronger stretches. Use
as much ambition and desire as you want. Push as much as you want. Let
go as much as you can. But learn to do all of this with sensitivity. Deepen
the breath and increase the force in your lines at relatively easy stages,
then wait and be patient. Your body will open and let you in when it's
ready. By staying at easy stages of the pose longer, you will increase
your strength and endurance. You will need these in order to hold the
increased flexibility that will accrue through time and practice.
Skill
in yoga is a matter of harmonizing your breathing with your energy lines
as you flirt with your edges. It's a matter of getting all three just
right, of changing them when necessary, and of adjusting and readjusting
in order to create the feeling-tone that is the most attractive to you
in that moment. It's a matter of adjusting the tension and stretch of
your muscles, and the pitch of your breathing, to produce the perfect
feeling-tone. You can make it exquisite. The more perfect it is, the more
one-pointed and focused your mind will be.
