Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice

taking hold in yoga, but it is often presented in a limited manner that misses the subtlety and sophistication of this process. The concept is not limited to the idea of “staying on your edge,” or working near your maximum. Instead, it embraces an entire arena involving working with many different types of edges and many different levels for each type of edge. Surfing the edges does not only refer to “pushing the envelope” or working near your maximum limits of possibility, but includes riding the waves, understanding and using the whole range of levels within your ability for various effects and benefits.
    Flexibility is a good place to begin to learn how to work with your edges. The measurement of the edge is noticed at the minimum and, more important, the maximum limit. As you begin to move into a posture, the place where you start to meet the first sensations or feelings of resistance and stiffness is called the minimum edge. The maximumedge is the point where you feel you can move no further into the posture without pain or injury. The intermediate edge is halfway between these two points.
    Edges of strength are defined in the same way or can often be noticed by increasing strain, “efforting,” or shaking. These are important demarcations of beginning, intermediate, and maximum edges of flexibility. Working with edges is like using a volume control in your practice to adjust the intensity and level of the postures. You can learn the differences between practicing at minimum edges, maximum edges, and varying points in between, simply by beginning to use these levels. Experiment with them and watch how the different levels affect the alignment of your poses and the inner experience of your practice. Once you get the sense of surfing edges in one area of your practice, it is easy to learn in others.
    Remember, working at the maximum edges can be exhilarating, but always working at the maximum edges of strength and flexibility can become frustrating, exhausting, and possibly lead to injury. Backing off and working at a 75-percent edge can increase the level of enjoyment—another important edge. Backing off to intermediate edges, even in simple poses, can allow work in other areas such as alignment or endurance, or exploration of the counterplay of isometric and isotonic pressures—pressing externally and resisting internally to change effects of the posture, explained in a later section. (Using pain as an edge and teacher for healing is more complicated and will be explained in Chapter 7 .)
    Find your edges by beginning to move and then noticing the sensations. Stay well short of the maximum edges until your body is warmed up. You may sometimes be able to bend completely in half, for example, but your maximum edges of resistance will come well before that until you are warm and have good circulation. Let’s say you are starting with a series of Sun Salutations. Don’t begin with your best, most technically perfect poses. Don’t start at your maximum edges. Instead,warm up and slowly approach your maximum edges with successive repetitions of the salutations. This actually makes warming up easier and you will have less muscle soreness and much less risk of injury. It is like recapitulating the steps through which you progressed and learned from the beginning.
    Each time you begin your practice, pay particular attention to where your edges are that day. Edges are on the move constantly, day to day and breath to breath. Where you work in relation to these edges will have a large impact on the quality and result of your practice. Every day you have a different body. The time of day you begin, the foods you have eaten, and your activities the previous day all have a big effect. By watching these relationships you will learn a lot. Your own body and your own practice will teach you how to surf the edges.

Flow, the Dance of Control and Surrender
    Hatha yoga has a close relationship with Raja yoga, the eight-limbed path we have already discussed. The third and fourth limbs of this eightfold path are asana and pranayama—posture and breath. One of the core principles of Raja yoga is control. This system seeks mastery in living through a refined ability to control the mind, body, senses, breath, and consciousness itself. We need not look far, however, to see that there are vast areas beyond our control. In fact, we are able to control only a very small arena in our lives. Beyond control, we must also learn to