Playing the edge in your yoga practice

During our practice sometimes one might try too hard and sometimes one might zone out and just go through the motions. How do we stay connected and thrive in our yoga practice? One effective way is by “playing the edge”.  The edge is that place where the mind starts to resist. The following is a quote from Joel Kramer about playing the edge:

” In each posture at any given time, there is a limit to stretch, a maximum edge. This edge has a feeling of intensity and is right before pain but is not pain itself. The edge moves from day to day and from breath to breath.

It does not always move forward, sometimes it retreats.

Part of learning how to do yoga is learning how to surrender to this edge, so that when it changes you move with the change.

It is psychologically easier to move forward then it is to back off.  But it’s as important (if not more important) to learn to move back if your edge closes, as it is to learn to move forward slowly as the body open.”

Aloha and Namaste,  Johanna