Beyond Your Comfort Zone: Exploring the Edge in Yoga
Boat Pose (Navasana), balancing effort and ease
“Find Your Edge”
Yoga teachers often ask you to find “your edge”.
When I was younger practitioner and teacher, I interpreted this to mean going to the end limits of what I could do. It caused me to push as I worked to find the place where I could maintain a sense of equanimity, while being able to breathe.
As an older and wiser practitioner, I recently have been exploring “not quite to your edge”. I discovered this is where I truly can practice with steadiness and ease. I feel like I’m exploring places I previously skipped past in my practice and I feel a different connection to my core. Equally as important, this exploration causes me to deal with the inner voice that I need to “do” more to get the best experience.
Effort and Ease
Have you ever held a yoga pose and felt both challenged and strangely comfortable?
Your “edge” is a place in a yoga posture where you are mentally and physically challenged yet also able to find comfort and ease. Your "edge" is a sweet spot where you're pushing your boundaries but still maintaining good form. Your edge lies at the line of your comfort zone, and it can show you you’re more capable than you think you are.
Your edge can be explored in how you hold a physical shape, the amount of time you hold it, your ability to manage your breath in the pose, and in the state of your mind. It’s an ever-changing place of awareness, perception, and discernment. It changes daily, and it is different for everyone.
Yoga Sutra 2.46:
sthira-sukham-āsanam
Steady and comfortable is posture.Yoga Sutra. 2.47:
prayatna-śaithilya-ananta-samāpattibhyām
Both relaxation of continued effort and unity in the infinite.
Exploring Your Edge
The way you explore your edge will vary depending on your experience level and individual strengths and weaknesses. Someone with strong core muscles might find Boat Pose (Navasana) easier than Seated Forward Fold (Paschimottanasana). This highlights how your edge is constantly shifting.
Beyond the Edge: The Power of Yielding
While finding your edge has numerous benefits, there's also power in exploring a space just before it. This might involve backing off from a pose slightly. It can be just as challenging, but in a different way, and can lead to a deeper understanding of your body and mind.
The Edge: A Place of Growth
Your edge is a dynamic space that changes from day to day and pose to pose. It's where you experience the perfect balance of effort and ease. This doesn't mean every pose should feel easy – sometimes reaching your edge is precisely what leads to growth and deeper awareness.
If you have strong abdominals and thrive on poses that center on core work - but get anxious during stillness of “simpler” poses like forward folds or restorative poses. In which pose is your effort greater?
Are you a muscular person who easily holds athletic poses for longer periods of time but struggle with the sensations of stretch in poses that demand more flexibility? Where is your edge in those places?
If you are experiencing mental physical and struggle due to pain, injury, or a major life change are you open to a shift in your yoga practice? Some people define this as “going backward”, but change is a natural part of a yoga practice, and it is an opportunity for growth. Minds have edges, too.
Quieter poses like Seated Forward Fold (Paschimottanasana) require less physical effort than many other poses. Yet there is subtle efforting that can be difficult to maintain, such as lifting the kneecaps and keeping length in the spine. The mind also tends to wander in forward folds.
The sensation in my calves is agitating me in this picture. I found myself tensing in my shoulders in reaction. Consciously relaxing and changing mental focus to observing sensation without attaching feelings changed the entire experience of the pose.
Are you at your edge?
If you’ve got a competitive personality, you may tend to ride the edges in your practice. What happens when you back off a bit, allow yourself to be less “right”, and you may access a new edge in more subtle, physical layers. You also might explore different ways to find ease.
Newer practitioners who have fear, injuries, or tend to get distracted, may be happy to explore less than their edges. Maybe you can intelligently explore going that extra inch you don’t think you can, work on alignment with your breath, and discover yourself questioning some pre-held definitions you have held about yourself.
The edge is intuitive and perceptive. Look for the steadiness and comfort on your mat. Practice, and all will come.
About The Author
Gwen Yeager is an LA-based yoga expert who loves helping people deepen their practice in practical ways that work with real-life (she’s also a cancer survivor and mother of twins). She provides her students with resources to incorporate healthy movement, breathwork, and mindfulness into every nook and cranny of living. While her teaching style is down-to-earth and approachable — she’s a stickler about the science of movement and proper anatomical alignment because nothing is more important than long-term mobility and a vibrant quality of life!
