JUDE MURRAY | SAMA FABIAN
ON THE EDGE
by Ali Glenny
If we really set out to boil Hatha yoga down to the bones, maybe what would be left
at the bottom of the saucepan is the principle of edge. Working on the edge isn’t
the same as going to our limit, particularly in the dynamic forms of yoga. There’s
a lot of confusion about this. It’s in the nature of Astanga Vinyasa, because of
the degrees of escalating physical challenge that it presents, to attract people
who like to dance on the brink of the precipice. It may be only when injury or exhaustion
forces us to re-evaluate our practice that we begin to question the wisdom of habitually
hanging on by our finger-nails. As we start to explore our physical, psychological
and emotional experience more subtly, we may discover that the brink is not the only
edge, that in fact there is a spectrum of edges, each one representing a different
degree of intensity.
Eric Schiffmann describes the multiplicity of edges like this:
Each pose has a ‘minimum edge’ and a ‘maximum edge’, as well as a series of intermediary edges between these ... [The maximum edge] 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 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.
He suggests that we can approach each succeeding edge as a gateway. Once we have fully experienced the sensations at a particular gate, we may pass through and onto the next. The intention is not to race through the final gate, but to be as present as we can to the threshold where, in each moment, we find ourselves. In other words, edge is not one place or a single arrival; it’s never discovered, mapped, done and dusted. Edge is an ongoing process, an endless dance of shifting experience. Nor is the edge really separate from us. There’s no thin black line out there against which we in here pit ourselves. Edge is intrinsic, a unique product of the interplay between our individual body and psyche with a particular asana in a particular moment in time.
Cultivating an awareness of how we relate to edge is important not just because it
enables us to practise yoga without injuring ourselves, but also because our relationship
with edge on the mat directly reflects our relationship with edge in our life. If
we are unconscious of our edge in yoga postures, we will also be unconscious of our
edge in our life, habitually redrawing the same patterns in the sand and wondering
why they never look any different. Those of us who routinely back away from challenge
in our yoga practice, choosing postures that we find easy and non-threatening, remaining
in the shallows emotionally and physically, will pitch ourselves on the same kind
of edge in life. Likewise if we practise yoga constantly on the verge of pain, at
the outer limit of our endurance, our flexibility, our capacity for emotional presence,
this will be the way we lead our life.
It’s easy to see how the backed-off edge can be a form of avoidance. So too, though,
can the far-out edge. For one thing, many of our knottiest challenges lie in the
intermediate places. If we bypass these locations, we can circumvent the often complex
and subtle difficulties that they present to us – but then we don’t learn their lessons
either. For another thing, the far-out edge tends to be a place of high adrenaline.
It may give us access to states of intense bliss, but if we are not securely grounded,
these experiences can bring in their wake an unwanted backwash, leaving us feeling
wired, strung-out, over-excited, and full of emotional and energetic static.
This is not to diss bliss – definitely not. In my experience, though, the ecstatic
states that arise from yoga serve our well-being when they are fully integrated rather
than pursued at the expense of the rest of our emotional experience. The edge here
lies in our ability to continue offering our attention to what’s happening for us
in the here and now: in our capacity to stay present to our experience without seeking
to change it, dissociate from it or manipulate it. When we notice that we are absenting
ourselves in this way, we know that we have overshot our edge. We bring ourselves
back by simply accepting what’s happening now – which doesn’t mean that we have to
try to like it if we don’t, just that we allow ourselves to look at it. If there’s
an emotional reaction, we notice that too; if there’s a desire to escape – into fantasy,
drugs, alcohol, boredom, complaining, food, TV ... anything that can distract us,
temporarily, from what’s actually going on – we also notice that. We notice all of
our writhing and squirming, all of our drama and our resistance and our desire to
coerce things into a different form than the one they are currently taking, and we
let it be. As Godfrey Devereux explains:
Each edge is a doorway to your true self. It opens all by itself. All you have to do is get to the threshold and stay there, resisting the huge impetus to retreat, or the subtle demand to push on through.
Astanga Vinyasa involves a process of dynamic surrender. ‘Dynamic’ means hanging on in there, offering the best of our energy and our sense of direction. It means staying awake. ‘Surrender’ means letting go into the reality of exactly what is in each moment – which may be that we don’t have much energy, we’ve lost our way and we’re falling asleep. Learning to walk this edge skilfully requires a lot of practice – which is why we need to get onto our mat every day. The more we practise, the more we find there’s space around the edge to play. We develop finesse and audacity. We may choose to pitch ourselves against risk, without inner compulsion but because danger is a facet of human experience and so we include it in our exploration.
My favourite image of edge is Philippe Petit wire-walking between the Twin Towers.
For me, it represents the point at which the edge dissolves and we find ourselves
abiding in the still point at the centre of the posture, suspended in pure presence.
The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness, Erich Schiffmann (Pocket Books 1996).
Dynamic Yoga, Godfrey Devereux (Thorsons 1998).
Ali Glenny (Yoga Register Teacher)
astanga vinyasa / yin yoga / meditation
phoenix rising yoga therapy
ali@movingprayer.co.uk
www.movingprayer.co.uk
020 8317 3767
YOGA FOR PEOPLE LIVING WITH CANCER
by Jude Murray
As yoga practitioners, we know that yoga makes us feel better, which is why (even
on days when we don’t feel like it) we get drawn back to our practice because we
know and understand how much better yoga makes us feel on all levels -
I began working with people living with cancer four years ago and discovered first hand how yoga and complementary therapies give support to people living with the disease. I now teach yoga, relaxation and breathing techniques on two days a week at Friends of the Beatson, a purpose built centre within the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre in Glasgow. Friends of the Beatson provides a retreat away from the clinical environment where patients can come and have complementary therapies, sit and relax, read a book, listen to music, use the internet, or have a warm drink in a pleasant and therapeutic environment. It is a very special place and I feel privileged to be able to offer yoga as one of the range of therapies and activities on offer to the hundreds of patients who visit the centre each month. I also welcome people living with cancer into my own yoga classes.
At the centre, I mostly see people on an individual basis and work with a range of
techniques that we would all recognise as yoga. Whether it is in the luxury of a
one-
Cancer does not necessarily mean that people are going to die and in many cases people live long, healthy and productive lives following a cancer diagnosis. Despite this, receiving a diagnosis of cancer and dealing with the treatments can cause fear, anxiety, panic, anger, a feeling of loss of control, as well as sleeplessness or depression. Add this to the unsettling nature of being in hospital plus the side effects of treatments and medications such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, stem cell transplants, antibiotics or steroids and people can be going through a very difficult time.
Teaching yoga to people living with cancer can be challenging both in terms of adapting
the practices to suit the varying personal needs and abilities and coping with the
emotional aspects of working with people with a life threatening illness. Flexibility
is key, for example, adapting yoga for someone hooked up to an IV drip or sitting
in a wheelchair. It is important to be open to becoming familiar with and using
a range of practices that come under the yoga banner -
Experienced yogis will inevitably turn to their practice when faced with a cancer
diagnosis and I find that I can readily guide them to use their yoga in a way most
suited to their particular needs. However, very often a person living with cancer
will have had no experience of yoga, or anything even remotely holistic, so, keeping
language neutral and ideas simple, it helps to spend quite a lot of time on first
meeting, talking about how they feel physically, mentally and emotionally and asking
about symptoms and side-
Ideally the yoga extends beyond the lesson to be of use to the person when they most
need it, to help them feel calmer, more balanced and more able to cope with what
is happening to them in their cancer journey. One of my yoga students, Lorna, was
diagnosed with cervical cancer at the beginning of 2009. Writing to me about her
experience she wrote that “Life will always give us new challenges and receiving
a cancer diagnosis was certainly a challenge for me. I can remember in the days following
diagnosis how grateful I was to have a practice to turn to, in order to give me processing
time, where I could completely focus on me and where I was at…As I look back at my
journey from diagnosis through treatment, recovery and on in to wellness I feel that
my yoga practice has been fundamental in allowing me to meet the requirements of
each stage in an authentic and constructive way…Yoga has brought me in to an integrated
relationship with my body, heart and mind. During the demanding parts of chemotherapy
and radiation treatments I was able to stay centred and grounded in myself. I think
that this is because yoga has really encouraged me to listen to myself in deeper,
reflective and non-
It is this aspect of self-
Jude Murray (Mahashakti) is a Yoga teacher (YRT 500 hrs) and complementary therapist living and working in Argyll on the West Coast of Scotland. She teaches regular Hatha, Yin and Pregnancy Yoga classes and workshops and is the creator of Celtic Yoga Journey. She works two days a week at Friends of the Beatson, based at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre in Glasgow teaching yoga and relaxation to people living with cancer.
TOP | JUDE MURRAY
NOTES ON PRANAYAMA
General Considerations by Sama Fabian
The word pranayama refers to a practice involving the action of two forces: prana and consciousness. Prana is the kinetic vital power that moves within the breath and consciousness is the principle that knows and effects. The science of pranayama is the intentional regulation and arrest of the vital currents of energy in the body.
In affecting prana, we affect consciousness and vice-versa.
Of the five vayus, prana and apana are directly related to breath and the most accessible
to our intentionality. In the Upanishads they are respectively referred to as inhalation,
moving inwards and producing an upward surge from the navel to the throat and exhalation,
moving outwards and triggering a downward release from navel to anus.
Where there
is breath there is rhythm and polarity, of left and right, above and below, expansion
and release, internal and external, moon and sun, , full and empty, individual consciousness
and cosmic consciousness.
When integrating our pranayama practice we come to a silent stillness where those
polarities meet in equilibrium, a still point.
This regulation of the breath is effected through a variety of procedures, which
range from simple observation to highly refined graduations in ratio, rhythm and
volume.
Some practices are cooling and pacifying while others are energising or heating.
Some awaken vitality while others tame excessive vital surges.
All can be performed at different levels of intensity, and if practiced with discernment
can effectively transform unconscious negative patterns, restore homeostasis at an
organic level, and also help with mental and emotional disturbances.
Pranayama is a delicate art and although the exercises themselves can easily be understood
conceptually, if not practiced with integrity, that understanding serves no purpose
but to feed the current all too common greed for more information and more techniques.
The practice requires an undivided commitment under the discriminative guidance of
an experienced teacher. Prana Shakti is a highly refined jewel that can cast the
careless practitioner into the darker recesses of a disturbed energy body or reveal
to the sincere Sadhaka the vibrant luminosity of a higher and broader consciousness.
Contact
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