The EDGE:

Why NO Pain Means MORE Gain:
On Playing The EDGE of
Pain, Fear & Resistance

As a Yoga Teacher (or Massage/Bodywork Therapist, Pilates or Personal Trainer, Physical Therapist, etc.), issues of what to do about, and how to work with, various sensations, intense sensations, discomfort, and pain are crucial to the process. Some believe a little pain or discomfort is okay, even necessary; some believe in all out No Pain, NO Gain. Others avoid pain at all costs. … Some people avoid much sensation all together.

Regardless, as used by many yoga teachers and yoga students as well as bodywork therapists and clients, distinctions on how much sensation is not enough, too much, or just right, (The Goldilocks Equation) and what to do about it, are often imprecise, even vague. (Some use a one through ten number system; but, which exact number means Just Right, which number Too Much?) However, there are some very simple but powerful tools available to manage this process and keep people out of trouble.

This is especially important with people who are new to yoga or bodywork, as they often get hurt or dislike the experience enough to not go back. You never hear from them again and never know why. I have had many yoga students or bodywork clients that had been suffering from pains that had started in a yoga or exercise class many years prior. They had to quit because of pain or dysfunction. Or they would not return to a particular bodyworker because the manual or stretching therapy hurt worse than the condition being treated. … Or the client felt not much or nothing at all.

Most of this Trouble is Unnecessary

Many years ago, Joel Kramer, my primary yoga teacher, taught the concept of Playing The Edge of Pain and Fear, the object being to get as close to The Edge as possible without touching or going beyond it. This, what I call the Maximum Edge, is where the greatest intensity of sensation and energy exists, drawing one's attention to the area of the body being examined through postures (or hands-on pressure in a bodywork session). In this way, you get interested and involved in the sensations, even intimately involved, which naturally draw your attention to the area, rather than exerting attention via willpower. (Willpower, by definition, narrows your range of perception in time and space.)

This focused attention can bring about tremendous releases of physical and mental tension and stress in the bodymind.

Pain and fear, from a practical point of view, can be defined as anything you don't like; or are not totally neutral about.

This is NOT about what you can Tolerate

The object of treating The Edge this way is to prevent any sub- or unconscious reactivity or neuromuscular reflexes from sabotaging your practice or therapy. This can show up as pulled muscles, loss of energy or interest, pinched nerves, and so on.

In the beginning of learning to practice yoga, some questions to consistently monitor are:

• Am I Too Deep into the posture?
• Not deep enough?
• Or Just Right?
• Do I WANT to be here?
• Or am I just tolerating it?
• Am I being Honest with myself about this?
• Do I even FEEL what's really going on in there?
  

(Again, it’s like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, some porridge is too hot, some too cold, some just right.)

If you focus on these sensations, your interpretations and your reactions/responses sufficiently in the early stages of learning to practice yoga, your bodymind will learn to monitor and respond more effectively to your physical and mental edges. You will spontaneously move in or back out as your edges move in or out.

Subjectively speaking, the main difference between Spontaneous and Automatic action is that in spontaneity, YOU run the action. When you're on automatic, the action runs you. One of the things Yoga is, is going OFF of automatic toward consciously spontaneous action.

Pain & Fear versus Intensity of Sensation

Here we have an important distinction, that between pain/fear and intensity of sensation. A paper cut can be painful but not very intense. An orgasm should be very intense, but not (hopefully!) painful. Intensity is useful. Pain is also useful but warns us of many limitations. Pain, unless correctly understood, can put up barriers to experience, movement and action.

You know the difference when you are naturally drawn into the experience; there is little or no distinction in your mind between you and your sensations, no resistance to sinking deeper into the stretch. You want to be there without forcing yourself to do so. You are interested in and entranced by what you are feeling.

After playing with edges this way for a while, many people soon realize they had NO IDEA where they actually were on the scale of intensity, pain, willpower, or what their sensations were telling them. It took quite a bit of introspective energy and time — and self-restraint if they were used to going very deep — to get clear about it.

Meditation versus Willpower

When your attention is naturally drawn in, it moves you toward a meditative state, rather than having to concentrate your willpower, which is always thought-based, therefore removing you, to varying degrees, from an actual meditative moment.

Joel Kramer, J. Krishnamurti, and others, often said that you cannot achieve meditative mind through its opposites, which are concentration and willpower. They are diametrically opposed, taking you in opposite directions. (This flies in the face of some classical yogic teachings that state that concentration is a stepping stone to meditation, but that’s a whole other article.)

In any case, working with The Edge principle is one way to integrate meditative yoga with physical yoga or the bodywork experience.

At the same time, people who are traumatized or hyper-sensitized — or the opposite, desensitized — need to work with much less intensity to give them the results they look for. In either case, too much sensation can deepen trauma or further desensitize an individual. With these people, I have found that working with minimum to moderate edges is ideal. (The minimum edge is the place where you feel the absolute first bit of any sensation or resistance what-so-ever.)

The KEY is Communication

In yoga, the communication is primarily within one's self, or secondarily with the teacher, if in a class. In bodywork sessions, I encourage my Clients to communicate with me as to where they are with their edges AT ALL TIMES. They should never (with a very few, if any, exceptions) be over their Edge. This communication also helps initiate and enhance mind/body integration.

This communication can be between the Client and their Therapist, between the Student and their Teacher or Educator, or between the physical and mental aspects of their own selves. Of course, if the teacher or therapist has not closely worked with their own Edges, there are significant limitations on how much help or insight they can bring to the process.

I've had more than a few therapists and teachers tell me they work just like I do. Yet in working with me, their Clients and Students tell me the difference is significant.

For the VERY Traumatized

For some highly traumatized people, their Minimum Edge IS their Maximum Edge. They need the absolute least amount of stimulation possible; almost anything sends them over their Edge. They seemingly cannot be touched or do the simplest of Restorative Yoga Postures without locking up or intensifying the already existing pain or dysfunction. Yet, my experience is that there is always a way in somewhere, somehow, in their bodymind. You just have to have the patience, the analytical skills, and the insight to find it. Experience is, of course, a big help here.

For the highly DE-sensitized, on the other hand, we sometimes have to start them with the question: What does it FEEL like to NOT FEEL? … Working from there can take more time, but it must be done to fill in their gaps of lost self-awareness and sensitivity.

Who Are You, Really?

Another way of defining The Edge is to see it as the limits of who you really are in all your physical, mental, personal and relational dimensions. Going over your Edge is an attempt to be something or someone you are not. Pain (as opposed to intensity of sensation) tends to cause the mind to isolate the part of the body that is experiencing the pain. If meditation and yoga are about Being fully with What Is and In The Moment, and re-owning or reintegrating the fragmented elements of the Self, then staying well within your Edges is a critical component of yogic activity.

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Thanks for Reading,

Take Care,
David Scott Lynn
DSL: Your Hi-Touch Up-Link to the Inner-Net