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"We cannot do great things in life; we can only do small things with great love"

- Mother Teresa

Within each yoga posture there will be a particular place where we experience resistance. This may be due to tight muscles, fatigue or an old injury. It can also arise from mental constraints such as laziness or fear.

We may be uncertain whether to proceed deeper into a posture, hold the status quo or pull back. This point of uncertainty is called our edge.

Playing the edge in our yoga practice represents a place where we can find the perfect balance between awareness, intention and action.

Much could be written here about the findings of modern physics relating to the boundary between order and chaos. This knife edge of reality is a place of apparently limitless potential where magic happens regularly. When we come back too far from the edge into a world of certainty and order then there is a tendency to stagnate. Life moves slower, possibilities don’t present themselves as often. Correspondingly, if we dive too deeply into a world devoid of rules and processes, where chaos is the order of the day, then there is absolutely no stability. Life progresses here strictly by chance and random occurrence.

Playing the edge in yoga is much the same as this. We risk injury by struggling and moving too deeply into a posture when we are not ready. However, if we always stay within our habitual comfort zones then growth is slow or almost impossible. If anything, we will become bored and disappointed by the lack of results.

The edge represents an incredible opportunity for self discovery within our yoga practice. Listening to our body, feeling its subtle feedback and then consciously deciding upon our next move is an incredibly powerful practice.

Often, we are unaware of these subtle messages occurring within our body and we habitually react to various stimuli in largely unconscious ways. Regularly playing the edge improves our capacity to master and overcome many of these deep seated habitual tendencies. Due to this uprooting, it is not always easy to stay focused at our edge. We may be too driven and aggressive, trying to force our way through the resistance. This inevitably creates more tension and stress. Alternatively, we may be too passive and habitually pull back to a place of comfort and security.

It takes a combination of self-effort and detachment to effectively play our edge. In yoga these two principles are called abhyasa and vairagya. Learning to balance these two qualities in a yoga session will provide incredible benefits throughout our entire life.

• Abhyasa means being focused and attentive to how we feel. It also means being willing and committed to move through challenging situations with willpower, strength and control. This is the active part of our yoga practice, corresponding to the pingala nadi and sympathetic nervous system, which produces the fight/flight response.

• Vairagya means to remain relaxed without focusing on attaining any particular goals. Awareness of the moment and playing the edge is its own reward. We remain detached and allow whatever arises to be as it is. We avoid the temptation to get into the story of describing our sensations, emotions or thought processes. We embrace the moment and the infinite possibilities it presents us with. This is the passive part of our yoga practice, corresponding to the ida nadi and para-sympathetic nervous system, which produces the relaxation response.

Both processes can help us progress but the results, in a yogic context, will be vastly different. Through sheer force and struggle we can make our postures look perfect and be the envy of every other yoga student but the tension we inevitably accumulate makes this unviable in the long term.

Through balanced awareness we progress more slowly, taking time to listen and feel. Our maximum on the day may not actually be where we think it should be or where it was yesterday. This is what playing the edge truly means. We recognise that every moment of practice will be different. We learn to act accordingly. Our maximum may turn out to be significantly further than before. Through balancing self-effort with detached presence we may experience a rush of blissful energy as an inner gateway is dissolved and we peacefully sink into a place beyond anywhere our mind could have conceived.

This is the mechanism by which we learn to explore our deeper nature, at the juncture between mind and body. Resistance calls us firmly into the immaculate fullness of the present moment and asks us to make conscious choices, which determine how we will experience our immediate future.