Love Your Edge

I'm getting a really late start today. I'm about 3 hours behind my usual self-imposed schedule. After 3 nights of no sleep - last night I slept like a baby rock. It was awesome.

I keep reading that everyone has these poses they HATE. Poses that they just loathe with every fiber of their being. Yoga poses that make them silently curse any teacher that puts them in it. Everyone seems to have at least one. It's what I hear anyway. I literally don't know of any pose that I don't LOVE these days. I love them all. I love arm balances, I love backbends, inversions, forward bends, hip openers, core strengtheners, balancing poses... I love them all. There was a time when I hated handstand, but I did it over and over and over again until I loved it. There was a time when I hated half handstands, but now I'm neutral toward them. I just love yoga that much I guess. *shrug*

My husband hates warrior 2. When I teach, I apparently teach that pose aaaallllll the tiiiimmmmee. When he took my classes twice a week I found out that while I love to teach warrior 2 - people really hate to do it. Maybe that's why I taught it so much. I quickly find my student's edges - physical and mental. I find them and then I put them there. While I obviously balance it out with rest and counterposes and lots of good stuff to pamper them afterwards - I want my students to stare down the edge of their comfort zone - until it gives way and expands. This is how we grow in asana practice. You certainly don't want to go all the way to the edge everytime. A softer practice should be mixed in to keep balance and avoid injury. You don't want to LIVE on the edge, but you want to spend a healthy amount of time there.

You can learn a lot about yourself from your edge. Your mental state, your physical imbalances, how you handle stress... The next time you face a pose or a meditation where you find discomfort or unhappiness - sit with that feeling. Just observe it - without judgement. If you do this every time - eventually that feeling may dissolve.

Where is your edge? What poses do you HATE? and Why?

PS: I need to sink a little deeper into this warrior 2 pictured, but it's the only pic I have of me in this pose, so we'll pretend it's "perfect".