''It Isn't The Mountains Ahead To Climb That Wear You Out, It's The Pebble In Your Shoe'' - Mohammed Ali
As I lie on the sofa spent from the week's activities, I reflect on a lesson that keeps popping up in my life. For years now, its proven indescribably valuable, helping me to learn, to adapt, and to become better each day. Yoga, BJJ, even Marcus Aurelius and the Bhaghavad Ghita, are connected by the same profound lessons in life. Progress over perfection, always. Discomfort and fumbling vs sticking to what you know and what feels safe.
I learnt about the term ‘Playing to the edge’ from an Israeli Canadian yogi who would later become a good friend and teacher. With the physique of a Mossad trainer, she often spoke of 'playing to the edge', holding the tension for as long as possible.
When you get to the edge, of say a posture, a stretch, or a moment of extreme discomfort requiring physical, emotional and mental agility, that’s ‘the edge’. Using breath as an anchor, a leader, and a friend, the key is to stay right there, to ‘sit with’ that momentary tension and discomfort, and find the outer edges of that edge. To inspect it with curiosity.
Breathing systems help us (stay alive, for one) and also to find ease and to relax into that discomfort. If you know yin yoga, you'll also know that this is where the real ‘work’ begins. With a little self-awareness and in dissolving the ego, we can play around the edge for longer; not pushing too hard so as to break, and not becoming too comfortable, so as not to grow.
Today I found myself drawing on these learning’s once again. I was grappling full-on with a brown belt in Brazilian Jui Juitsu who, admittedly, was a bit smaller than me but who possessed their own unique sets of ‘advantages and disadvantages’ as Malcolm Gladwell put it in David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and The Art Of Battling Giants. Still my favourite Gladwell book so far.
My opponent drew on the the right mix of strategies and tactics, which is what BJJ is all about, to eventually dominate me into submission. Whilst I had more athleticism and raw but stupid power, he had the smarts to channel that energy into an eventual defeat, forcing me to tap out with my face red and both of us physically broken. He found a way to turn the circumstances to his advantage.
There was a moment where he and I, both feeling beaten, dripping with sweat and sucking for oxygen like it was a firehouse in the dry Sahara. We’d been physically fighting and grappling for what felt like minutes, which is a long time in combat.
As we pinned each other into defensive positions, using every inch and every fibre of our beings to gain advantage, face-to-face and gasping for air. It was pretty primal. But that moment, playing in that edge, is quite a natural human moment. That fight or flight where the body's autonomic system kicks in. We live in a peaceful world where nowadays we don't engage in combat, fighting to stay alive - it can happen - but I hope not. This is what it feels like in that moment. There's no-one to help. Just the two of you. And it's brutal.
Being able to breathe and find calm, to not panic, and have enough presence of mind for the control tower to direct the body with just one final power move, to level up and dominate that situation. The ultimate act of competition. Finding a way to breathe through the belly of the beast, to struggle and not give in, and instinctively find a way to edge forward, to adapt and survive.
This is a powerful human instinct.
Comentarios