Category Archives: Yoga Teacher Training

Miles Apart

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“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.” ~ Frederick Buechner.

Do you know how far it is from Collingswood, NJ to Los Angeles, CA?  I do. It’s 2,720 miles. I know that because my second son, Devin, left last Friday to go live in L.A.

Devin recently graduated from Rowan University and is now pursuing his future in the TV and film industry. He is not the first of my children to move out of the house. His older brother, Jacob, moved out a few years ago. The difference is that Jacob moved to Camden, and then to Philadelphia. Even though he was gone, he was just minutes from home.

Devin headed off to LA, far enough that visits will be pretty rare and he won’t be able to come home for most holidays or a weekend visit. I can’t really imagine what it will be like to not see him around his birthday, or have him home for Thanksgiving, or maybe even miss him at Christmas. But, I know that’s the reality of having a child grow up and make his own life.

It’s not just the visits and not being able to see and talk to him that are different. There will be plenty of phone calls (though, as my niece, Molly, who loves her cousin dearly, said, “You can’t hug a phone call.”), and I’ve already told him that he’ll have to put up with me contacting him via FaceTime so that I can actually see him. It’s also that I’m finding it more difficult because, somehow, it feels like if he was closer, I could help him more in times of need. I’m worried that something will happen and I won’t be there to help him. Mostly, I understand, this is my personal need to control situations and my own fears about not being able to do that. Honestly, there aren’t that many situations where he would need help that I could really provide, whether he was here or there. And yet….

And all of this brings us back to that issue of letting go, which I’ve talked about here before a number of times (here, and here, and here), as well as on elephant journal. It is a part of parenting at all ages, but becomes heightened as children move into being adults.

The entire experience of being a mother (or a father) is about learning to let your children move away from you. I know that, intellectually. And, mostly, I’ve been able to embrace it emotionally. I’ve never been the mother that got upset when the kids started school. I happily handed them over to their kindergarten teachers with a smile and a lunchbox. And that’s not just because there are six of them. I wasn’t upset when the first one started school, and then there were only two. Those transitions didn’t seem like the end of something to me; they just seemed like moving into a new phase of their/my lives.

I wasn’t upset when they graduated elementary school, or middle school, or even high school. I was proud of them for each accomplishment, but I didn’t feel sad to see them growing up. There was no crying. But, this feels different.

I really didn’t want him to go, but at the same time, I did. I know that this is an amazing opportunity for him, and he’ll be ok. He has a good head and, while he’s a young man that will take some risks that perhaps I wouldn’t love, he makes wise choices most of the time. He is also very dedicated once he sets his mind to something, so I’m sure he’ll succeed in whatever he does there. But, there is a mom part of me that is feeling a little empty and sore and tender right now. There is crying.

Life is change. Parenting is change. Sometimes, it’s not easy to make even the good changes.

Tofu Not-Jerky

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A low-carb vegan snack, salad topping, or sandwich fixin’.

Let me start by saying clearly, this is not jerky. I know there are tofu jerky recipes out there, and this isn’t one of them.  But, it is a chewy tofu recipe that makes a good vegan snack, or sandwich filling item, or salad topper. And, it’s easy. Once you make a batch or two, it can be stuck in the fridge for quite a few days (I don’t know how many, to be honest, because it never lasts long here), and it’s very convenient to grab when you are in a rush.

Ingredients

  • 1 block extra firm tofu (companies should start paying me)
  • 2 T soy sauce
  • 1 T olive oil, sesame oil, or hot chili oil (you can skip or reduce this if looking for lower fat, I often do)
  • 1/2 t liquid smoke (if you don’t have any, or don’t like it, remove and add a bit more soy or water)
  • Some combination of: 1 t minced ginger, 1-2 cloves minced garlic, 1/2 t red pepper flakes

Process

Open tofu and drain. Place block on a cutting board, with the widest side down. Slice into thin slices. I aim for somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4″.  Lay out slices in a single layer on a cookie sheet or baking stone (preferred). In a blender or food processor, mix the soy sauce, oil, liquid smoke, and spices to distribute the flavor of the spices throughout. Brush or sprinkle marinade over slices. Place in oven at 300* and cook until it reaches the texture you like. If you want it to be even chewier, reduce temp down to 250* and cook longer. Cool to room temp or chill and enjoy in whatever form strikes your fancy!

Maybe I Don’t Want to Open My Heart

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Art by Gosia Janik

Upward facing bow, or urdhva dhanurasana, is a beautiful pose.  Just seeing it makes me sigh with a feeling of joy.  It’s a pose that I want to be able to do, and something that I remember doing as a child, just for fun, when I was the child that rarely ever did anything physical.   But, something isn’t right in my practice when it comes to this pose.  The same thing happens to me with camel pose (ustrasana) and bow pose (dhanurasana), though not quite to the same extent as with wheel.

It’s not that when practice starts I am thinking “oh, I don’t want to do wheel.”  I really don’t think about it until it gets close to backbend time in the class flow.  And, then I start checking how I feel, trying to decide if it’s a good day or a bad day to try one.  I double check my plans after class, knowing that a lot of backbending does seem to affect my ability to sleep (so, if it’s too close to bedtime, maybe I can reasonably opt out?).  I also hope, more than just a little, that the teacher just won’t say anything about doing urdhva dhanurasana at all. And then, we go into bridge pose.  All good.  I can do that.  Not a problem.  But next… DUM DUM DUM, wheel.  Crap.

I bring my hands back by my shoulders, and immediately something feels wrong.  I’m not sure they are quite in the right position.  Why are my fingers pointing off to the side a little.  Should they be?  No, that’s too much in.  Ok, check the elbows.  Fine.  You know, maybe I just won’t go up.  Maybe I’ll just stay right here.  I could stay right here.

And I push up, and my body remembers how to get me into that position.  And then, within a second, I start to feel this struggle in my chest.  I’m pretty sure that I’m still breathing, but there is a sense of body panic.  I immediately start to wonder if I can come back down yet.  I try to focus on what my alignment is like, knowing pretty well that my feet are splaying out and I need to bring them in.  That pulls me together for a second or two, and then the panic comes sweeping back in.  What is that?

Image from My Yoga Online (click for page about U.D.)

I keep wondering whether this is about my physical body or my emotional body.  Is the issue my inability to do a good wheel, or is the issue my fear of opening up my heart, of exposing my soft underside to the world.  Maybe, in this shape, I feel a little bit like a turtle that’s been turned over on its back and all its protection is gone.  Perhaps this is also related to my tendency to round my upper back and pull my shoulders in, creating a little protective cave for my front body.

Or, you know, maybe it’s none of that.  Maybe it’s not about anything psychological at all and my sternum, ribs, and abdomen just don’t like to stretch in that way.  Maybe six or so years of yoga just isn’t enough to get that opened up on me and I need to not over think it and just keep at it.  Or maybe it’s not a pose that is meant for me and I need to stop worry about it.

I just don’t know.  And that, for me, isn’t the most comfortable place to be either.