Why are all of my hobbies so abusive? Between Hooping, Krav Maga and parkour, I have no idea where all of these bruises came from!!! Knees, elbows, shins, shoulders... I'm black and blue all over. I realized today that I need to be more careful about baring my arms at client meetings because I either look like I have an unhealthy dependency or issues in the home. After not taking parkour classes for many months, I finally decided to give it another go because Fight or Flight Academy started offering a women's class. When I first started up in the summer, I was struggling with low self-esteem in the regular classes because everyone else was so far beyond my level and the guys naturally didn't have as many issues with upper body strength like I do right now. As much as I dislike the idea of women needing separate classes, I feel like it is exactly what I need to build up my confidence at a more reasonable pace instead of expecting instant results.
Tonight's class was an awesome one for me to reflect on. We focused on learning how to fall and dealing with what happens when you fail at a move. There is so much of that concept that translates well into my life! With any of my hobbies, the most debilitating fear that stops me from progressing is not wanting to fail or "look stupid". This means I don't make the progress I could if I just worked through the failure, learned from it, and moved on. Even though I'm fully aware that failure is part of the learning process, I panic and avoid it at all costs.
That little voice in the back of my mind says, "What if this painting turns out looking like crap and no one likes it? You'll just add it to the pile of half-finished canvases stacked on the floor", Or "Hooping just looks silly, people will think you're crazy. You aren't learning new things fast enough, so clearly you just aren't good enough to really hoop." Or "What if you fall and make a fool of yourself at class tonight? You could get hurt and then where would you be? You don't have the upper body strength or knee mobility to do parkour".
I read a parkour blog post this morning that pushed the exact message I needed to hear:
"Parkour doesn't take strength, parkour makes strength."
That is easy to apply to everything I do. From work to play, if I just get over my fear of not being amazing at something right now and allow myself to experience failure a little more, I will begin to reach my goals over time. I can't expect to be at a high level of expertise until I put in the work to be there.