Huh. I signed up for an aerial fabrics class a few weeks back and at the time I'd had some thought that I'd be kind of, you know, a natural. All that dance experience and flexibility should count for something, right? Turns out I'm having a bit of a humbling experience. I look a lot like that cat, except uh...more on the ground. What's going on? This isn't like snowboarding where I can accept I'll always suck. I should be better?
See, I am having trouble with the MOST BASIC move...climbing up the fabric! And then the second basic move, how to keep yourself stationary on the fabric while you do tricks. We've now had two classes and I've only just learned the trick of how to get a couple of climbs up the fabric while everyone else has advanced to hm, 5 tricks? That fabric just had a horrible way of sliding through my hands and feet! (I partially blame my very dry skin, most people say their hands get slippery when they start to sweat, I need that vital moisture to get a grip. As an aside, I'm 90% sure this is why I've never been able to nail doing hand fart noises.)
As it became more apparent that I'm on the slow track in this class, (I'm left all alone on the "beginner" fabric...on the upside, I don't have to wait as long before I struggle again) I started having some serious flashbacks to grade school when I'd be the last person picked for basketball or whichever horrible sport we were forced to do. (yeah yeah...I'm not "sporty" At least not with anything that needs hand-eye coordination.) Serious flashbacks and some anxiety...because I'm learning about 50% slower than everyone else in the class. Gah. So much anxiety about sucking that I kind of wanted to quit. =p
But hey, maybe I'm moving past all the insecurity because I later thought...well, who CARES if I'm the slow one (uh...aside from me. I can admit I care.) But no one else does! So I can always just take the beginner class again! :) With my work discount it's really cheap anyway. This session is only 10 classes long being on the quarter system...that's hard enough sessions anyway. :) At least, hopefully long enough for me to get this climbing thing down. I still have some hope that when I get UP high enough on the fabric the flexibility and dance experience will kick in so that I can look pretty in the poses. ;)
I feel the same way as you in parkour all the time. I am always the last to get the basic vaults and the clumsiest falling off ledges. While everybody else is doing death-defying vaults and leaps from very tall obstacles, I'm still doing basic crawls on waist-high rails (and falling off). I sometimes feel inferior to all those ballsy guys, but then I remember that I couldn't do ANY vaults when I started out, and now I can do a lot of stuff that would have paralyzed me a few months ago. If I measured myself against everybody else around me who does parkour, I would've quit after the first three sessions when it became apparent that I would never be able to do a gainer backlip against a wall. But measuring myself against my own progress, I can see that I've accomplished a lot and faced down quite a few fears. That's a really good feeling, as I'm sure you'll discover in your aerial fabrics class. THREE CHEERS TO THE HARD WORK OF SLOW PROGRESSION!
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