Thursday, May 1, 2008

Learning to Fly...

So the pace has picked up tremendously here and it feels ike everyone is in a frantic/panic mood. The past couple days i could feel myself on edge and last night's posture clinic was terrible. i felt good enough going into it, asn the teacher leading it was a fantastic woman named Terri who used to teach in Elk Grove so we shared a common bond of love for Carrie. I got up to do my dialog and she struck up conversation about my Bruce Springsteen shirt. I immiediately felt "nice and loose, comfortable, easy and flexible" (see that dialog is flowin like crazy) I was going to have a killer dialog and i was ready. ... and then she did it. right before I started she said "make Carrie proud!"... i don't know what it was but it totally threw me off. I made one smal error at first, and then another one, and then i started to panic, thinking, "oh my god she's gonna tell carrie that i'm terrible and carrie's not gonna want me to teach, and i don't know what i'm doing here!" yep, all that went through my head in about 1.5 seconds.. at the same time i started stammering the dreaded... "uhhhhhh" It was pretty bad for a second or two, I pulled it together and finished the posture but it spooked the hell outta me. I talked ot Terri about it and she told me it was perfectyl normal to have that reaction and that I would still make a fine teacher in Elk Grove. I was not convinced and was basically on the verge of tears for the rest of the night. I woke up still feeling completely anxiety ridden and had one of the worst classes of my life this morning. I cried my way through the whole floor series and as soon as I got back to my room I called the studio. Celeste picked up, and was amazing. She was exactly what I needed and made me feel a million times better... well for ten minutes at least. I went into afternoon posture clinic still on the verge of a panic attack/freak out. I just kept thinking about how before I left Christina told me not to be the dramatic girl at training and it almost made it worse because I kept worrying I was gonna start crying at an inappropriate time and be That Girl. Sarah Baughn-- who I will forevor be indebted to, led our posture clinic. During the break I realized asking for some help on the whole overwhelming anxiety/on on the verge of convulsive tears situation outweighed the seeming dramatic. So i waited till clinic was over and i sorta let her have it... she plopped down on the carpet with me and listened to me and basically she just let me feel exactly how I was feeling without any judgement. We talked for awhile and I walked away feeling like I had this huge burden that had just been lifted off of my shoulders. I walked into afternoon class with a smile on my face and I stood right in front of the podium and I had the best class I have ever had. FOr the first time during training, I held both sets ans sides of standing bow without falling out once and during the final stretching posture I kept my heels pulled up off of the floor the entire time which was the first time I've ever been able to do it. I found sarah after class and thanked her. I told her how I felt a million times lighter and it was because of her. She really is amazing and she told me how it wasn't her, i had helped myself. I still give her credit, but I am so happy that I swallowed my pride and knew when it was time to ask for help. Tonight is Triangle Pose in posture clinic, and I know I will do my best, whatever that may be tonight.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hang in there, yogi. it makes the good days that much better.