Building Fitness Confidence

As I've talked about before, one of the things I've struggled with lately has been concentrating more on what I can't do in yoga and not having confidence in my abilities. I do see that changing and I feel like I've come far in being open to just trying even when something looks hard or that it's something I don't think I could do - and the results have been both surprising and positive. A couple weeks ago with encouragement from both Thad and the teacher, I started going to the 201 class with Thad on Thursdays. I had not been going Thursdays because 201=advanced class, and to be honest, I was afraid! With Thad and Debbie's encouragement I took a chance and was so happy that I'd gone. I learned a tremendous amount in one hour and came back the next week! I just do what I can and push myself to just try anyway. I'm building confidence.

After class Thursday night, again Debbie encouraged me to try something else new, at another local studio. She and another one of the teachers were attending an advanced 4 day intensive immersion class. On Saturday morning the studio's regular morning class is taught together with the group in immersion. Thad went to it last time and got a lot out of it - but I insisted I wasn't ready for it. I gave it some thought over the past couple days and decided, why not? So I went this morning and am so glad I did! There had to be 80-100 people in the class, co-taught by the owner of the studio and a teacher well known in the Anusara yoga world (both men, incidentally). We were crammed in with 6 inches between mats, sweat pouring off us for 2 1/2 hours. Thankfully the focus of the class was on backbends, something I feel more comfortable working towards and have some flexibility, versus something like arm balances where I'd have been way out of my league. I learned a lot from their technically step-oriented teaching approach, and tried everything (even if I could only get to the top of my head trying to go into wheel). I left feeling good - and exhausted - but proud of myself for going.

In writing this blog entry I realized that this confidence issue with fitness is something I've had to battle along the way, and probably a lot of people do. When I started Jazzercise, and probably up until the Fall when I finally got to the point that I could do class 100% high impact, I know I had a lack of confidence in my abilities - or perhaps it is just frustrating with myself of wanting to already 'be there'. I am certain that there will always be frustration along the way, no matter what I'm doing, but I'm going to really try harder to be confident in my abilities to TRY something - rather than holding myself back - because I keep surprising myself ;)