Trust is a scary little thing

A lot has happened since I last blogged.  For starters I completed a 4 day teacher training at Om Factory for Anti Gravity Yoga level 1 certification.  Although I didn't quite pass the test, I learned a great deal about myself and my body from both the training and the people I met.  I also plan to pass the test after I complete my 50 hours of student teaching.

One of the words that keeps making appearance in my life these days is trust.  In the past I have had a hard time defining this word and haven't had many great experiences with it.  But I am learning now that trust is something you develop in yourself.  How can I ever expect to trust another human being if I can't even trust myself.  Well recently my trust has been put to the test, and I am not sure as a teacher I would pass myself on this test.

Last night I was in my regular aerial acrobats class and I am progressing nicely.  This time my instructor decided she wanted to introduce me to my very first drop flip.  I heard the word flip and got excited.  Not realizing what a "drop" meant.   Basically she knots the silks together like we did in level 1, only this time the knot was high and I had to pull myself up into a tuck and flip my legs over the knot then twist upside down so the knot is on my lower back.  No biggie here, aside from the fact that it was 95 degrees outside and the studio was about 100 since they don't own an AC unit.  Once I got into my flipped invert I had to hook both legs and articulate my body up and straddle my legs.  This was also not a big deal, having just learned the same move in AG yoga training a few days ago.  Now, I am in a straddle in the air arched at the chest holding the two silks behind me.  She wanted me to let go, face forward flipping and landing with the knot under my arms.  HUH?

Instructor: "On count of 3, I want you to release your hands and open your arms, "3, 2, 1..."  

Me:  (I freeze here dripping sweat).  

Instructor: "Let's try this again...3, 2, 1..."  

Me: No, I can't!!

Instructor:  Yes you can just DO IT.

Me: Ok Ok...

Instructor:  3, 2, 1...

Me: NO!

Instructor:  Stop being a weenie!

Me: You just called me a weenie!

Instructor: 3, 2, 1...

Me:  YIKES.....(fall face first I landed, ouch to the jolting under arm pit rape)

Instructor:  See you just have to learn to trust yourself.

Me: Wow I did it.

Instructor:  Ok let's try that again and clean up the leg work.

Me: Hell NO!

Moral of this story is, I am slowly learning to trust myself.  Once I master this I truly believe anything is possible.  It's when I doubt myself that my walls come crumbling around me triggering everything else to go wrong.  I had control of the situation last night but I wanted to believe that I didn't.  I controlled whether or not the knot would catch me.  If I doubted it for a minute I could have gotten tangled and hurt.  It's confidence in myself that brings me success in everything I do.  I tend to lack that confidence when I know deep down I have no reason to.  This is something we all deal with at one time or another.  No one is perfectly confident in themselves and if they say they are they are lying.  But I am trying and I do see a big difference, its just getting to the finish line that has me so anxious.

The four days I spent in Chris Harrison's AGY teacher training opened my eyes to many things, precisely trust and confidence.  If you trust you can do something, chances are you can do it.  If you have confidence in yourself the world sees it and situations become much easier to deal with.  So although I gathered this in my training it doesn't mean it worked for me.  Its something I need to build on, and experiment with and eventually master.

One part of my assignment was to teach the class a portion of the warm up using the AG hammock.  I had never taught a class in my life, aside from the occasion computer trainings back in my IT days.  I was not comfortable standing in front of a room of 14 or so yoga instructors including Christopher Harrison, and bullshit my way through this session. I had no choice so I did it and I was critiqued.  The main critique was "be more confident, and if you don't know something, fake it."  I always had trouble with faking anything.  But again I own that, I can control it.  If I wanted to I could have bs'ed my way through this, but I allowed my nerves to take over.  Lesson learned here:  no one is perfect and I wasn't expected to memorize my exact moves and be perfect at them, I just needed to convince myself that I am ok, and in that, I will convince the rest of the world.

Another interesting thing that came out of this class for me is doing away with negative phrases.  For example, CH brought up a good point.  When we are kids our parents always taught us to "be careful" no matter what we did.  As a grown up I still hear those words come from my parents mouths.  I even say it to people when I leave work on a Friday and I know they have a long drive home.  Be careful.  Reminding someone to be careful is only making them more aware of possible dangers and risks involved with whatever they are doing and when something is brought to your attention its more likely to stay there.  I didn't sign up for trapeze, silks, pole or upside down yoga to be "safe" or "careful."  I signed up to take a risk, push beyond my limits and challenge myself to be the best that I can be.  If I wanted to be safe and careful I would stay home and watch SoapNet (bad example since they are going off the air!).  But you get the idea.

On a more successful note, if you recall back in February I blogged about having found AGY and how I was going to check it out sooner or later.  Well I posted a picture of Pink at the Grammys  while she was hanging upside down soaking wet and singing, this pose is called a "Chandelier."  3 months later I am now the proud owner of this pose, and here I am in my version of the Chandelier:

Next on my list:  Acro Yoga!!