One of the greatest lessons I’m learning this year has to do with the issue of fear. I don’t recall myself being the overly fearful type, as a child I was quiet, some would say shy… for a little while anyway until I was comfortable; a trait that has followed me through to adulthood but I was never really afraid to do things that sounded fun. Heck, I was the first kid at camp to flip myself upside down, let go of the rope and go abseiling down the side of a wall. I’ve always really enjoyed doing things a little out of my comfort zone!
Skip forward to a year ago and one of the things I’d noticed about myself was that because I was still suffering repercussions from the injury I sustained during Boston’s birth, that for the better part of a year I’d been barely able to leave the house. I confessed to my husband that even the thought of going out to get the groceries was getting scary and that I didn’t like where that was leading me mentally. The first step for me was to focus on my 21 days…which I am SO glad I did because that one little decision to get through those 21 days changed my life entirely. As with anything though, the more you do something, the easier it gets and my beloved gym just wasn’t cutting it anymore.
What I haven’t told many people (a few here and there will have picked up on it) is that I signed up to do the beginners kickboxing course with Toa Fighting Systems. You have to do the course to be inducted into their advanced classes that run the rest of the time. Today, I passed grading! Which basically means I get a certificate to say I can do some moves, earn a red belt and become a member of Toa Fighting Systems and WAKO (NZ).
Now this probably means absolutely nothing to 99% of you out there reading this but this means so much to me. Kickboxing is something I’ve been fascinated with for as long as I can remember. It probably comes from my lifelong obsession with kung fu movies and martial arts. Also, while other kids were playing with their barbies and eating fairy bread, my grandfather was lecturing me on how to throw a punch which then led to buying a boxing bag for my brother and I to ‘play’ on which then led to bruised knuckles and popped blood vessels. So yes, learning how to fight properly has been something I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember.
The class was huge at the beginning of the course but today there was just those of us who had realised that showing up for these classes meant you were throwing out all excuses to give up and were prepared for the brutal – and I don’t mean brutal in the ‘oh this is hard’ sense, I mean it in the OH MY F**KING G*D WTF I CAN’T FEEL MY LEGS/ARMS/SHOULDERS/LUNGS, AM I DYING?! – sense (my body is still shaking 4 hours later).
Taking this course, for me, meant freedom. Freedom from my self imposed ‘worthless me’ beliefs. Freedom from ‘what if’. Freedom from feeling trapped in my mind, in my body and in my home.
I did it.
I believed I could and I did.
I cried almost every week for three months – and you all know I’m not a crier.
But I did it.
I overcame my fear of not being good enough.
Now I have to attend next weeks advanced class to receive my belt… I see what he’s doing there. Nice way to push me to get over my new fear sensei.
Advanced class here I come.
Not bad for a girl who wasn’t even allowed to walk her kids to school a year ago because it was too much, huh?
And because every post needs a photo and I don’t have my hands on my first belt yet, here’s one I took from the Toa website. Blue trunks is my sensei. Osu!
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