I’ve always had a love hate relationship with exercise, I know it’s good for me, I know I feel better afterwards, but despite many years and various gym classes for some reason it always feels like a chore. A few years back, in the latest attempt at trying to find something I would enjoy, yet not feel like I was expending too much energy, I found an aerial yoga hammock class at a local dance studio. Yoga, in a brightly coloured hammock that resembled something you might find on a beach, well this sounded like something I could get on board with!
During the first class, I looked on as the regulars easily inverted into a headstand, whilst I sat terrified of even the thought of going upside down. But there was no getting away from it, I was flipped over by the class instructor in a split-second and I spent the next few minutes trying to stop myself feeling sick as the blood rushed to my head. “Help”, I murmured, “How do I get back out?!” As the class continued and people did various death-defying drops into their hammock, I wondered what I had signed up for, but I had an immense sense of satisfaction as I performed some basic tricks. As the class ended, we were allowed to cocoon ourselves in the hammock and listen to music for the final few minutes. In a world where we are so often preoccupied with notifications, multi-tasking or thinking about the next thing, this glorious five minutes of being alone with my thoughts, in a darkened room swinging from a hammock, gave me the peace I craved and if I’m honest was the bit of the class I craved most in the coming weeks.
As the class finished, the instructors quickly transformed the room for the next class, hanging circus hoops from the ceiling. “Oooh what’s that I said,” “Aerial hoop, and its brutal,” the instructor replied. Well, how could I resist? I bought myself a pair of leggings (I don’t think I’d owned leggings since childhood) and signed myself up. Oh that first class! I could barely get into the hoop, let alone even hang in a basic pose and came away so deflated and bruised that I decided it wasn’t for me.
So what masochistic tendency compelled me to return several weeks later, I’ll never know. Let’s give this some context. I was mid 30s at the time, I had zero background in gymnastics, nor dance, I’m certainly not the strongest, nor coordinated, nor do I have any sense of balance. I was faced with a class of people, many of whom half my age and half my size, with backgrounds with the aforementioned skills. My classmates could jump into splits and hurl themselves at moves with that confidence that comes with youth but erodes with age and feelings of inadequacy were fierce. The instructors and fellow students are extremely supportive but as with most of our perceived limitations all of the barriers are in our own heads.
Flash forward three or four years and I now spend as many hours a week as I can at the studio trying to pull off tricks and routines. Most weeks, I’ll have a crisis of confidence, beat myself up about not being flexible enough, not being strong enough or generally “not getting it” as my uncoordinated and usually fried from work mind struggles to piece it all together. Looking at others in the class, all of those childhood anxieties about not being good enough at sport come back and I think to myself “Claire you’re nearly 40, who are you trying to kid?”
But when I’m kind to myself, I think about how far I’ve come since those days of not even being able to get into the hoop, I’m proud of the journey and what my body does allow me to do.
At my age, I’m often so injury prone that I’ll find myself clutching a bag of frozen peas to swell an injury pre-class. To then go to class and apologise that I’m not sure how much I’ll manage, to then seem to forget about my injuries whilst in the hoop, back flipping and throwing myself around with gusto, only to walk always like Yoda limping with his walking stick post epic fight scene.
They say comparison is the thief of joy, and it’s so true. We spend so long scrolling social media of these picture perfect images, forgetting the individual stories behind that one perfect image or video. We don’t see the years of hard work that person may have put in and the injuries they have endured, which is true of most sports. Comparisons are not healthy, yet we seem programmed to do this consistently in so many areas of life. This is also true of comparisons with our past selves, as well as our “future selves” who we hope to become.
So, it was with this in mind that I returned to my first class post lockdown after four months off. I knew my strength would have gone but I told myself “Don’t compare yourself to past you, go easy on yourself, appreciate the journey and the rewards will follow”. I strung together some basic moves and felt proud of my body’s muscle memory and surprised myself with what came back. They’ve added some new fun classes post lockdown, such as trapeze, so stay tuned for stories of someone who seems to have taken the idea of running away to join the circus a little too seriously!
Image Courtesy: Claire Hatcher/Marco Mendez
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I love how the author has used humor to convey some important life lessons without even bringing attention to them. Lessons on the importance of working on continuous improvement, pushing yourself harder, self-love and pursuit of happiness! What an awesome article!