Beginner Humiliation
Let's start with this video:
I'm not even plus-sized, and I can totally relate. Like having a plus-sized body doesn't mean you don't work out, a ”normal” body doesn't mean you do work out. 'Cause it's not just plus-sized women, who don't feel welcome in exercise gyms and classes (yoga or otherwise). It's also beginners.
I feel like, the same way we expect plus-sized women to exercise and yet we don't want to see them actually doing it, it's exactly like that for beginners. We tell them to try new things and yet we don't want to see them trying and learning and starting something new.
I took a introductory pole dancing class recently that was supposed to be for beginners, but there were no beginners in that class. All participants were crazy athletic, and even if some of them had never done any pole dancing before, they were so strong and talented that after just a couple of tries they were able to do all the moves. I can honestly say that I felt like a drunk cow. The pole was slippery, my hands were too weak or I had too much weight – I don't know. Gripping the pole with bare skin is also painful as hell, I might add. I had tears in my eyes and red sore patches for days afterwards. And it's not like I haven't danced before, just not pole danced.
It wasn't an isolated incident either. I took an introductory acrobatics class a few years back. (I know, what could go wrong?) The course description promised that the course was for absolute beginners. ”You don't have to be able to do anything,” it said, ”not even a somersault.” Sounds low threshold, right? Well, I don't have to tell you how it went. The experience was humiliating. Every time before class I would cry 'cause I was so scared of going, and every time after class I would be just really thankful for little things like raindrops and kittens, because I felt like I'd had a near-death experience. The only reason I didn't quit, I think, was because I hated myself and wanted to punish myself severely. Towards the end of the course I thankfully got conveniently sick, so I didn't have to go to those last air somersault lessons. (It has been brought to my knowledge that in English, a somersault means both the kind you do on the ground but also the kind you jump up and do in the air. In Finnish, we have different words for those. The first lesson requirement of ”not-even-a-somersault” meant the ground kind. Of course. I'm not stupid.)
There's a reason why I'm writing all of this. I think that we don't speak enough about those experiences where you think you understand something and then you find out that you don't understand after all and you feel really stupid and defensive too, because your version should be right, but it's not the whole truth. This happens to me constantly, but most recently during an online coaching session that dealt with physical exercise.
”Let's build you a better year 2017 with starting some new healthy habits. Physical exercise is very healthy and you should do it on your own terms,” the course said. ”You should only do what you enjoy. Let your body move you. With this simple set of exercises anyone can start an exercise habit right now.”
Yeah, right! You guessed it: the ”simple set of exercises” was not simple at all. It was a demanding interval training of all kinds of push-ups, crunches and other lifting thingies that I can't even name. I can't even do one push-up and you expect me to do HOW MANY?
It didn't help that the guy in the video looked like a bodybuilder superhero.
After that I am not motivated to exercise. I'm not inspired to build any new healthy habits. If this training is where I should start, forget it! Give me the beginner stuff, goddamnit.
I just really want to quit this stupid training thing right now.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
But I'm not going to. I'm going to forgive. (Or at least that's what I'm going to say – I forgive the stupid course for being mean to me and calling me less than a beginner. I don't know how, but I will.)
(There's a food part after the exercise part and that one isn't for beginners either. It assumes you know a lot about spiritual diet. I just didn't realize it at first, because I know something about food. I have studied nutrition on my own for a couple years, including environmental impact. That's how much you're expected to know about stuff before you're even worthy of the 'beginner' title.)
As long as I'm on this subject of beginner humiliation, let's take another recent experience of mine: tattoos. Tattoo parlours are places where you get tattoos, and where beginners are frowned upon. They can't trust you if you're a beginner, I guess. You might go to tattoo police and tell them this tattoo parlour does tattoos. Or something. I guess there are a lot of people just thinking of getting a tattoo and then maybe deciding against it at the last minute and the tattoo artists are just sick of all the wasted time? Maybe that's the reason they're so suspicious of beginners?
I have been a beginner so many times in my life. I don't know how to avoid it when all I want is to try new stuff. There's nothing wrong with being a beginner. There shouldn't be. And yet there is.
People don't want to see beginners, because beginners remind them of fear and new things and rejection and embarrassement and courage. There are no beginners in beginners classes, because true beginners are rare. Beginners are brave. They are humble. They have accepted the fact that they cannot do something now but they will in the future. They can stomach seeing themselves fail over and over again under judging eyes.
If you want to try something new, good for you. But don't expect any encouragement or support (if you can find some, again, good for you). Expect to be judged silently, stared at, avoided and gossiped about. Until you are no longer a beginner.
When you learn how to do that thing you wanted to do, please congratulate yourself. And when you see a rare beginner, remember how you felt and for goodness sake, give them support! Make them feel not totally alone. We don't want to be alone.
I'm not even plus-sized, and I can totally relate. Like having a plus-sized body doesn't mean you don't work out, a ”normal” body doesn't mean you do work out. 'Cause it's not just plus-sized women, who don't feel welcome in exercise gyms and classes (yoga or otherwise). It's also beginners.
I feel like, the same way we expect plus-sized women to exercise and yet we don't want to see them actually doing it, it's exactly like that for beginners. We tell them to try new things and yet we don't want to see them trying and learning and starting something new.
I took a introductory pole dancing class recently that was supposed to be for beginners, but there were no beginners in that class. All participants were crazy athletic, and even if some of them had never done any pole dancing before, they were so strong and talented that after just a couple of tries they were able to do all the moves. I can honestly say that I felt like a drunk cow. The pole was slippery, my hands were too weak or I had too much weight – I don't know. Gripping the pole with bare skin is also painful as hell, I might add. I had tears in my eyes and red sore patches for days afterwards. And it's not like I haven't danced before, just not pole danced.
It wasn't an isolated incident either. I took an introductory acrobatics class a few years back. (I know, what could go wrong?) The course description promised that the course was for absolute beginners. ”You don't have to be able to do anything,” it said, ”not even a somersault.” Sounds low threshold, right? Well, I don't have to tell you how it went. The experience was humiliating. Every time before class I would cry 'cause I was so scared of going, and every time after class I would be just really thankful for little things like raindrops and kittens, because I felt like I'd had a near-death experience. The only reason I didn't quit, I think, was because I hated myself and wanted to punish myself severely. Towards the end of the course I thankfully got conveniently sick, so I didn't have to go to those last air somersault lessons. (It has been brought to my knowledge that in English, a somersault means both the kind you do on the ground but also the kind you jump up and do in the air. In Finnish, we have different words for those. The first lesson requirement of ”not-even-a-somersault” meant the ground kind. Of course. I'm not stupid.)
There's a reason why I'm writing all of this. I think that we don't speak enough about those experiences where you think you understand something and then you find out that you don't understand after all and you feel really stupid and defensive too, because your version should be right, but it's not the whole truth. This happens to me constantly, but most recently during an online coaching session that dealt with physical exercise.
”Let's build you a better year 2017 with starting some new healthy habits. Physical exercise is very healthy and you should do it on your own terms,” the course said. ”You should only do what you enjoy. Let your body move you. With this simple set of exercises anyone can start an exercise habit right now.”
Yeah, right! You guessed it: the ”simple set of exercises” was not simple at all. It was a demanding interval training of all kinds of push-ups, crunches and other lifting thingies that I can't even name. I can't even do one push-up and you expect me to do HOW MANY?
It didn't help that the guy in the video looked like a bodybuilder superhero.
After that I am not motivated to exercise. I'm not inspired to build any new healthy habits. If this training is where I should start, forget it! Give me the beginner stuff, goddamnit.
I just really want to quit this stupid training thing right now.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
But I'm not going to. I'm going to forgive. (Or at least that's what I'm going to say – I forgive the stupid course for being mean to me and calling me less than a beginner. I don't know how, but I will.)
(There's a food part after the exercise part and that one isn't for beginners either. It assumes you know a lot about spiritual diet. I just didn't realize it at first, because I know something about food. I have studied nutrition on my own for a couple years, including environmental impact. That's how much you're expected to know about stuff before you're even worthy of the 'beginner' title.)
As long as I'm on this subject of beginner humiliation, let's take another recent experience of mine: tattoos. Tattoo parlours are places where you get tattoos, and where beginners are frowned upon. They can't trust you if you're a beginner, I guess. You might go to tattoo police and tell them this tattoo parlour does tattoos. Or something. I guess there are a lot of people just thinking of getting a tattoo and then maybe deciding against it at the last minute and the tattoo artists are just sick of all the wasted time? Maybe that's the reason they're so suspicious of beginners?
I have been a beginner so many times in my life. I don't know how to avoid it when all I want is to try new stuff. There's nothing wrong with being a beginner. There shouldn't be. And yet there is.
People don't want to see beginners, because beginners remind them of fear and new things and rejection and embarrassement and courage. There are no beginners in beginners classes, because true beginners are rare. Beginners are brave. They are humble. They have accepted the fact that they cannot do something now but they will in the future. They can stomach seeing themselves fail over and over again under judging eyes.
If you want to try something new, good for you. But don't expect any encouragement or support (if you can find some, again, good for you). Expect to be judged silently, stared at, avoided and gossiped about. Until you are no longer a beginner.
When you learn how to do that thing you wanted to do, please congratulate yourself. And when you see a rare beginner, remember how you felt and for goodness sake, give them support! Make them feel not totally alone. We don't want to be alone.
Kommentit
Lähetä kommentti