I don't have much confidence in ... pretty much anything. I am confident that I can knit or cross-stitch amazing things. I have (or at least had) confidence in my trumpet playing. That confidence is disappearing slowly the more days pass and I haven't picked it up.
And well, that's about it.
Ironically, knitting and cross-stitching are things that really hurt my hands/wrists. Heh. Go figure.
Recently I've found that my confidence seems to dwindle in kempo. Let's be clear - kempo is one thing that is so far out of my comfort zone, that it is almost amazing that I even started it, so it is clear that I would struggle with confidence in that. However, despite my new shiny (okay, it doesn't really shine) green belt, my confidence has the ability to disappear quickly during a kempo session, and I just realized what might be the case.
Confidence is connected to strength - I think everyone can agree on that. I am pretty certain I am not strong - in many ways. People tell me otherwise, but I can never accept it and make excuses as to why that is the case (but this isn't the post for that). So - confidence is pretty equal to strength in my mind. When I struggle with a technique in kempo for whatever reason, even if the reason is I just learned it, I get frustrated and feel weaker in kempo in general. On top of that, confidence is not letting your weakness show. Sensei and even Star and Sandpaper seem to be able to see that weakness on my face almost instantly. Whether it looks like fear, or whatever, I never know... but they see it - and then the little amount of confidence I might have had disappears, and then the spiral continues, and more weakness shows, and .... etc... There is no degrading in kempo at all - except what I do to myself. Though they see my weakness, they don't treat me like I'm horrible... that's all me.
Okay, so now that I figured that out, one time when Sensei drove me home from a restaurant that we ate at after kempo, I told him all of this. There have been many times during class when he would say "have confidence!" and that would naturally make my confidence disappear again - because he could clearly see that I wasn't being confident. So after I told him what I figured out about how I saw confidence and why it dwindles in kempo, he said that he would have to work to help me gain my confidence. I kind of laughed to myself inside feeling like I've entered a relationship similar to the one I had with The King (look through other posts if you forgot who he was), and again, not seeing a way for him to help.
Yesterday at kempo, Sensei did something that he hadn't done before. After the warm up, we do basic training, sometimes paired, sometimes not. We happened to do it paired and I paired with Star (which frequently happens, probably partly because we stand near each other all the time - the girls gotta stick together!). The technique was this: one of us aims a punch at the gut of the other - then they block it and kick back. I let Star attack me first. Sensei came up as we started and stood behind Star. He said to Star, "Get her ... get her!" My internal reaction was, "Like I'll let you!" I'm not sure how my facial expression changed, but I'm sure it did. That feeling ... was interesting. And I can only connect it to confidence. With Star, I do have confidence that I can block faster than she can punch. Of course, that confidence made way to fear when I paired up with Sandpaper or Sensei later.
As I think back on it now, it almost makes me irritated at Sensei. Or maybe more irritated at myself. I played right into his hands and let myself feel confident that I could block. Which... is a silly thing to think, I suppose, unless of course I plan on never having confidence. On that note, I'm not really sure, to be honest. If I hadn't already decided that I would never have confidence why do I so adamantly deny any power or strength?
Well, that can be a subject for another post.
No comments:
Post a Comment