December 7, 2006

Pre-Testing

I used to teach high school English. I had well over 130 students each year and stood up in front of them daily. With the exception of the first day, I was never nervous. In college, I used to speak in front of large groups, like the entire Pitt football team for one, about sexual assault of all things. Nervous? Never.

One would think that after having worked as a teacher and as a PEER Educator, standing up in front of people wouldn’t be a problem. But there is something about Pre-Testing at the dojo that is just nerve-wracking for me. I get so nervous and then I spend the entire time mentally beating myself up for every mistake, and verbally assaulting myself with each wrong move.

At one point tonight, after I had enlisted the help of a black belt with my Choun bo kata, my instructor told me to stop beating myself up from across the dojo as he helped another brown belt with her kata.

I want to be perfect. I don’t want to show up at testing and screw up. I hate that. I remember when I was a white belt, I would sometimes watch the brown belts and wonder why they didn’t remember Kata 2 or Waza 3. I thought I would surely remember everything when I was a brown belt.

But the mind is a funny thing. It holds on to things you need and then tucks them away into the depths once it’s not an immediate need anymore. . .

Or my brain is just completely fried from the whole Lil C non-napping thing. My brain needs that nap almost as much as she does. O.k. more.