Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Does not play well with others.

Ever since I can remember I've always been a bit of a loner. Particulary when it comes to sport & fitness. My jaw & butt cheeks have always started to clench in nervous anticipation of having to partake in GROUP fitness. My first memories of this are in primary school and the dreaded "Ball Games" carnivals. Even to this day the mere mention of the words "Tunnell Ball" make me feel ill.
In school I was always the smallest. I was this little aryan child who was very shy & quite awkward.
Needless to say I always dropped the ball & let down the team. Also the bigger girls would deliberately SLAM the ball at me so it would belt me in my fragile chest cavity & then bleat "Miss Miss Vicki dropped the ball again!!! Misss!"
Fast forward to highschool and the horror of Netball & Hockey & *gulp* Athletics.
The bigger girls would trip me over & elbow me in the boobs in netball and for some unknown reason I was always wing defence & my opponent was about a metre taller than me. In hockey they would wack me up between my legs from behind with an upturned hockey stick so the end would smack me in the pubic bone leaving a nice big bruise on my girlie place. Nice. I made a point of not going anywhere near the ball if I could help it. I was ALWAYS the last to be chosen. Even the obsese acne faced geeks who have now gone on to be feethly rich I.T programmers (I think) were chosen over Vicki the useless kinda weird blonde.
I used to get mum to write me notes on Cross Country Day to say that I had monthly 'female' problems had be bed ridden. I would run around the hurdles & dive under the high jump bars on sports days. To make it even MORE shamefull they made us wear those awful little athletics pants that are like maroon granny undies. I think the teachers did this deliberately just to tear away at our self-esteem even more.
"Bloody Hell Vicki." the teachers would exclaim & shake their heads in despair.
The place I was most at home was in the pool. Man Oh Man could I swim! In the pool doing lap after lap all alone. No team to let down. Only me & the wonderful smell of chlorine.
I could have swum for QLD. seriously. But I just couldn't bring myself to get up at 5am for swim club. So in Winter I would get Ds & Es in PE but in Summer I would bust out the A+s.


So now I am nearly 40 years of age and the thought of doing any form of GROUP training causes me to feel nauseous & that little whippet thin blonde whispers to me that I am better off doing it alone.
So I hit the gym, try not to make eye contact which others, quickly cram those ear buds into my ear canals & blast my drums with the soothing sounds of Cockney Rejects & The Prodigy.
I was approached by my old PT to join a team to train for the Jetty 2 Jetty & immediately I started to feel nervy & twitchy. "ummmm no. No thanks. I. I think I'll just go it alone. Thanks. Thanks anyway. Wow is that the time. Oh my hear rate is dropping. I better go & ummm.... what's that?!"
I watch the group classes at the gym where everyone seems to be loving sharing the joy of the burn together. Mentally high-fiving eachother. I see on the forums of Facebook & 12wbt website people getting together to train as a group. Motivating eachother. Slapping eachother on the backs & arses.
Supporting eachother. The thought of joining in makes me feel like running in the opposite direction so fast I would totally beat my 1km time.
However, I am also seethingly jealous of these people that they are so bloody comfortable in the company of others. Bastards.Those people wearing their matching JFDI hats & shirts. They BELONG. They LIKE being around others and people LIKE being around them.
I've always felt like I don't fit in or belong. I've never been in the cool crowd.
---------------------------------------------
But, this journey is about challenging yourself
SO
Dammit in Round Two I am going to step out of my snarling comfort zone. I am going to join in by God.
I'm going to do group exercises classes at the gym.. even try the one that uses the mini trampolines where there is the greatest chance I will fall off like someone on Funniest Home Videos.  I am going to go & actually MEET some of these incredible people on the forums. I WILL turn up at meet n greets with the bile rising in my thought from nervousness.
"Hi. My name is Vicki. Please excuse me if I am a wee bit quiet & keep to myself a bit. You'll find that in about a month you won't be able to shut me up & might regret me joining in as my lewd language & dirty humour very quickly starts to grate on your nerves. Sorry that's just me. Please don't throw any ball at me."

3 comments:

  1. I remember those god awful sports pants too! We used to call them "bummers" - I was skinny but even then I was self conscious in them. It was like doing your PE lesson in your undies!

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  2. I totally understand. I miss you onn the WW blog but at least I can see you here. I didi the 12wbt in round 1 and totally failed. You are such an inspiration x

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  3. Not sure why uername comes up proud.... far from proud lol

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