The Nita

So I ran straight into my biggest hurdle at Saturday's stage combat class.

Nita's fear of falling.

Because, much like any art that involves you eventually falling down, the first thing you have to learn is how to do so safely.

And we started out working with the 8" thick mat, so it was easier to do the forward rolls & kips and the like, because dude - it's like falling on a mattress. You have to *work* to hurt yourself.

And we know I'm lazy.

Then we moved to the 2" thick mat, for the sit falls. And the from the sit fall to a backwards roll out. Then doing a forward roll to standing, do a sit fall and then back roll back to your original position.

Um.

One - I'm OLD - at least I'm at least 20 years older than my classmates. Hell, I'm older than the instructor by half a decade. And if you want to see what blind frustration with my own body looks like, watch and laugh at me trying to compete on something as purely physical as rolling around on a 2" thick piece of foam with people for whom high school is a recent memory or the man who's been doing this for most of the last 20 years.

I almost started crying, I was so frustrated.

I spent much of the next 24 hours thinking about why I was letting it get to me.

1) I knew I was wound tighter than normal because we were doing something that involved deliberately falling forward over and over again - Nita fights off stupid irrational fears.

2) I have a naturally competitive nature. That I'm competing against people who are still in their prime doesn't stop that nature.

3) My takeaway lesson from 24 hours of thinking? I need to get over my own ego. I am not a kid any more. It will take longer for me to get good at rolling. The kids will get better at it fast than me. Let's see - one is *just* entering university, and has been doing stage combat for at least as long as I've known her, so call it going on 3 years now. The other has done multiple martial arts (back to that "the first thing you learn is how to fall down safely" thing), so he's always got a huge head start.

"Get over my own ego"

Oy. I'm rarely good at that. I can do it, but it's not going to be pretty for a while while I toss myself at the ground over and over and over trying to get better where no one can see me cry in frustration. Cause the only way I'm going to get better is to practice.

Cause Carnagie Hall isn't going anywhere, and the only way I'm getting there is practice....

In the last little while, I've had a some phenomenal offers.

Someone I have tremendous respect for asked me to direct part of something that has long been one of their babies.

Someone else just now asked me to act in a movie they're doing. Because I'm good.

Hee.

Gods, I'm easy to please - just give me everything, and I'm happy.

Can I please have another 10-15 hours in a day (and the energy to utilize them) now???

Okay, universe. You haven't killed me yet. Shall we go another round?

*snort*

Bring it.

for a big bag of something salty and bad for me.

I ate a good breakfast.

We'll see how I ignore it or not.

( Nita's rules for life )
There you go. How I try to live my life in a few simple rules.

I run on caffeine. Predominantly in the form of diet pepsi.

I've been trying to drink "better for me" stuff lately.

There's only so much tea I can stand. Juice has too much sugar and is too sweet. Water is too damned boring after a very short bit of time, and I live in a world where too much of the stuff that goes in my mouth is tasteless as it is.

Ugh.

I need energy to get me through my day (don't tell me to get more sleep unless you want to be responsible for all of the jobs that I must do in a day for a week at least). Caffeine does that, at least enough for me to fake the rest on natural exuberance.

What I need to do and what I want to do to be better to myself seem to have a lot of damned conflict.

Good thing I'm good at conflict, I guess.

I am listening to Fat Boy Slim's Because We Can - which forever for me will be watching my cast come up to do their bows at the end of Musketeers. The applause in my ears, the rumble under my feet from foot stomping & the cast moving, the healthy scent of sweat from many bodies moving LOTS for the fights, and the grins on their faces.

It amuses me - a song that was, I believe, orginally predominately women for Moulin Rouge is now very much tied up for me in the testosterone of Musketeers.

It's no longer a song for me - it's a sensory experience....

I so don't know what I look like.

When I see photos of me, I wonder who it is.

Then I see a photo of me with my sunglasses on - and I know it's me.

Yah.

I'm sure there's a name for this. Delusional is my current one.

Evidently, the practice at Bards is helping.

I still hate talking extemporaneously to an audience - I'm not good at it. I'm better than I was, fortunately.

We did the promo/performance/thingy for the Spotlight festival this afternoon - thank the gods for actors & fighters who can sell their performance. I blathered about why were there there and the (ahem) cursory instruction on how to do a fight.

Oddly fun, given that we were all amazingly too warm, on a stage we got 10 minutes to set up on, and I was pulling what I was saying mostly out of the thin air. Given that esprit de escalier is pretty much my nom du plume, drove me a little nutters reviewing it after for "what I should have said". But the audience seemed to like it enough not to leave, so I'll call it a win for now.

I need to do more talking to crowds on subjects other than my current show, the computer woes or my wee boy.

Either that, or I need to find myself a writer and learn the damned lines beforehand. [g]

Now - to make the boys dinner....

that "Sympathy for the Devil" is such an energizing song for me....

Who needs sleep - I have music....