It has begun!

Tonight was the start of Nia White Belt intensive training and even at four hours my brain is full, my inner imp is excited and a small part of me is wondering what it is I have gotten myself into!

I have always struggled with my self-image. Confidence. It seems like such a simple thing, just believe in yourself and it all falls into place, right? As I have gotten older, the self critic’s grip on my has gotten less but it’s voice is still a powerful motivator and antagonist in my personal battle to self acceptance. Any name that anyone could have possibly called me could have never been worse then the names and thoughts that I have harmed myself with through the years. So it should come as no surprise to me that I am about to undertake an exciting journey of self-discovery through Nia this next week that my critic emerges as furiously as it ever does. “I am not ready, I am not thin enough, good enough, fit enough. I will not look right, eat right, or move right. What if I fail?” And so on. It can quickly become quite tiresome and draining. Am I the only one with a critic this obnoxious? I mean really! The most amusing part of the critic’s tirade is that I would never have fallen in love with Nia and by extension my growing image of my self as beautiful if it was all of those things that my critic is trying to warn me against. I am ready now. So for the next month my critic gets to take a very long nap (April is scrip frenzy which I am also foolishly going to attempt.) and when I decide to take it out again, we are going to have a long series of renegotiations over its duties.

So what does this have to do with my first night of training? Well not much but it was amusing to me. I seem to be full of crazy ideas lately because I have taken it into my head to blog each night about the day, a sort of mental and emotional brain dump. I expect these posts to be come nonsensical pretty darn quick eventually becoming: Oooh pretty music, body tire, wooden floors and lots of people or even Huh, mmmmmph egag!

Or not.

We have a full class. 39 students. Holy Moly. Much of what was tonight was our agreement to the four principles or energy allies. They consist of speaking with impeccability, don’t assume anything, don’t take anything personally and always do your best. And be on time.

Bedtime is calling as we have an early start.