Mythologizing - A Guest Blog from Small Blue Pearls by my buddy, "Loo".
"Loo" and I recently reconnected after an almost 30 year separation (gotta love Facebook). Back in junior high both of us detested anything physical, mostly because we thought we were more "artistic" types who couldn't be successful in that arena. Ironically, now physical activity is a major part of both of our lives.
She shared this with me and I think it's so good I wanted to share it with all of you.
Loo on her bike: "No helmets! Not even on my baby brother! Ahhh, those laisse-faire 1970s"
I was the last kid in my grade to learn how to ride a bike.
Despite having a super-cool banana bike with tasseled handlebars and the classic thumb-operated byrngg-byrngg bell, I was terrified and wobbly and ashamed of myself. The grownups all threw their hands up in frustration. I somehow screwed up enough courage and learned after everyone had given up on me. And sure enough, it wasn't long before I was zooming around town on my bike (sans helmet) with all the rest of the kids, but I still carried that kernel of fear deep inside. And still do. Despite having logged hundreds of miles on two wheels since then, I'm still not 100% comfortable on a bike.
In the third grade a despicable gym teacher whose name I have blocked from memory decided to "teach" me how to dribble a basketball. I was having a hard time controlling it and I guess she'd had enough. So she had the whole class sit in the center of the gymnasium and made me dribble the ball around the perimeter three times. Zero instruction, just pure humiliation. I made it the three times around because I was stubborn even then, but I could barely see through the Niagara of tears I shed let alone master the skill of dribbling. The rest of the class sat in mute horror and pity, not one of them even remotely inclined to heckle. Several of the boys helpfully fetched the ball when it would roll away from me. As soon as this sadistic lesson was over I ran from the gym to the Principal's office where they phoned my Mom. She came and took me home for the day but not before lacing into anyone within earshot about child cruelty.
These two dramatic incidents certainly contributed to, but were definitely not the sole reason for, the creation of the myth that I'm unable to do anything requiring large motor skills.
My Mom inadvertently participated in it's creation as well. As kids, my siblings and I liked to color and draw and put on puppet plays. We were verbal and literate and artistic. We read constantly. She'd repeat like a mantra "you have fine motor control, none of us is any good at large motor control" by which she meant sports or anything athletic. I internalized this message well.
I now know that she was just trying to spare us the hurt and humiliation she'd suffered from not being "good" at sports. By letting us off the hook prematurely, we learned to disbelieve even our own senses that were telling us that just maybe this wasn't entirely true. We may not be Olympic material, but all of us possess a certain physical grace and coordination that makes us anything but ungainly. It's confidence that I lack. Not motor skills.
The strangest part is of course my Mom's own natural physical abilities. It wasn't until many years later that I found her awards for archery and shooting a rifle, or saw the home movies of her skating and skiing and snowshoeing. She was always physically active and still is. But she will tell you if you ask her that she is "bad" at anything to do with sports.
Creation myths are just that. Myths. And myths are not the truth. Ever. We all have at least one that we tell ourselves despite evidence to the contrary. We believe them because they help "explain" who we are and where we come from, they help identify who we "are" — long past the time when that is necessary or needed. Mine was that since I was "artistic" I was "bad" at athletics. In the world that I inhabited, there was an uncrossable border between those two worlds. You simply could not be good at both. If you were good at sports this would somehow detract from your status as an artist and since I was heavily invested in being seen as artistic it meant I had to shun anything physical to preserve my self-identity.
And so I had a hard time learning to balance on a bike, or dribble a basketball, or hit a softball, or run very far. I gave up before I began. I made my myth true.
I spent my entire pre-college school days creatively avoiding gym class but I would go play soccer with the neighborhood boys any chance I got. There were always cracks in the myth, always a part of me that never fully believed in it. As long as whatever it was I was doing was not officially sanctioned as "sport" I was fine and could play as well as any other kid.
I recently met up with an old friend from Junior High — one of my cohorts in gym-avoidance — who is now a personal trainer and heads up a national fitness chain's training program. We sat in a coffee shop in New York shaking our heads at the wasted years, both agreeing that adolescence would have been so much easier if we'd had a physical outlet. But we were young women right at the cusp after Title IX was passed to equalize girl's sports. Beyond gymnastics (terrifying!) and field hockey (unfeminine! crushed ankles!) there were few options available for us.
As I get on the mat each day, I know that a big part of the work I'm doing is rewriting this creation story, this myth about myself and who I am and what is true. Whole sections have to be scrapped. It's all up for grabs. And I believe that this is the essence of what Ashtanga is all about — by meeting ourselves on the mat each day doing the same thing each time, it allows us the space to take a hard look at who we think we are and hopefully allows us to discover just a little bit about who we may actually be.
Despite having a super-cool banana bike with tasseled handlebars and the classic thumb-operated byrngg-byrngg bell, I was terrified and wobbly and ashamed of myself. The grownups all threw their hands up in frustration. I somehow screwed up enough courage and learned after everyone had given up on me. And sure enough, it wasn't long before I was zooming around town on my bike (sans helmet) with all the rest of the kids, but I still carried that kernel of fear deep inside. And still do. Despite having logged hundreds of miles on two wheels since then, I'm still not 100% comfortable on a bike.
In the third grade a despicable gym teacher whose name I have blocked from memory decided to "teach" me how to dribble a basketball. I was having a hard time controlling it and I guess she'd had enough. So she had the whole class sit in the center of the gymnasium and made me dribble the ball around the perimeter three times. Zero instruction, just pure humiliation. I made it the three times around because I was stubborn even then, but I could barely see through the Niagara of tears I shed let alone master the skill of dribbling. The rest of the class sat in mute horror and pity, not one of them even remotely inclined to heckle. Several of the boys helpfully fetched the ball when it would roll away from me. As soon as this sadistic lesson was over I ran from the gym to the Principal's office where they phoned my Mom. She came and took me home for the day but not before lacing into anyone within earshot about child cruelty.
These two dramatic incidents certainly contributed to, but were definitely not the sole reason for, the creation of the myth that I'm unable to do anything requiring large motor skills.
My Mom inadvertently participated in it's creation as well. As kids, my siblings and I liked to color and draw and put on puppet plays. We were verbal and literate and artistic. We read constantly. She'd repeat like a mantra "you have fine motor control, none of us is any good at large motor control" by which she meant sports or anything athletic. I internalized this message well.
I now know that she was just trying to spare us the hurt and humiliation she'd suffered from not being "good" at sports. By letting us off the hook prematurely, we learned to disbelieve even our own senses that were telling us that just maybe this wasn't entirely true. We may not be Olympic material, but all of us possess a certain physical grace and coordination that makes us anything but ungainly. It's confidence that I lack. Not motor skills.
The strangest part is of course my Mom's own natural physical abilities. It wasn't until many years later that I found her awards for archery and shooting a rifle, or saw the home movies of her skating and skiing and snowshoeing. She was always physically active and still is. But she will tell you if you ask her that she is "bad" at anything to do with sports.
Creation myths are just that. Myths. And myths are not the truth. Ever. We all have at least one that we tell ourselves despite evidence to the contrary. We believe them because they help "explain" who we are and where we come from, they help identify who we "are" — long past the time when that is necessary or needed. Mine was that since I was "artistic" I was "bad" at athletics. In the world that I inhabited, there was an uncrossable border between those two worlds. You simply could not be good at both. If you were good at sports this would somehow detract from your status as an artist and since I was heavily invested in being seen as artistic it meant I had to shun anything physical to preserve my self-identity.
And so I had a hard time learning to balance on a bike, or dribble a basketball, or hit a softball, or run very far. I gave up before I began. I made my myth true.
I spent my entire pre-college school days creatively avoiding gym class but I would go play soccer with the neighborhood boys any chance I got. There were always cracks in the myth, always a part of me that never fully believed in it. As long as whatever it was I was doing was not officially sanctioned as "sport" I was fine and could play as well as any other kid.
I recently met up with an old friend from Junior High — one of my cohorts in gym-avoidance — who is now a personal trainer and heads up a national fitness chain's training program. We sat in a coffee shop in New York shaking our heads at the wasted years, both agreeing that adolescence would have been so much easier if we'd had a physical outlet. But we were young women right at the cusp after Title IX was passed to equalize girl's sports. Beyond gymnastics (terrifying!) and field hockey (unfeminine! crushed ankles!) there were few options available for us.
As I get on the mat each day, I know that a big part of the work I'm doing is rewriting this creation story, this myth about myself and who I am and what is true. Whole sections have to be scrapped. It's all up for grabs. And I believe that this is the essence of what Ashtanga is all about — by meeting ourselves on the mat each day doing the same thing each time, it allows us the space to take a hard look at who we think we are and hopefully allows us to discover just a little bit about who we may actually be.
