When my good friend Karin Lange suggested a week day romp to Somerset House for ice-skating, my first reaction wasn't great."Nah-ah," I told myself, "that's ridiculous. You can't ice-skate, you should be doing proper work during the day and you'll only end up breaking something." I tried everything to convince myself. "It's not even a proper walking surface is it? It's just like trying to walk on lit barbecues- why would you do it?!" Of the (arguably) two natural fears we're born with, fear of falling is 50% and this seemed like sufficient evidence to prove to me that my fear was justified. "Don't go."
My second reaction was a little more positive, however, as I reminded myself how I love different experiences, especially when they involve facing a fear. So as I stepped tentatively onto what can only be described as very smooth, very slippery ice, I tried to learn something.
My first few minutes confirmed that I indeed didn't have the magical ice-skating gene hidden in me. I spent most of that time clinging to the side rail without being able to move. When I did manage to face the direction of the skating traffic, I felt like an elephant trying to cross a ropebridge. Meanwhilst people half my size where already whizzing past with grace and confidence. This, I realised, was part of my fear. I wasn't so much afraid of breaking a bone (because that bad things don't happen to me tendency kicked in and refused to let me believe it), but I what I was afraid of was not being all that good.
As someone who's been a bit of a swat for most of her life, I'm one of those lucky people who are used to picking up intellectual concepts as fast as anyone. I'm used to being at the front of the pack without much effort. But when it comes to physical activities, I realised that I share a common Western adult disease of being far too much in my head and not nearly enough in my body.
It wasn't comfortable to bend my needs to get more balance - I didn't like the insecure feeling when you lose balance and wobble backwards and grab madly for the nearest barrier (or child) for support. I didn't want to do my apprenticeship, I wanted to skate NOW. Or not at all. Karin reminded me it was like so many people's reaction to personal development work - many of us in the field have seen (or been!) that person who, say, meditates for 30 seconds and then give up, proclaiming it doesn't work. If we have a lifetime of bad habits built up, it's going to take more than a few seconds to destroy them.
So, after many minutes of patient Karin wheeling me around the ice rink and giving me encouraging words, I gradually, progressed from inept and scared to 1 metre away from the barrier and calm. And what helped? Actually it was distracting myself as much as possible from our subject matter. In talking about something completely different as we went round, Karin and I practiced a very smart technique of just being rather than analysing; letting our bodies do the work for once whilst our minds were distracted elsewhere.
And it's true elsewhere in our lives. How many things do we restrict ourselves from doing because we have over-active brains? How many times have you convinced yourself not to talk to that stranger because... or not to pick up the phone and ask for that because, well, you know the sorts of excuses we all make up.
If we just let our bodies guide us more, perhaps they'd guide us into situations that make us feel more alive, more capable. After all, my theory is that bones aren't generally broken on skating rinks because of stupidity. Generally the more tense we are, the more dangerous a fall is (see how kids bounce?). And if it's tension that's dangerous, it's thinking too much that creates the tension.
So it's less think, more 'do'.
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