look, don't judge me
i've found that most people don't believe me when i tell them that i'm shy. it's true. i can qualify it in a sort of "bi-polar shyness"... i'm so gregarious at times that no one notices the really quiet times. that's most demonstrated in the center-of-attention arena. while in groups, i feel totally comfortable taking the lead, but when it's just me to begin with, i clam up and shut down. anyone's fixation on me leaves me fumbling and pretty useless. which would explain my lameness with boys, but i digress.
so it makes sense the somewhat debilitating anxiety that comes over me in regards to competing in karate. walking in to a ring to perform a solo kata automatically gets no less than 5 pairs of eyes judging me, at every corner plus one. not to mention the other competitors, teammates and whoever else may be checking out the ring. it's so bad that i have trained my coaches to not actually look at me when coaching me as i end up in peals of laughter or frozen to the spot if i know they're there to check out my moves. they've gotten better at their subtlety.
i made a commitment to enter one of the largest international tournaments in the world, entering for the first (and probably only) time into the most prestigious of divisions (that part, i didn't really have a choice on). i decided to do this to try to motivate myself in continuing my karate training rather than hanging out on the plateau i had gotten used to. it didn't work. unfortunately, i have fallen to a pretty extreme case of my own head, with me psyching out myself about the competition. the concept of going up against current champions, international champions, and those who have 20+ years on me in the sport is not settling well on my desire to train or compete. in fact, the only thing i have gotten really good at is talking myself out of it before i even start.
at first, i thought "oh, wouldn't it be cool if the 4 of us black belt girls from our dojo (international and current champs included in that number) were the top 4 finalists?", which, as weeks of my sedentary non-training continued, turned in to "i'd just like to make top 10", which morphed in to "please don't let me get last place." at this point, i'm just looking forward to going to see LOVE, where i hope no one will be judging me anyway.
current mood: i just want to put in a good showing