Fail Better
On Monday afternoons the girls of the Nash clan head into the central city to take our respective Hip Hoop Fitness classes. The kids class is in the hour preceding mine so once Issy’s finished hooping, she has her dinner and waits for me while the adults session is in progress.
For the past couple of weeks there haven’t been any other kids signed up for classes so Issy (who is 7) has been attending the adults Hoop Fitness class. Although she’s really shy, Issy was ok with joining the adults class as she’s become quite familiar with the regulars and to be fair, there isn’t much difference between the two sessions other than the kids play games in between learning/practicing hoop skills and they don’t have a core conditioning segment.
Issy has VASTLY superior hoop skills than her Mum so she can hold her own amongst the adults, although she struggles with some of the skills that require a greater upper body strength, she’s managed to become quite proficient in the over head stuff whilst using her dominant hand. Issy (like most humans) likes to do the things she good at, which is fair enough I’d much prefer to do a WOD of cleans and burpees than running and box jumping. However since I’m a grown up and understand that being able to run and jump without dying will be immeasurably handy in the zombie apocalypse I still (somewhat begrudgingly) run and jump.
Which is why I’ve really enjoyed having Issy hoop alongside me, while Issy is dancing around in circles expertly manipulating her hoop she watches her Mum laughing as I fail, fail and fail again with an occasional jump for joy when I “nearly get it”. She’ll often ask me why I don’t just do something that I’m already good at to which I reply “Because I’ll never get good at this if I don’t keep trying baby”. F.A.I.L = First attempt at learning <3
On our way home after discussing how beautiful the Auckland Sky Tower is that particular night with my little artist, I’ll often tell her that Mum is going to practice all week so that at next weeks class I’ll be able to do the skill that has been eluding me all night and throughout the week she’ll ask how I’m going and if I need some pointers (bless her). So far, I’ve been able to nail most skills within the week (at least on my dominant side) and then once I’m proficient on that side I start working on my non dominant arm the following week and each and every time it finally just clicks, Issy is the first to congratulate me.
I’d hoped to show Issy that in a group situation most people are way too caught up in their own stuff to have time to look at you (or the flying hoop coming towards them – oops, my bad) and that it’s OK not to be good at something as long as you find it fun, but she had taken on board so much more than I had hoped for.
Earlier she proclaimed, “Mum, this week I’m only going use my not good arm so that it gets good, just like yours did”. #proudmum
Till next time
