I’ve experienced a huge shift in my enjoyment of teaching my Pilates classes since receiving and reflecting on my first AAC (Work anxiety). Seeing and even greeting my anxiety created a big shift for me. I even acknowledged and thanked the anxiety for the job it did in keeping me safer as a child, and how in so many ways it has contributed positively and helped me with ‘successes’ in my career. I did this about 10 minutes before leaving to teach a class – as I got an alert that my question had been answered – and I felt a sense of peace and naturalness teaching that evening that I’ve only fleetingly experienced before when teaching. I am trying to see that having the anxiety doesn’t mean that I won’t know what to say, or that I’ll forget what I want to teach. That it is just some feelings. I hope I can continue in this way, and make the anxiety much less of a big deal.
The other feedback on the first part of my AAC, was ‘why after 7 years of teaching you think you need to have a new routine each class?’. I had to have a chuckle because I think this confusion I feel about whether or not to plan and what I make it mean about me, is a big part of the anxiety. I’ve been reflecting on this question and so thought it would be good to bring it back here.
I get very torn between wanting to be able to teach ‘off the cuff’ without much planning, and needing the safety net of a plan. I found earlier on in my teaching career that having a very set plan actually made me nervous because I would spend the whole day going over and over it in my head, and then when i was teaching I felt i wasn’t very present and always wondering what came next, and would sometimes forget to do things on one side of the body that we had done on the other side. I also thought (although I realise this may not be true), that the best instructors were the ones who knew their stuff so well that they could just stand up and teach without pre preparing anything. Perhaps this was because my mentor taught this way, as did another close instructor friend of mine. I loved the idea of being so chilled about it all that I could just rock up and teach with no pre preparation!
When I have taught with a ‘loose plan’ of the main things I will teach and then I let myself be creative in the moment with the other parts of the class, I feel I am at my best. But – because of the anxiety, I spend a lot of time beforehand worrying that I won’t know how to fill those gaps, that I’ll go blank etc. I’ve perhaps got myself into a bit of a complicated system where I don’t want to plan too much or too little! Because I rarely write down any plans, I never revisit any of them, though of course certain exercises do get repeated regularly. I also get worried that people will get bored if there is too much repetition.
surely there must be an easier way for me to approach all this, to have a simpler method and also to have more trust in myself that I do know what I am doing.
Thank you
Answer:
That’s wonderful news about how you’ve shifted your relationship to anxiety. How will you celebrate this win!?
Onto the next…I’d like you to notice two thoughts:
I am at my best when I teach with a loose plan and let myself be creative
I worry about not knowing how to fill the gaps and that people will get bored if there is too much repetition
It sounds to me like you know where you operate best and that the worry about not knowing how to fill the gaps, and whether people will get bored if there’s too much repetition, is just your unchecked brain grabbing the mic.
Let’s explore the worst case scenario. What if you drew a blank and didn’t know how to fill the gap? What’s the worst that could happen? What would you do then? Ask the same questions if someone or several people thought your class was repetitive.
Usually, the worst thing that will happen is that you’ll have a feeling you don’t want to feel. But you have a complete arsenal of tools available to you to help you navigate hard feelings as a member of TFC. When you think about it this way, what possibilities open up for you? Come back to us with part 3 when you’re ready for more coaching.