Fear and the Art of Denial

Editor’s note: Contains profanity.

On Saturday I went to kung fu at a spin class at East Communities YMCA because I was feeling like a lard-ass. No, a kung fu sifu wasn't teaching spin class. On Saturday, I had a different teacher—yet one just as wise. One who called bullshit on thoughts wafting through my crazy mind.

My sifu on Saturday was a young, ultra-fit man named Dan. He wasn’t strolling like a god around the room, making micro-adjustment to students’ structure. In black Spandex shorts and a sleeveless, breathable black top, Spin Sifu Dan rode a stationary bike with everyone else, sweating and coaching for an entire hour. And at times he yelled. He screamed out loud the things that my mind had been whispering for years—things that I had no longer recognized as fear and had long ago accepted as fact.

“You came here to be uncomfortable,” Dan said in the beginning.

I thought of how the same could be said about every martial arts class I've ever taken. Martial arts pushes me. It pushes my buttons. It pushes buttons I didn’t even realize I had. It pushes old, buried-in-tangled-and-tight-muscles buttons. And the discomfort always surprises me.

I yawned. Whether in spin class or on my hybrid bike on Austin roads, I always yawn atthe beginning of a ride. It’s my body’s way of releasing—something.  I yawn when I’m pushed. Odd, I know. I look like I’m not interested or even awake. Yet my mind is alert.

Are you sure you want to do this? This feels hard. You don’t like hard.

On a good day, when I have people like Spin Sifu Dan around, I can tell my mind to go fuck itself. It’s when I’m by myself that I’m weak. When I’m on my own, I believe the lies Fear tells me. It never occurs to me to debunk them.

The spin class was headed into its first sprint stretch. When I hear “sprint,” my spirit sinks. I automatically shut down. I’m not fast. I was born under the Chinese astrological sign of the Hare, but I’m a Tortoise by all accounts. Speed is hard work, and I never believe that I can be fast enough to keep up with everyone else. I don’t like to ride with strangers because I’m slow. I don’t like to run with friends because I'm slow. When I lag behind, I feel inferior. I want to quit.

All this is going through my mind in a millisecond as I feel my body go into the Dread Zone.

“Remember,” Spin Sifu Dan said, shaking me out of my thoughts, “hard work is temporary.”

It is? I thought.

There was silence between my ears. Nothing. My mind had no rebuttal.

It is! I thought.

It was the first time that I thought I could do something hard because it wouldn’t last forever. That I wouldn’t have to spend every ounce of endurance I had and still fall short in front of God and everybody. That I could work hard—really push myself—and I wouldn’t die, faint, or be laughed at or criticized.

As Spin Sifu Dan led the class into jumps (riding in and out of the saddle on six, four, and two counts), I felt an internal shift.

Just yesterday I told myself a lie—that I didn’t need to ride in another MS 150 after having done it three years in a row. (The MS 150 is a 150-mile bicycle ride from Houston to Austin to raise money for multiple sclerosis research.) And yet here I was in spin class because that morning I had told myself the truth.

You don’t want to because you know it’s going to be hard work and you’re afraid that you can’t do it again.

Read: I’m afraid of having to take a sag wagon. Read more: I’m afraid of FAILING.

How the hell can you fucking fail on a charity ride, for crying out loud? What the fuck?

Spin Sifu Dan interrupted Episode 200,506 of my self-loathing series to espouse more wisdom:

“You came here to work!” he yelled as we headed into our last sprint. “Don’t leave here thinking that you didn’t give it all. Don’t walk out of here feeling bad about yourself because you didn’t push yourself.

“PUSH YOURSELF NOW!” he yelled.

And I did. I was afraid, but I did. And from that, another lie came to the surface. I thought about Taekwondo—about how I’ve felt incomplete for years, knowing that I had a fourth-degree test staring me in the face , and instead of taking the god-damned test, I walked away. I knew that I, as Spin Sifu Dan said, “didn’t give it my all.”

Shit.

I had convinced myself then that I didn’t need my fourth-degree black belt, that I didn’t want it. And yet it’s unfinished business that hangs out in the trees of my mind, swinging from stem to stem like a wild monkey, screeching, “Quitter! Quitter! You're a Quitter!”

Mother fucker. (Yawn.)

I teared up. I knew that if I didn't take the fucking test, it'd represent a regret on my death bed.

Spin class was over, though, so my tears could be easily mistaken for perspiration. I climbed off the mechanical horse, wiped off my sweat chi from the handle bars, and thanked Spin Sifu Dan for a great class.

 

I’m sure he had no idea that the words he spoke were resonating in such a powerful way. For an hour, he was my Sifu—a life coach whose words spun their way onto well-worn fear paths of my brain, and helped me begin to change course.

 

Me and Spin Sifu Dan.

I know it will take more than this awakening to battle my internal demons, but every day, the martial arts gods are placing teachers in my path who help me be honest with myself—to see the truth—as hard and as painful as that may be to see.

As soon as I file this post, I’m going to take a baby step toward serenity and sign up for my fourth MS 150. And then I’ll put my big-girl panties on and reach out to some Taekwondo mentors for someone to coach me—complete with meniscus-less knees and fear-wired brain cells—toward my fourth-degree black belt. If I fail—if I have to take a sag wagon on the MS 15—I can be O.K. with it. But if I don’t even try, they will be Episodes 200,507 and 200,508 of a lifelong, constantly rerunning, self-loathing series.

Yawn.