What did I learn today?

Today was Bodystep day and my first shot at teaching Tracks 7-12 - Tracks 7, 8, 9 were taught well but 10 and 11 were a total nightmare and I found myself leaving class today feeling really disappointed in myself.

I know I've said it before but doing a "stinker" class sometimes makes the next ones so much better because you stop, really go over your choreo/teaching techniques and try to learn from your mistakes.

That (and other reasons which I can't blog about) put me under a bit of a cloud today and it got me thinking about how important it is to be "emotionally fit". A dear email buddy from the US who I "met" before our two youngest kids were born and I have been having some great email dialogue about it. She's really been working hard at this aspect of herself and her last email really inspired me to focus on this area as well at the moment - I know I need to! Being emotionally "unfit" can open the door to being nutritionally "unfit" and physically "unfit". It is as if the emotional fitness part is the bit of string that hangs out of a woollen ball waiting for life to pounce - pull the string hard enough and the whole thing unravels.

I just thought I would share this fantastic post from John Gilson of http://www.againfaster.com/ about fit beautiful women.

I were feeling a little more lawless, I’d gather all the copies of Cosmo and Seventeen, douse them in kerosene, and strike a match. I’d throw in reams of print ads from Calvin Klein and watch with delight as Kate Moss’ stick-thin image was reduced to carbon. I’d add copies of Shape and Runner’s World until the flames reached toward the heavens, and then I’d crank call the editorial desk at Muscle and Fitness until they stopped publishing pictures of women on steroids.I’d get the master tapes of America’s Next Top Model and dub over them with “Nasty Girls”, broadcasting the results on every television station in America. I’d skywrite “CrossFit.com” across the Boston skyline, and gently admonish the hoards of long distance runners trotting along the Charles River—with a bullhorn.I’d take every woman with mass media-induced ideals of beauty, and I’d show them what it really means to be beautiful. Beautiful women are strong and powerful. They are athletes, capable of every feat under the sun. They have muscles, borne of hard work and sweat. They gauge their self-worth through accomplishments, not by the numbers on the bathroom scale. They understand that muscle weighs more than fat, and they love the fact that designer jeans don’t fit over their well-developed quads. They know that high repetitions using light weights is a path to mediocrity, and “toning” is a complete and utter myth. They refuse to succumb to the marketers that prey on insecurity, leaving the pre-packaged diet dinners and fat-burning pills on the shelf to pass their expiration date.Beautiful women train with intensity. The derive self-image from the quality of their work and their ability to excel. They don’t wear makeup to the gym, and they wouldn’t be caught dead with a vinyl pink dumbbell. They move iron, they do pull-ups, they jump, sprint, punch, and kick, and they use the elliptical machine—as a place to hang their jump rope. They spend their weekends in sport, climbing walls, winning races, and running rivers. They laugh as they sprint circles around the unschooled, turning the image-obsessed into benchwarmers. Beautiful women don’t care if they’re soaked in sweat and covered in dirt, if their nails are chipped or their hair out of place. They care only about quality of life. Beautiful women are happy, healthy, and strong, and they’re right there beside me, tossing conventional beauty on the ever-growing flames of what used to be.
Be beautiful.

THank you John