I was told today that “Chōsen”, as in “Ninja Camp by: Chōsen”, means “challenge”. Today Ninja Camp certainly lived up to that. If yesterday, in the canyon, the experience was about experiencing my growth today was about embracing the suck.
The day started out with a trim to “Bounce” an indoor trampoline wonderland. I was not in my element. Immediately my body and mind started to freeze up and even the simplest moves were daunting to me.
What was wild was that some of the people who froze up the most yesterday in the canyon were super stars here.
Megan Mileham (@shadesofjoy on instagram) was one of these people. She had refused to do any jumps yesterday and now was doing ridiculously impressive things on the trampoline. While I cheered her on yesterday, today she came to my aid and with an abundance of calm, generosity, and skill she talked me through some of the basics and I was able to leave with that accomplished at least.
I did make the play that won the last game of trampoline dodgeball for our team as well... still... I was not even a competent trampolinist.
Things didn’t get much better later in the day when we were taken to Canggu Fitness to experience a training session by Crossfit powerhouse, Talayna Fortunato.
The session started with lots of handstand work... I was the only person in the group that has never done a handstand.
Later we did a partner workout and I did not do great. Derek Loudermilk was my partner, he’s never done Crossfit before in his life and yet his experience as a professional cyclist shone through, on the day. He embraced the pain and discomfort in an admirable way. We made it through but I certainly didn’t impress.
What was great about the day is that none of that mattered. Not one person looked at me as ‘less than’ for my relative weaknesses in these areas and neither did I.
This was actually my intention for the day. I knew that I was outclassed when it came to the activities on the itinerary and I chose to just let it be. The point of the day for me was to experience being bad at stuff but not making that mean that I was bad in any way. I tried my best, I like who I was through the day and that’s what matters in the end.
I think that there’s something powerful in letting myself be okay while being bad at things. The group I’m with here at Ninja Camp are ridiculously supportive and were lovely the whole time but in the past even that might not have mattered. I likely would have gone into a space where poor performance would have shaken me to my core even in an area where I have no reason to expect a good performance.
Forgiving myself for being bad at stuff today wasn’t easy, nor was keeping my head up through the day but it was so worth it. I had a wonderful time, I made great memories and I improved, even just a little bit, in areas of weakness. If that’s not a win of a day, I don’t know what is.
