Accepting Your Strengths

It's easy for me to be hard on myself. I get imposter syndrome, compare myself to others unfavorably, and focus on my mistakes, letting my strengths fall by the wayside in the process. My self-deprecating humor about tying has become a reflex; every practice session ends with, "Yay! You're not dead!" or profuse gratitude for "putting up with" my TK drills.

Is it possible that I have become so fearful of developing the dreaded rigger ego that I've gone too far the other direction? I see it in my friends, too, this hesitation to acknowledge what we're good at and focus on what we're not good enough at. At what point have we diverged from a healthy attitude of lifelong learning and fallen into false immodesty, or damaging cycles of self-criticism?

I messed up at rope lab the other night, in a way that could have ended badly. In focusing on one aspect of a transition, I neglected another. My bottom could have been dropped on her head. She wasn't; she was fine; we get her down safely, ended there and untied, and she's still bottoming for me at the intensive this weekend. Needless to say, I have both aspects of that transition now nailed very firmly in my mind. And when I moved past that point, I found some things to feel good about: the sequence had gone well until then. I understood it, still remember the poses, and would like to try it again.

"Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett, in a rare moment of clear meaning.

I will continue to try, fail, fail again, and fail better.

In the meantime, here are things I am good at:

1. I have adapted my tying to my size, developing techniques to tie people much bigger than myself. This often involves climbing on them, which most folks find pretty enjoyable and entertaining, and provides opportunities to play with the size difference in a new way. Making a big person small, or making them tall and then striking from below delights me.

2. I'm adaptable to tone. Want mean rope? Can do. Want nice, cuddly rope? Yup, great! Hug rope? Sexy rope? Circus rope? Let's go!

3. I'm willing to branch out and try new things. Western style, new ryus, new perspectives -- even if I don't end up adopting whatever it is, I'm willing to see if there's something to take away from it.