(no subject)
A revelation has been slowly dawning on me for the last few months:
I am much stronger, physically, than I ever thought I was.
I knew in a general ways, when I was a kid, that I had strong legs, because I was always a fast sprinter. But, perhaps because I was a little sister of a big brother, perhaps because I was always terrible at non-running things in gym class, I always thought my upper body strength was pretty non-existent. (And to be honest, my lack of ab strength is truly pathetic.) Particularly in my high school years, people in my ballet class would comment on my strength--but it's ballet, so that's leg strength.
It was only when I was in college that my dad happened to let slip to me one day that my lack of gym class abilities was actually not because I just for some reason sucked, but because my extreme astigmatism resulted in poor depth perception. After that, and particularly after I took up fencing and was actually pretty good at it, I began to reevaluate my physical abilities.
In the last couple of years I have also had physical therapy and taken up swing dancing, and my therapists and dance partners have commented a number of times on my strength. Just recently I was polka-ing with someone who didn't really know the polka (I was leading) and she commented afterward that I basically just carried her around the room.
I have come to the conclusion that although my arm strength is not as phenomenal as that of some of my girl friends, it's still probably higher than average for a woman. And it may sound weird, but that has begun to give me an entirely new idea of myself, both in terms of character and body image.
(The fact that I have never actually known my own strength also explains a number of incidents in my childhood when people got mad at me while we were rough-housing. I literally didn't know how hard I was playing because I assumed most people were able to play harder than I could, ESPECIALLY boys.)
I am much stronger, physically, than I ever thought I was.
I knew in a general ways, when I was a kid, that I had strong legs, because I was always a fast sprinter. But, perhaps because I was a little sister of a big brother, perhaps because I was always terrible at non-running things in gym class, I always thought my upper body strength was pretty non-existent. (And to be honest, my lack of ab strength is truly pathetic.) Particularly in my high school years, people in my ballet class would comment on my strength--but it's ballet, so that's leg strength.
It was only when I was in college that my dad happened to let slip to me one day that my lack of gym class abilities was actually not because I just for some reason sucked, but because my extreme astigmatism resulted in poor depth perception. After that, and particularly after I took up fencing and was actually pretty good at it, I began to reevaluate my physical abilities.
In the last couple of years I have also had physical therapy and taken up swing dancing, and my therapists and dance partners have commented a number of times on my strength. Just recently I was polka-ing with someone who didn't really know the polka (I was leading) and she commented afterward that I basically just carried her around the room.
I have come to the conclusion that although my arm strength is not as phenomenal as that of some of my girl friends, it's still probably higher than average for a woman. And it may sound weird, but that has begun to give me an entirely new idea of myself, both in terms of character and body image.
(The fact that I have never actually known my own strength also explains a number of incidents in my childhood when people got mad at me while we were rough-housing. I literally didn't know how hard I was playing because I assumed most people were able to play harder than I could, ESPECIALLY boys.)