Being Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

The focus of my self-study will be to increase my physical fitness, put plainly “to get back in shape”, documenting my work with a training log in the style that I hope my students will use, and reflecting on the process with the self-study process. Healing and preparing my body for the next 10 years of teaching and coaching was the initial idea, but I think that branching out into sports or races that I have little experience in, and forcing myself to compete in them would be helpful to the empathy that I hope to build through this process. 

The last ten years, and particularly the last two years, have been tough on my body. I wake up with pain, my neck and back hurt when I grade papers, and my ability to participate in activities that I enjoy is decreasing. In order to remain a confident mover, and lay a foundation for long term health, I would like to invest in my own physical training. Inconsistent time for training has played a large role, and while I’ve learned to channel my athletic energy into my students’ experiences in a healthy way, this focus has begun to cause me physical pain. 

I have strong memories of my acculturation as an athlete, but the further that they get away, the more that I worry that I will be out of touch with my students. For the most part, I was always confident in my ability to become a successful(ish) runner. I have strong memories of intervals run, sit-ups completed, and lunges upon lunges. I have learned sports recently, but have not pushed myself to apply them in a competitive environment. I am curious about whether competition will be a spur to greater physical achievement, or whether self-doubt and the discourses embedded in those spaces will be a barrier.

Some of the key questions driving this project are:

    • What does it take to be a competitive athlete?
    • How does sequestering time for regular exercise affect health and happiness?
    • How does self-doubt affect compliance with a training regimen? With satisfaction in exercise? 
    • How does self-doubt affect the desire to compete? Satisfaction with results? 
    • With all the advice that I give to athletes about planning time, caring for their body, holding themselves accountable, and being comfortable with discomfort, can I talk myself into those things?

Coaches ask students to be comfortable being uncomfortable, but if I lose an appreciation for what that actually entails, I won’t be able to plan or communicate effectively. After my appendix surgery, my musculoskeletal health has declined, and this seems like a perfect way to experiment with the emotional/affective side of the athletic experience. Training, for me, will require acquiring physical skills that I don’t currently have. I will have to deal with much of the self-doubt that is such a barrier to physical activity.

I plan to force myself to compete in the activities that I am learning/re-learning. This is an exercise in empathy for my students, but also to keep myself accountable, to examine the ideas that I hold about competition, and to advance my graduate school work on the discourses embedded in spaces of play.

5 thoughts on “Being Comfortable Being Uncomfortable”

  1. Peter, I’m intrigued by the ideas of sustainability and growth that are central to the questions that you are raising here. How might we develop practices that allow for continuous learning and growth, but that also respect the “long-distance” nature of the work of teaching? It is easy for us to lose sight of these longer goals in the context of the series of daily and weekly sprints that can define the work of teaching. I wonder also how this focus on learning/re-learning in the context of training and competing might also inform how you view/approach your work in the history classroom. I think that there is also an interesting connection between the discourse on “spaces of play” and how we transform our classrooms so that they too are seen by students as sites of play. Maybe this transformation hinges on how we as teachers and adult learners rediscover our work as play.

  2. This is great! In order to teach something, we best serve our students by authentically participating in the activities with them in order to learn and grow as well. Plus, this is really good for you on a personal level! If you ever want to join in some yoga, let me know. -Sharyn

  3. This is inspiring! I’d love to hear about how you create a schedule for yourself and carve out time to make this work for you-something that I find extremely challenging.

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