The Winnie the Pooh Towel
It’s the place you look at from afar – wanting to go there but not ever really being game. It is a blokes place. It is a place that individuals like me entertain thoughts that one day we might venture into its sacred domain. It is that place in the gym usually in the corner where blokes lift huge weights, talk about ‘what they are on!’, look at themselves in the vast array of mirrors to see if their muscles have grown in the past five seconds, grunt as they lift weights that weight more than me – this is the place where the boys have biceps bigger than my thighs.
I have often wanted to go there but alas I am just not there yet! Until one day my fitness trainer took me into this forbidden area to lift some ‘free weights’ – my, how I am learning the lingo of the gym. ‘I’ve never been here’, I said – ‘Don’t worry no one is here, you are safe!’ she said – her smiling face gave away the fact that she was having a go at me.
I did my routine then left but I wanted to return. The next day I did. Full of confidence I approached the ‘area’ – there were about five guys there strutting their stuff and lifting weights the size of small cars. I was not intimidated. I walked past them – they watched me go to the smallest weights on the rack and struggle to even lift them off. Still not fearful of their sideways glances I put the weights down – found a bench and laid out my towel.
Did I hear a snigger – who cares what they think? I might have a small weight but I’m in the ‘area’! More laughter – I could have sworn that they were looking at me. Was my technique wrong? Anyway who cares – I completed my first set of ‘reps’ turned to face the bench with my towel on it. Then I saw it – I was in shock – I knew what they were laughing at! It wasn’t my small weights. It wasn’t my technique.
It was my ‘Winnie the Pooh’ towel on the bench. Never in the history of that ‘place’ had anyone dared to bring into its depths a towel like this. It just wasn’t the thing to do!
Well I thought – ‘Get used to it!’ – because now that I have made the transition to the big boys area I am coming back. Well maybe without the ‘Winnie the Pooh’ towel.
Its amazing how the opinion of others affects us much more than we dare to think. If only our confidence was not based on what people think but by what One thinks I suspect we would go to places we have always just dreamed about!
I’m on holidays for a while so not sure if I will blog over that period – we’ll see what happens and what takes my fancy!
