Comfort Leads To Confidence

Last week, I was showing Hank, my 88 year young skating student and friend some exercises to help him feel his comfort area off of the ice.

We were in the lounge, lacing our skates before I started showing him the exercises, and he said something profound as he many times does without realizing it.

We talked about our areas of comfort, and he is aware of how I use the dots like Braille dots to represent comfort areas for me as I skate in my comfort so much that it expands without any effort.

My movement on and off of the ice increases as I explore the little areas of movement so much that for some mysterious reason, my area expands naturally like breathing without any struggle or strain.

Hank said that he is starting to feel comfortable with his life in general, and he says he uses the ideas and methods we share with each other beyond skating.

Walking, going up and down steps, bending his knees before he lifts heavy items, feeling good before he starts a new project like painting his garage doors, and he is learning how to install new software on his new computer.

I suggested he take this experience of comfort and add it to the stroking and cross over exercises we would experience together.

I’m not sure who is the student or who is the teacher since I learn so much from Hank.

He use to be an engineer and flew plains when he was younger plus has an incredible way of translating images into words to help me with geometry as skating has to do with circles and figures.

Whether you jump, spin, do stroking, it all somehow relates to circles and angles relating to circles in some way, shape and form.

We finished skating, and were driving to lunch as he was proud of his cross over and edges, and soon wants to do three-turns on one foot and maybe that dreaded forward inside Mohawk.

I suggested we do two-footed foot-work first.

He liked this idea, and then he said another profound statement.

Hank said "Comfort Leads to Confidence."

When Hank said those words, something inside me felt good.

Something clicked like a shooting firework of some kind went off inside me.

Comfort can lead to confidence if I pay attention, be gentle, kind, and patient with my skating or whatever I am doing on or off of the ice.

This being comfortable first and experiencing confidence second allows me to feel first, and figure later.

As I go with what I feel when I feel it, the comfort increases as it turns into confidence.

This feels to me like a full sense of self that is healthy, happy, feels good, and does feel really natural like breathing.

I will write more about this as I have been experimenting with this idea about comfort leads to confidence this past week with interesting results.

Let me know how you feel about the idea of comfort leads to confidence.

Thanks,

Stash

http://www.stashskate.com/