They are watching...

I'm not really paranoid, but I am always a tad too concious of people seeing me and making judgements about me.

I don't always worry about this, but it comes up in weird ways: when I'm walking down the street and eating something, or when I'm exercising in a public space. These have to do with my perceptions of what people think of big women and what they should and should not be doing.

For the most part, during my class this has not been a problem. Indeed, last week when we were looking at video tapes of our fights to get a sense of what it looked like (in preparation for our final fights last night), I was able to have some emotional distance and not judge my own body, but to judge how it was positioned and how that affected the experience of the fight we were trying to convey.

But last night, I was clearly nervous about that judging gaze. It did not manifest in feeling badly about my body as, really there was nothing to do about that then, but it did show up in feeling incredible nervous about actually performing before the camera. And it came out in the stupidest way: I forgot a line. I've memorized the entire scene and it runs through my mind at the oddest times, but last night I forgot a line. And it totally through me off. I didn't stop, luckily, but it was disconcerting. Luckily, Dave, our instructor, knows that I know the lines and will be able to send a note along explaining this.

I was talking to S about this in the car before the class. He was a bit surprised at how nervous I was. He had to remind me that really this has no great bearing on my life. It's not going to make or break my career.

But I am glad the test is done. I do wish we could go on playing with broadswords, though.