Looking Out To Sea

The other night I was kept from sleep by a cold and spent too much brainpower thinking and rethinking how to teach capoeira classes better. I could not sleep and I thought and because I was thinking it took much longer to reach sleep. But at least I had some fruitful thoughts.

The next day I was supposed to help teach a class because the main teachers were away. So while I worried at the problem and failed to get the sleep I needed, daybreak was getting closer and I was getting myself more sick. In the end I was too ill to take the class and it was basically aborted.

So the irony is apparent. I spent so long worrying about doing the class right that I couldn’t do it at all. Would it have been better to take the class under-prepared but less ill, or save the ideas for a future date? I think I made the right choice. I certainly feel like I made the right choice after a long sleep the following night — getting to bed early instead of teaching a class until late was definitely refreshing.

I was particularly worried about beginners to the class, because they’re the people who have the smallest amount of patience for a bad class. The regulars would forgive me if it didn’t all go right and they would return anyway. A beginner is more likely to take one look and walk away if they don’t like it.

Now that I am feeling healthier and less miserable I believe it would have been an okay class after all. At least for a first attempt.