Wednesday, February 27, 2013

My own worst enemy

My track coach and I have an interesting relationship. Before I joined the team my freshman year, I worked hard (or at least I thought I was working hard) in the preseason. When the season started, I expected to be on the coach's good side as they had watched me dedicate myself to the sport and progress as an athlete. It was dumb, really. It was ignorant. Track is unlike most other sports in that the stop watch and the measuring tape does not play favorites. It doesn't matter how much work I put in or how often I helped my coach clean up after practice because, when the outdoor season started, I was not one of the best jumpers on the team. I wasn't awful but I was a freshman on a team that would eventually win state so I received little recognition.

I cried a lot that season. I thought my coach hated me when he told me to see an eye doctor if I wanted to pull volt and I thought I might quit to join Dance Company when he put a less dedicated freshman on the section line-up over me. I wanted to be the best girl on the team and had a very hard time accepting the fact that I was a freshman and I was awkward and I simply could not jump as far or as high as the other girls on the team.

I didn't high jump my sophomore because it hurt my back and I was still scared of the coach. Instead, I focused on triple jump and walked away from the season with a first place conference medal. Sophomore year was the year they moved my best friend up to varsity and, still itching in my frosh uniform, I was undeserving jealous. I don't remember much else of my sophomore track season.

As a junior, my coach asked me to try high jump again. It hurt my back a lot still but we had a different coach so I nodded my head and found my way back to the mat. After about a month of practice, my new coach and I decided that I had been jumping off of the wrong foot. I switched which side I took off on and found myself clearing much higher heights. My new coach, unlike my old one, was excessively encouraging and always told me he was proud of me even when I didn't jump well. I didn't cry at all that season.

This year, when I heard my old coach would be coming back to run high jump practices, I was hesitant. Although I had worked with him a lot in other events and in the off season, his face reminded me of how unsuccessful I had been in the past. When I looked at his black backpack and judging tape measure  all I could see was everything I had failed to be. But I had already added "qualify for state track meet" to my bucket list so I preceded.

I have spent the majority of this season comparing myself to the other two varsity high jumpers. We are all pretty evenly matched but not a practice goes by when I do not feel inferior to them both. My coach would often single one of them out for something or pull one of them aside for additional advice and I was jealous of the attention, thinking I had worked hard enough to receive my own special attention. Sometimes, he snaps at one of them and it shows me that he still cares about them as athletes enough to want them to be better, that he hadn't given up on them as I assumed he had on me. I am still paranoid of my coach putting one of them in a post-season meet over me even on days I jump higher than them.

On Monday, my coach noticed. I was so worried about other girls taking off stronger or leading with their hips and it effected how I jumped. My coach tried to give me the same advice that he has given my teammate all year: "Julie, I don't know what else to tell you. You are your own worst enemy."

I took his words to offence at first. I thought that he wanted me to get out of my head and stop thinking too much. I figured he was telling me that I was being too hard on myself and took that to mean that he didn't think I was worth constructive criticism. I thought being my own worst enemy meant that he wanted me to just calm down about high jump because he didn't care enough to keep yelling at me or trying to help me.

But, being my own worst enemy also means that no one else is. Maybe my coach told me this as a form of advice on a level deeper than how well my back arches or how hard my leg drives. Being my own worse enemy means that no one hates me as much as I do. As twisted as that may sound, it has been extremely comforting in the past couple of days. If I hate myself more than anyone else does, than why am I worrying about what my coach or my teammates think? None of them think about me more poorly than I do and, if I can learn to be okay with myself, than they all must be too.

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