I'm glad I fell off the rowing machine

Yes, I actually said that. It’s not a slip of the tongue, nor a misleading heading: I actually am grateful it happened. I never thought I would write this post, especially because I used to hate sports (because of my fear of failing), so why would I row in the first place? But before elaborating about my motives to say such things, I will first describe the accident (it’s too funny not to tell).

We had to do a partner WOD (workout of the day). 9 minutes of alternately rowing 250 meters. My partner was a badass woman who would kill this workout. I didn’t want to slow her, so I tried putting my all in it... a bit too much. I rowed so quickly I “flew” over the seat, so that my bum bumped into the rails. When rowing, your feet are stuck to the machine, which caused me to fall on the ground after the bumping. Standing up with your feet stuck is quite difficult, so it took me a while. My partner was laughing, but I still had 200 meters of rowing to go! I put myself together and got back on the rowing machine.

As I said above, my partner laughed. Normally, I would burst out of tears and be ashamed of my failure. I shouted ‘stop laughing!’ out of habit, but I actually didn’t mind. I was laughing too! I can proudly say this was the first time I laughed while failing. I didn’t feel like she was laughing at me. It simply was funny. I guess that’s the case in like 99% of my ‘failures’, but it never felt that way to me.

In addition, calling me a perfectionist would be an understatement. Therefore I never put effort in sports. It’s kind of my coping mechanism: If you’re not doing your best, you cannot fail. It was a warming feeling to realize and experience there was room for failing.

This accident made me realize two things:

• My fear of failure doesn’t stop me anymore from exercising (I even like it!)
• I fell because of my excessive effort, which means I was comfortable enough to do my best!

Rationally, I know my fear of failure is irrational and this time there was consistency between my rational- and emotional state. You can image that’s a relief.

All in all: though it did hurt quite a bit (whoops), I still agree with the chosen title, it was a real eye-opener to the soul. May I feel this way many more times – even without falling (my bum would appreciate that).
Cheers!

Ps. Final result: my partner and I still rowed 2000 meters in 9 minutes (a nice score in my opinion).