Let Your Freak Flag Fly! "Hey Freak! You're waiving your pole all wrong!" The art of providing teaching moments for strangers

I was catching up with a friend and asked her how her 5K run went over the previous weekend. We take several yoga and gym classes together, but when it comes to running, ehhh, not so much.

"Why aren't you into running?" She asked. "I don't know" I immediately answered, but I knew of several answers: I'd heard it's rough on your joints, gives you jowls, and makes everything sag.  One other thing came to mind. Once upon a time I had been into running, but one day on a jog in Riverside Park, as I passed this man he shouted at me, "Hey! Hey! You are running wrong!" Maybe he said something about how I was bouncing too much. Didn't hear. I ran wrong but I ran fast.

This happens to me a lot, taking up an activity and it turning into a teaching moment for a stranger. I'm sure they are coming from a good place, but what it feels like is that they are assholes.

An example or two of my generosity towards a stranger's ego:

I took up an invitation to Vail for a ski trip, excited for the opportunity because I considered myself a skier: a solid blue trail girl who could dip into black territory.

For reasons I didn't understand on this trip, I could never keep up with my friends on the mountain. I was always way behind them.

They gently attempted to ditch me by directing me to the green trails they had graduated from as a warm up, but not before I met them one last time where they were patiently waiting for me. I huffed, puffed, and pulled myself up to them.

Only to catch the attention of this random woman who began to shout, "What are you doing? What kind of goddamn novice are you, wearing your lift pass on the outside of your jacket?" (It was on a ribbon around my neck, clearly exposed and apparently with a bullseye). "Are you trying to get yourself killed? That could catch on a tree limb and break your neck!" Everyone turned and looked before whooshing off in all their "I'm not the freak with my lift pass showing" glory. I was devastated.

Later that day, as I flew down the final hill, the sun at my back with all the confidence of someone progressing on the slopes, a man on the fucking next trail over yelled at me that I was holding my poles wrong. He may have given me direction as to how to hold them but I didn't hear because I was speeding down the mountain, enjoying the tiny correction I had made to not slow myself down but still feel in control.

I have a very libertarian approach to exercise and fitness, which is why I like yoga. I'm enough of a social creature that I like the community aspect of a yoga class, but also I consider my mat like a dog considers it's crate: This is my safe space, it is where I go to get away from it all when the world is yanking my collar, making me sit, heel, follow the norm. Yoga lets me be a freak and luckily involves no poles.

Namaste, Bitches!