anxiety

I just got this email from the woman who owns the Pilates studio I work at on the UWS:

Hi ipj,
I would like to observe one of your Pilates sessions. Most/all of your clients would probably be amenable to a one-time viewing session, right?

Aaaah! I've already been kind of freaking out about Pilates and this doesn't help. I officially applied to another Pilates job yesterday (I had called and left a message 2 days ago then sent an email with my resume yesterday) and my self-confidence is pretty low. I been feeling a little inadequate lately in my teaching even though my clients seem to like our sessions. But then I sometimes end up thinking that they just don't know any better. Yesterday at the UWS studio I was talking to one of the other instructors and asked her about a few different exercises listed on a chart that's going to be put up in the Pilates room soon. I felt kind of silly asking about them since they're apparently part of the "classical" repertoire. When I first got the above email my immediate reaction was that this other instructor must have told the owner what I was asking because only an idiot with horrible training wouldn't know those exercises and that's why she wants to watch me because she wants to make sure her decision is correct before she fires me and THEN WHAT WILL I DO?!

Okay, I know that's really probably not what happened at all but I can't help thinking it. When I'm not the best I often assume that I must be the worst. I have a hard time with that in-between area where, really, almost everything happens.

The other problem is that I feel kind of guilty for not having observed more at that studio. As part of my apprenticeship I'm supposed to be observing the other instructors but I've only done like 3 hours in the 6 months I've been there. Wow. I never really thought about it before. That's pretty sad.

So:
overwhelming sense of guilt + lack of self-confidence = very frazzled ipj