How do I explain what I struggle with to my instructor?
TL;DR: How do I make my instructor understand that sometimes I KNOW where I'm supposed to put my leg and what route it's supposed to take, I just find myself *literally* not knowing how to move it, without her just thinking I'm being dramatic? And do I approach her tomorrow about a situation like this that happened today but I wasn't able to explain properly in the moment so next time she knows what's going on, or would that be too dramatic to do in advance and I should just wait for when that happens again?
A couple years ago I was assessed, so they could determine what specific kinds of sensory difficulties I have and prepare some recommendations sensory integration-wise.
One of the recommendations was to start doing pole dance or aerial acrobatics, because they found that I was really sensory craving when it comes to proprioceptive and vestibular stimuli, especially rotation, so that kind of sport would be a pleasurable, soothing way I can introduce some physical activity to my life in order to work on some of the other difficulties they've found – namely coordination disorder (dyspraxia), postural disorder and proprioceptive discrimination disorder.
I was finally able to start aerial silks in October, and then in March I introduced aerial hoop and pole dance into my rotation. I absolutely fell in love with all of it and I'm even looking out for opportunities to try all the other aerial apparati, plus it's definitely did help with the difficulties mentioned above – I still struggle with certain things more than others, but I usually do manage to master the skills, just may need to have it shown a couple more times, or to try it out more times myself, but as I fell so in love with this sport it's really not an issue, because I'm in the studio literally every single day, and make really great progress anyway thanks to that.
That said, even though I've had a really good progress and am doing well in the higher level classes I still have some struggles that other might not have – and that's okay ...sort of. I really don't mind the fact that after the instructor shows the new move I have to take a moment to watch others doing said move before attempting it myself, so I can analyse how the hell do I move my limbs in this trick. I also don't mind that I often get the skills on my third or fourth try rather than first, because I need to try a couple different ways until I don't feel lost in all of it, nor that I sometimes have to ask the instructor whether the position I'm in is the position she's shown, because I genuinely can't really connect how my limbs feel at the moment to what position they actually are in yet.
And none of my instructors seem to take an issue with those things either, they're always really lovely to me. My guess is that they just assume I'm one of those people who don't really have athletic predispositions nor background and they're fully accepting and welcoming to people like that. While those things are true about me and it's great that they don't mind them, I also have some less conventional struggles that those alone don't really explain.
I did put dyspraxia in the "chronic conditions/injuries" section of my profile in the app I use to sign up for classes, but I don't know if they really look at it (even though they asked me to fill that section themselves once I mentioned having a heart condition "so the instructor would know just in case"), and unfortunately I have a really strong suspicion they have no idea (or a very limited one at the absolute best) what that is (that's also why I mentioned dyspraxia only, and not the proprioceptive discrimination disorder for example).
I don't blame them for not being educated on something not really that well-known, and most of the time it's not that much of an issue, since I get their understanding for most things purely on the basis of "she doen't really have athletic predispositions, but she puts in lots of love and effort, so she's able to make it work out, she just needs some patience and directions!" assumption.
There is however one thing that I sometimes find myself struggling with, that they never seem to grasp – at times I just genuinely have no idea how the hell do I move a part of my body. For that reason, amongst others, I never got my driver's licence, as I had it happen to me that I would find myself unable to work out the physical process of how to move my feet under time pressure when I needed to stomp on the pedal. I KNOW what move I am supposed to do, but it's just as unattainable to me as moving my ears is – I don't know what muscles I'm supposed to move and where the hell they are and how to "get access" to control them in that moment.
While I don't trust myself to be a safe driver with my motor difficulties, I do however trust myself to be a safe aerialist. I recognize it if I'm losing balance or grip faster than I can figure out the movement, and 9 times out of 10 I am able to exit the position safely – be that the elegant way or by a controlled fall.
That 1 time out of 10 though the position happens to be either really weird/unfortunate, or just very different from what we've been doing so far and I can't think of a safe way to exit it myself fast enough. I always ask the instructor to spot me in the positions I suspect it might happen and she is fully okay with that as well. The only problem is that sometimes I feel really misunderstood in my issue and her ways of helping me end up not so helpful in the end.
Today I put my feet not where it was supposed to be and she just kept showing me where it's supposed to go and telling me I just need to move it there. It was very close and required a very simple movement that you didn't need to be stretched or have any strength for whatsoever. I tried telling her that I can't figure out how to physically move the necessary muscles at all and that I'm losing grip and will fall and need her to catch me, because I don't know how to fall safely from this position, but she just didn't understand the problem in the slightest and just kept telling me where to put my feet as if she was sure I will simply make that little change and won't really fall.
Aaand then I fell, because I lost the grip. It wasn't a safe way to fall, and I fell behind the mattress even hitting my head on the floor (thankfully lightly). I didn't end up injured as the hoop was rigged pretty low and the fall wasn't that unfortunate; the pain itself wasn't bad either, but the thing itself was just very scary and after it happened the instructor just kept explaining and showing to me where the feet was supposed to go, as if me not understand that part was the problem. I tried formulating my thoughts better and explaining the issue more clearly now that I was on the ground and didn't have the time pressure of losing my grip up in the air, but I was still distressed and just couldn't find the right words to describe the experience to someone who supposedly has no prior knowledge about dyspraxia at all.
The misunderstanding made me feel very helpless and more distressed so I had to stop trying to explain myself in the moment, because I felt I was starting to cry and didn't want that to happen in front of everyone. Later tho I was chatting with one more advanced girl from the class while we were on the bus stop and she tried boosting my confidence being all like "nah don't worry, it's not that difficult of a position, you'll understand it, once you watch the recording from class you'll see yourself what you've done wrong this one time".
BUT I KNOW WHAT I'VE DONE WRONG AND I KNOW WHAT I SHOULD'VE DONE 😭 I just didn't know how to physically move my body, in the same way that toddlers don't know how to lift the body from the ground in order to jump. I tried to explain it to her and even mentioned that it's generally something I tend to struggle with at times, even to the point I sometimes need lots of conscious thinking to go up or downstairs, but she didn't seem to get what I mean either.
That situation left me feeling really misunderstood and not seen at all. I need them to trust me when I say that I'm not being dramatic and that I DO UNDERSTAND the instructions given to me. I don't need to hear the instructions ten more times, have them present once again or even have them point at where the limb should go on my hoop – I need to exit the position without dying so I can then work out the motor aspects of the movement while standing safely on the ground, without the time pressure of losing the grip, and then attempt the trick again. It's not a matter of lacking confidence or knowledge of the instructions, it's a matter of inability to coordinate movement fast enough for it to be safe.
I need advice on how to really get through to my instructor with all of this and how to approach a conversation like that. Should I ask to talk to her before class tomorrow? Should I just casually mention it hoping that a short explanation will suffice? Should I text her? Should I even be doing it now or should I wait for when it happens again someday? I don't want to come off as dramatic or make it too big of a deal, but then again I also don't want to just be fully misunderstood and brushed off as lack of confidence or not knowing what to do.
All of my instructors are very well-meaning people and I'm sure they'd want to understand me, so I don't think it's a "you should switch studios/instructors" situation, but I really need help navigating *how* to make them comprehend my issue, because it seems that it's something beyond their imagination as people (supposedly) without dyspraxia and not educated on it. Should I maybe somehow explain dyspraxia more to them instead of just this specific issue? And if so, how to do that without making it too big of a deal either. I just can't find a good balance between making it a big deal and sending them a hundred links for research and making it too surface level being all like "yeah i have this coordination disorder yk?" – I know it needs balance, but I had no idea what the golden ratio might be here...
I'm sorry for how long this post is, as you see, I struggle to explain it properly without monologuing. Thank you if you took the time to read all of that! I will be extremely grateful for any advice on how to make it easily comprehendible for non-dyspraxic people, and also on how to approach the conversation without making it socially awkward 🙏