This is Hard.

Deciding to compete, you know it isn’t going to be easy.  You have to show restraint in your diet and discipline in workout consistency.  But what about the posing?  That should just be walking up, BAM, and then walking off, right?  Wrong.  Oh, so, so, so, wrong! 

Posing can be quite difficult.  At least it is for me.   I am entering bikini.  Bikini girls are supposed to have this youthful, smiley, sassy, sexy, flirty allure.  If you know me in person you know that I do not possess these qualities.  My neutral facial expression could be best described as ‘silently contemplating murder’.  I can’t do “sexy and sassy”.  I can do “sarcastic and bitchy” exceptionally well.  I am very confident in myself when I am wearing pants.  But put me in a tiny swathe of fabric and suddenly I don’t walk with my chin up so high.

I am going to a posing class with lots of other girls (and a few guys).  There are figure girls and bikini girls and you go through a mock up stage presentation.  I have been walking in heels for several years.  But stick me in front of a classroom full of people analyzing my every move and I lock up.  I start walking like a lumber jack with a peg leg.  Definitely NOT a sexy, fluid, sashay my brain was trying to conjure.

The flirty, smiley nature is very difficult for me to manifest as well.  If I see girls out flipping their hair and batting their eyelashes, I almost gag!  They can’t be real right?  Who buys that crap?!  Apparently, a lot of people.  And in this venue it’s what they are looking for.  As opposed to me walking up and giving a generous supply of jazz hands or a begrudging grimace. 

So now I need to get into my own brain and get it to play along.  I am playing a role in a performance.  The hair flipping, incessant smiling, and flirting is the character I am playing.  When I am on that stage I need to become her.  Maybe I should give her a name; Anastasia Beaverhausen, Anita Liktmeoff….they sound like they can be sexy and hair flippy.

I will practice every day and check in every week until it’s my big day.  Let’s hope I (or Anastasia/Anita as it where) can really nail this posing thing!