This week for the courtesan project I’m taking a look at the body. While I think the most important focus in an endeavor like this is to round out the mind and expand one’s thinking, the body can’t be neglected.
This is a touchy subject. Some people are insistent that you should seek to love yourself as you are, others that you should try sculpt yourself to fit some standard you consider idea and on and on.
For me, I’m viewing this as something I’m doing to build up my confidence as well as to polish the instrument I use in my trade. I work every day with beautiful women of varying shapes and sizes. All I can say is that I know what my problem areas are, the things that make me self-conscious in a scene and therefore, not as good of a performer. There are also things that make me too self aware in real life. I want to overcome these things on one hand so I look better, but also for the increased confidence that will come from achieving something I’ve set out to do.
I don’t have a hard and fast goal weight or anything. I just want to be doing more physically to effect a body I find enjoyable and beautiful.
I was a ballerina and a soccer player as a child, and even now I run everyday and practice Bikram yoga five to six times a week. Still I wouldn’t say that I have a good body. I’ve never really had a good body (a testament to how much I love food). A male performer once suggested I have body dysmorphia, but this isn’t about him. His pallet is too broad to begin with. He can get hard for anything.
I’ve always been more of a face. 
I’m endeavoring to change that. So I joined a gym. I’m going to start lifting weights, and you know, actually training my body. I’m not really looking forward to this, or at least I wasn’t until last night.
I was at the gym and on a cardio machine, and I found myself pushing to work harder and longer, even though my normal tendency is to give up.
I went to the pool to swim laps and challenged myself to do double what I’d set out for. It was a satisfying feeling.
I realize that for me, physical conditioning, is actually mental conditioning. My real weakness is in training my mind to focus and complete things. Even as I write this, I don’t want to be. I’d rather watch youtube videos or write something, or read from a book. It’s just my nature.
I think that this undertaking is going to help transform me in a different way. I may, for the first time, become disciplined.
I figure between yoga, weights, cardio, jogging, and my pole classes, this body is going to start coming together in a way that will make me more confident.
When I started a 60 day challenge in my Bikram, (60 classes in 60 days), I wasn’t sure if I’d do it, and yet, lately, things have felt for me more important, they are weighted with a sense of urgency. As if innately, my frazzled mind understands that this is indeed a time to work.
I passed the challenge, and it made me feel a sense of confidence. I’d been able to complete something that was difficult, with no outside pressure or assistance in achieving that goal.
Something else changed for me too.
When I would start my classes I would hate to look at my body in the mirror. I don’t really enjoy it at all. Yet, but the end of class I would have compassion for myself and my plump legs and round tummy.
It’s about the small victories when it comes to the image of our bodies.
