It's Power Month!

A few years ago, I attended an odd, bootcamp-esque, acting audition.

Roughly 20 of us entered and stood, barefoot, scattered around the audition room. We were instructed to find a partner. I turned to my left, and a man nearby made eye contact. I nodded, and we were paired.

With our partners, we were to take a stance: face to face, feet hip distance apart, with our hands up, palms facing out at the height of our shoulders.

Then, we were told to push each other over.

(Acting is weird.)

There was one parameter. We could not change our stance. There was no staggering of our feet, no angling of our hands to force the other person downward. We had to stay face to face, palms up, feet planted, pushing each other.

If we were knocked off balance by our partner, we had to drop to the ground, do 5 pushups, jump back up, and begin the exercise again.

As we stood, inches separating us, listening to the directions, my partner smirked. SMIRKED. It was clear that Aaron (let’s call him Aaron) considered me structurally inconsequential.

At the time, I was smaller than I am now but I had trained for that day. I was small, yes, but also strong.

The exercise began. Aaron pushed. I pushed back. Our hands stayed locked directly between us.

I could see a look of bewilderment pass over Aaron’s face. He grit his teeth (this is true!) and attempted more force. Again, I met his strength with mine and our hands stayed matched in between us.

Then, Aaron cheated. He staggered his feet, he began an attempt to push my arms downward. I stopped. I said, “You’re cheating. You changed your stance.”

We began again. Nearly immediately, he, again, attempted to cheat (WAS I NOT CLEAR THE FIRST TIME?). We began the exercise a third time. As I locked eyes with him, attempting to telepathically yell, “quit messing around!” time was called. The exercise ended.

Aaron never pushed me over.

Later, five of us were in the hallway, waiting for our individual time in the audition room. There was light, awkward conversation. Then silence.

A few minutes went by.

Aaron looked around. He looked around again, then announced, “Man, I can really tell I’ve been traveling a lot lately and haven’t had time to work out. I’m definitely not at my normal fitness level.” I summoned every shard of self control and did not roll my eyes.

That evening, I called Christian. I told him about the strange shoving exercise. I told him how Aaron couldn’t push me over, and how I had called him out for cheating. I told him about Aaron’s I’ve-just-done-oh-so-much-traveling comment to no one in particular. Christian laughed and said, “Novia, you destroyed that dude’s ego today.”

And I have never felt so powerful.

This month is POWER MONTH. For the whole month of April, I’ll be experimenting around the idea of power, both figurative and literal. What makes us feel powerful, and who has power, and how what we wear can have power, too. I’m also excited to delve into lighter versions of power, like magical powers, super powers and power posing!

Sporadically, I’ll throw in my last few posts of Women’s Month, too. We had a stomach bug rip through our house, and I missed the last week of March. I’m pretty attached to those last few posts, so I’ll be making up for lost time!

What makes you feel powerful? Have you had an Aaron experience? What type of powerful content to do you want to see? Let me know in the comment box below. I love to chat!

I’ll be back on Sunday, but until then, come say hello on Twitter or Instagram!