self-defense makes me cry

Well, this is an odd thing. I used to think that self-defense training freaked me out because I don't like to hit people. But that doesn't actually appear to be the case - I mean, it's really easy for me to imagine kicking the shit out of someone, gouging out eyeballs, whatever, so I should have figured it out before.

What upsets me about training (with my partner, who is in fact quite knowledgeable and a good teacher) is the instruction mode. See, in corporate training environments, dance class, even most of college, the instructors incorporated a lot of positive reinforcement in training. I'm so used to having people say "you're doing great!" and couching the things I could do better in such kid-gloves words that I apparently have a hard time coping in an environment where I'm assumed to be competent and not congratulated for doing what I should do, which is the environment of our living room where self-defense is involved (ironically, while I find it more distressing, I learn more).

That's absurd. I'm embarassed that I'm so comfortable with this infantilizing mode of instruction, particularly as I suspect that it lowers expectations of students (as compared to the assumed-competence mode). I wonder, by the way, if this is what we do to kids when we focus on self-esteem in the classroom?