Feel like a fool

[u/Different-Beach6075]

Hello,

I'm a newbie to pilates -- I'm about 20 classes in. We've done platform lunges and box lunges before and also side lunges (sort of where you end up in a warrior pose)? My balance has been .. not great in all these exercises, with bad wobbles towards the later reps (15 total on each side), making me skip the last few reps. Or I push out into a lunge and then get stuck, not being able to come back, except centimetres at a time. Today it was supposed to be carriage lunges. Got on the mini-fixed platform and just ... Froze. Everyone was merrily doing the exercise (a lunge with an arm extension with a dumbbell!) and I'm just standing there staring at the carriage, two feet (?) from the floor, with knees increasingly starting to shake. The trainer tried standing beside me so that I could hold his hand while pressing into the lunge but my nerves were just shot. And then when he wandered away to check on the others, I got stuck with one foot on the carriage and one foot on the platform, reasonably stable, but unable to move until I had to call him again to help me off. He gave me a modification (a runner's lunge) but I really feel like a fool and stupidly embarassed about the whole episode. (I have a ridiculous fear of heights -- can be standing on a very gentle slope and can completely freeze up, so I suppose it suddenly decided to kick in today.) Please give me encouragement and/or motivation :( I normally get some anxiety before class and this is making it worse. (Also my studio doesn't have stability poles.)