October 2015

Is stress your friend or your foe?

October 19, 2015 05:45

I hope you had a lovely summer. I did. I spent time with my family, got a lot of sunshine and sea… and got to do one of my favourite sports: scuba diving.

I love scuba diving. I’ve been diving for 15 years!

And still, when I book my first dive of the year, the same uneasy, anxious feeling creeps over me. Why, I ask myself each time? Well, I then conclude, breathing under water, even if you have the right gears, is unnatural, so I guess my brain is only trying to protect me and warn me against possible danger. (#welldonebrain!)

I’ve learned to accept and embrace that feeling: I know that when I’m under water I’m totally going to love it!

So, as soon as I start feeling yukky, I think: great! I’m going to be diving again and I cannot wait!

Is that uneasy feeling different from the one I get before a performance? You’ve guessed right: nope!

It does not matter how many times you have performed: stress still creeps in…even if in fact nothing life threatening could happen in a concert. The brain cannot comprehend that difference and will have the same reaction: fight, flight or freeze.

Stress is part of performing

Performing is stressful, at the best of times, in any field. But that extra adrenaline is also very useful…without that anticipation and excitement, you cannot count on a magical performance…you know, the one in which everything seems to work by itself with extreme ease; the one in which you can play just about anything and exactly as you want it; the one that will stick in your memory for ever, either as player or as audience.

And, as it turns out, stress is not even bad for you.

Research suggests stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others. (1)

In fact, stress is then not the problem. Our response to stress is.

That is why it is not useful to ignore it or to push it away. You need that anticipation, firstly because you need it to be able to peak, but also because trying to ignore it or push it away will cause more stress, and it will bite you back like an angry monkey jumping out of its box when you least expect it.
(Thanks to Dr Steve Peters for the effective imagery :-) – he coached Ronnie O’Sullivan, my snooker hero) (2)

As Dr Peters says, the trick is to learn how to manage stress (or the monkey, to stay with his analogy) making sure it does not cripple you but it actually becomes an asset.

What do you need to do then?
Learn how to manage your stress and do all you can to restore and help maintain your physical, mental and emotional balance.

1. Include

Include practising performing in your daily routine, alongside the technical and musical skills.

(Would you dream of trying out your scales just once a week in front of your teacher or in your performance class or try-outs?)

2. Exercise

Yes I know…but… ‘mens sana in corpore sano’.

Find something you absolutely love doing, and it will be easier. I dance (and scuba dive), for instance :-)

Consider also doing your daily warm up without the instrument, just a few well chosen full body exercises (plank, squat…you get the idea ;-)

Find a good Alexander Technique Teacher. You will learn to move in a more relaxed, comfortable way and use your body efficiently and effortlessly.

3. Food

Limit your intake of caffeine, sugar, refined foods and alcohol.

- Include in your diet healthy foods such as avocados, fatty fish, whole grains, fruit, cruciferous vegetable and leafy greens.
- Drink enough water (ideally 30ml each kilo of your weight).
- Allergies or intolerances, especially for dairy product or gluten, or imbalances in the blood sugar levels might also play a role in emotional balance.
- Observe how you react to the food you eat, i.e. do you get sleepy or active? Very soon you will know which foods are energising and which you need to limit, especially before a performance.

“We often spend so much time focusing on simply ‘learning the notes/music’ that we forget that there are other extremely important aspects to performing optimally. The afternoon I spent with Tiziana, Esther and Annemarie was a chance for me to take a little time out to remind myself that I am not just a flute player, but a PERSON and to function at my peak, I need to give attention to my physical state and emotional state too.”

Be fitter physically, emotionally and mentally, and you will dive into your next performance happily!

Tiziana Pintus

How to get more consistent results from your practice sessions

October 13, 2015 03:45

It all starts in the practice room… well yes, no surprise there I guess. But… what can we do to get more consistent results from practice sessions?

You do a good, solid practising session on an excerpt: slow practice, rhythmical variations, slowly increasing speed… until, after an x amount of repetitions, you can play the excerpt with consistency. And you happily move on.

Only… next day when you play the same excerpt, you discover you are back to yesterday’s starting point… where did all your progress go? ARGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Recognise that? What went wrong? Although we feel comforted by the series of repetitions, one after the other, and the progress we made with them, research proves that this system does not really improve consistency in performance. Why? Because it takes you from A to Z, stage by stage, but… you are supposed to learn how to start on Z, directly without all the other ‘in between’ steps.

How else should you practice? Muscle memory requires repetition, right? Of course! But… why do the repetitions in sequence?
Enter: Random Practice Schedule.

With Random Practice Schedule you do the same amount of repetitions, just not one after the other. Starting is the most difficult moment, and in this system you force yourself to start many times: so you really learn how to start directly from Z. Mission accomplished :-)

Random Practice Schedule
1) Pick the excerpts you would like to work on and how long you would like to work on them
2) Define what you will work on for each excerpt
3) Set the timer for 5 minutes

Start with excerpt A, work on it for 5 minutes, go to excerpt B, work on it for 5 minutes, go to excerpt C and work on it for 5 minutes, and then back to one of the excerpt (mix the order to maximize the effect) and so on till you have practiced the amount of time you had planned.

It might feel more challenging at first than the Block Practicing System (all repetition in sequence) but this system will ensure that you can start tomorrow where you left today.

Benefits of Random Practice:

1) it forces you to become more actively engaged by preventing simple (mindless) repetition of actions
2) it gives you more meaningful and distinguishable memories of the various tasks
3) causes you to forget the short-term solution (from working memory) to the movement problem after each task change

If you enjoyed reading this, please share this post. Thanks! :-)

Tiziana Pintus