> The classic example is of golfers envisioning > the hole the size of a canyon.
the only problem with this thought is, if you miss the hole, you feel like a complete idiot. when i play golf, i always realize the hole is really small. it is. outside of six feet, most of the time, if the ball goes in, you were lucky. we can't really control luck very much but, we can control skill. it takes skill to get the ball close enough so that the next putt is guaranteed. (gary player once said "the more i practice, the luckier i get.")
aside from preparing well and not singing something you can't, there are two things i have found that are most helpful in situations that would make me nervous. the first one is to reduce your expectations. expecting more than you can do is silly. if you intend to do something that you know you can do, the only challenge is to make sure you're paying attention enough to do it. the other thing has to do with energy. it takes energy to panic. get rid of it. go running the day you have to do something. do 200 jumping jacks before you warm up. you'll blow off some extra steam.
as to karen's suggestion of beta blockers: i had a student, she was in her teens at the time, who had horrible nerves when she performed. she was pretty jumpy anyway so, i wondered if she had any idea what being calm was like. her doctor gave her some beta blockers and finally, she had an idea what singing calmly was like. she got rid of the beta blockers and just aimed for that same feeling when ever she performed from then on. in the long run, beta blockers are bad. for, while they block the bad 'nerves', they also block the good ones.
one last thing: singing is still safer than tailgating.
mike
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