‘Let us not look back in anger, not forward in fear, but around in awareness.’ James Thurber.

This quote could have easily been written by the great samurai warrior Musashi whose teaching was that the mind and the eyes should always stay the same; eyes open to all things and the mind relaxed but alert even in the heat of a battle.

For us many have never had to deal with life threatening situations but we are still wired up in the same way as our ancestors and therefore when small events happen we tend to over compensate for them.

The levels of stress that people experience not only cause problems with their health but also on a social front. In the past we would have experienced something very physical such as fight or flight that would have dissipated that stress, now we have to put up with Ofsted and other small problems without the ability to burn off the stress. (Maybe there is a business idea here of the ‘Ofsted inspector punch bag’ that could be a good seller).

I have looked at using aspects of human emotional energy in performance techniques such as using memories of sadness, anger and happiness and it is very powerful; it is often the missing ingredient that makes a reasonable performance outstanding. However to be the master of this one needs to be aware of what you are doing and although to take people into a trance one needs to go there first you need also to be aware and in control of that power by being disassociated from it rather like an actor.

Anger is like fire and it will burn out of control if not dealt with fully and fear stops all forward movement in life. So if you feared standing up in public maybe you should get out and visit an open mic event and step up to the microphone.

Vic

 www.bluescampuk.co.uk for three days of playing in a band and learning rock tricks.