Nerve(s)

[tmcg]

Our Krav Maga yellow-belt test has finally been scheduled. September 26th.

I want that belt. I'm prepared. I can do everything on the requirements list except for breaking a headlock, and the instructor says that it's only after passing the yellow-belt test that most people really "get" how the headlock-release works, even if they can go through the motions well enough to prove they know how to do it. I'm out of shape, after a week spent mostly sitting around hotel rooms and airports, but I have a time to get back in form and I've been working out pretty hard since I got home.

What it comes down to is a question of nerves. Until we had a date set, I was calm and energized at the prospect of testing. I've played complex musical compositions in front of the most critical audiences, I thought. I've spoken ad lib on the most intimidating convention panels. I gave a best-man speech at a wedding. I know from terror. This is nothing.

But now there's a specific day on which to focus, and wouldn't you know it, here come the giant mutant butterflies. It's not quite stagefright and it's not quite test anxiety. Whole new animal. Well, I keep claiming to embrace new experiences....

The question is how to approach the mental psych-out. The canny instructor wrote, as an aside in an email to us, "(and you should PLAN on passing!)"--which means that my high-school method of wailing "I'm going to fail I'm going to fail!" won't work. (I think it gave me permission to fail, defusing self-inflicted pressure so that I could function while keeping the adrenaline ramped up.) But I'm afraid to want it too much; saying "IF I pass" gives me an out, so that embarrassment and disappointment won't kill me if I don't...and I remember taking a huge spill in a softball game once because I put my entire being into beating the throw to first base. There's a fine line between being determined to succeed and tripping over your own wild desperation.

The redeeming factor here is that you get points for aggression in the test, and adrenaline converts more easily into aggression than into calm reasoned panel discussion or controlled, highly technical musical performance (or accurate regurgitation of classroom material). My favorite part of class is stress drills; I want more stress, I want to be tested harder, I want to prove myself and earn that payback of improved reaction speed and effectiveness.

If I can take that attitude with me into the promotion test, I think I'll be okay.

In the meantime, well, the best cure for nerves is to practice whatever it is you're going to have to do....

Comments

[adarkjewel.livejournal.com]

::hands over a stick pin for the giant mutant butterflies::

Good luck. Don't break a leg :-)

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I promise to use the power of the stickpin only for good.

[(Anonymous)]

What I want to say is complicated and long and I'm not sure I can say it so it makes any sense.

When I'm back in town, I'll try to dig out an essay I wrote about tracking tests and see if it's worth putting up on my web log.

Good luck with the mental part. It's hard!

Deb

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

I hope you can find the essay. I'd love to read it. And I want to hear whatever you have to say, always--sometimes things make sense even when you don't think they do.

Have a good time out of town!

[(Anonymous)]

Dunno how quick you'll see this down here in this old conversation, but I found that essay I was talking about. I don't know how much it applies to your Krav Maga test (though I'd be interested in finding out), but I have put it up on Things I Know I Know.

It was a good thing I went looking for it too! It wasn't anywhere on my hard drive and after much searching I found one paper copy (fortunately a final copy). Whew! It's not an essay I'd have liked to recreate.

Anyway, you can get to it here (if this works): Ordering Up the Day (http://www.iknowiknow.org/docs/ordering.html)

Deb

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

I get emails when there are new posts, so I do see new things even down in old conversations. (I thought the email alerts would drive me crazy, but they turn out to be really helpful--and they even generate a reply box, which I'm using now. Cool.)

Thanks for posting! The link works great.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, good. I get email about comments too, which I really like, but wasn't sure if you would or not.

Deb

Ordering Up the Day

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

All the things that go through one's head when one's under under pressure, especially for a long period, have so much to do with the test I have coming up and with performance in general. The whole way the mind works, on its own track, as it were, while you're engaged in difficult pressured action. It's fascinating how the kind of performance you were engaged in--sport, physical, tandem--is similar to artistic performance in that respect. The whole mental sphere.

You write, "At moments like this I start thinking well, at least I won’t make a total fool of myself, then I think, don’t think like that, it’s bad luck, then I think, pay attention, watch your dog, you’re a long way from done yet. But it’s one of the things about tracking that there’s lots of time to think and some of it’s useful so you can’t just shut off your brain and go." And later you write, "My world at that moment, as we were almost finished, comes down to my fears. I swear that I will not trip over my shoelaces. I will not drop the articles."

Great stuff! I also love the portrait of how you learn your dog's particular way of working the trail and work with that and help her, and how you learn to read the judges' movements, too.

Plus, the whole thing is just a riveting account. Thanks so much for putting it up!

Re: Ordering Up the Day

[(Anonymous)]

Reply cross-posted from _my_ blog (see, I can use that word now--I have crossed the threshold :-)

Glad you enjoyed it!

And I'm really glad I went looking for it. It's an essay I've had around for awhile and I have thought off and on that I would try to publish it someplace, but better it be here being read (one hopes) than sitting on my laptop doing nothing.

I like what you say above about this resembling an artistic performance. I haven't done much in the way of performance, especially with others like a musical performance, but I see where trust and timing and learning to read each other would be very important.

Deb

Re: Ordering Up the Day

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Trust and timing and learning to read each other.

That's it, right there--what's so wonderful about playing with musicians you've played with for a long time. The trust and timing and unspoken communication is there. And that becomes critical under performance pressure.

(This is one of those little synchronicities, since the subject of longtime musical companions came up in conversation this evening at the sixtieth-birthday party of a friend from the Irish-music contingent.)

[akaspeedo.livejournal.com]

My first belt test, I really thought I was going to throw up. But I didn't get nervous until that very day, so maybe it was all the suppressed adrenaline....

Y'know what really pisses me off? When you're stressed like that and some advanced belt comes along and says, "What are you worried about? You know your stuff. Piece of cake."

Train well, focus, don't think too much.

Kill Bob dead.

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Heh! Bob doesn't have a chance.