This week’s blog draws on some helpful messages from our Community Drop-in which has been running over summer as part of our training and education programme. In the early sessions, some participants mentioned that they were struggling to find the motivation to practice following the cancellation of live performances. Responding to this, Dr Pippa Wheble, our Community Drop-in facilitator, programmed a session on mental practice as a means of thinking about and developing practice skills during the COVID-19 outbreak. Dr Ellis Pecen, an applied performance psychologist, gave an inspiring session to introduce these skills and has kindly allowed us to share some of her key exercises and messages from the session in this blog. We are grateful to Dr Pippa Wheble for her work in bringing this together.

Dr Ellis Pecen, an applied performance psychologist

Ellis specialises in using applied performance psychology techniques which include, for instance, imagery, focus training and mental practice skills. Such skills can be used to enhance performance as well as contribute to performer wellbeing. Psychological skills can also help in learning to practice in an efficient way and to develop mental practice to support you pre-performance.

Focus & Authenticity in Communication

Ellis explains: “In communicative professions especially, a sense of connection and authenticity is very important. We like to feel we can trust and believe a person and that a performance ‘connects’ with us. As a performer, it can help to define your intention, the meaning you give to the performance, and the purpose you attach to it. Focusing on meaning and contribution to others in a broad sense, can help you to express yourself and communicate with your audience in a more authentic way and it can even help with skill execution is certain contexts. This way of focusing and defining purpose, meaning and vision provides you with a sense of what your intention is, what your message is and what you want to represent as a performer. This way of thinking can help to ground you and keep you focused on a ‘higher principle’ rather than on technical perfection or narrow outcomes alone. Sometimes we have a difficult time believing in ourselves so believing in our values or intentions for impact can be just as, if not more, powerful”.

Focusing Under Pressure

Ellis explains: “As performance pressure increases, so do stress, fear, and physical symptoms of arousal and typically our focus will shift without us realising. Often people will report things like ‘tunnel vision’ or becoming distracted by things in their direct environment. What we really need is a way of using focus more flexibly according to the type of task we are dealing with and what the performance demands from us in that particular second. Under pressure or when overwhelmed, many people seem to have an intuitive tendency to apply a less than optimal type of focus to the one they would benefit from the most in skilled performance. In life we may become worked up over specifics and in performance we may become consumed with one small aspect of the task and invest an unnecessary amount of attention in it, ultimately derailing performance.”

 

Focusing skill can be taught and learned and is essential in elite performance. Elite performance requires a flexibility of focus and an alternation between types of focus, depending on the task. Ellis explains: “I like to consider the ideas suggested in Nideffer’s theory of ‘attentional and personal styles’ (1976a) and I will adapt it for the particular performance task and domain we are working with. Nideffer suggested two dimensions of attention: width (broad to narrow) and direction (external to internal). Depending on the domain and task we are working with, you might find different examples for each type of attention. For instance, ‘broad’ is an attention that considers many elements at once, ‘narrow’ attention would limit itself to one specific point of information. ‘Internal’ focus typically refers to a person’s thoughts, feelings, symptoms or physical and technical aspects of performance. An external focus takes the point of focus away from the individual, and could, for instance, focus on the effects of a movement or a point of focus that is further removed from the performer (e.g., image, metaphors, a broad field vision of surroundings,…). All 4 combinations are useful and their effectiveness depends on how they are used and trained and how appropriate they are for the task at a particular moment in time and skill execution.

Ellis continues: “Under pressure, however, I have found that many performers seem to focus internally and narrowly under pressure. This type of focus may be good for analysis and preparation in practice when specific technical details are being developed, but it is less useful under pressure where we need to be flexible with focus. With people who are new to focus and attentional skill training, I like to work on pulling focus from internal to external and from narrow to broad. In its most basic form, (re)focusing skill could simply be to pull focus away from physical symptoms of stress (which will happen) and focusing on the task or on the greater meaning/bigger picture of the performance or even an image or phrase that represents this ‘meaning’ to the performer. Eventually you want to be able to apply narrow internal, narrow external, broad internal and broad external”

 

An exercise in exploring an ‘image’ of your vision

  1. Write down a few characteristics of your ideal self: Who do you want to be?
    • Examples: Graceful, joyful, engaging, strong, empowering,…
  2. Write down a few adjectives describing: What does it mean to you to be successful in a broad sense?
    • Examples: Being Myself, being welcoming, having integrity, being a good role model
  3. What do you care about meaning to the world/ to others?
    • Examples: Truthful, loving, inspiring young performers, moving someone
  4. Look back at your answers and try and come up with a mental ‘picture’ that brings those characteristics together. A bit like a photograph that has all the elements that you care about in a single mental ‘snapshot’. It doesn’t have to be literal; you can image elements that represent the feeling of what you have described above. The final image should instantly remind you of what you care about and (re)focus you on vision and intention.

You can use this vision image to shift perspective and shift your focus when you are feeling overwhelmed or under pressure and want to keep yourself from overanalysing unnecessarily. For example, right before you walk on stage – go to that place and remember what this means to you. You can practice this every day – before you answer the phone or send that email, before you walk into a meeting or start your practice. Notice how this changes your experience of stress throughout the day and in pressure situations.

Flexible Focus & Imagery Skills

Narrowing and broadening our focus are both important and have their strengths in different contexts. Internal and narrow focus might be useful, for instance, when you are learning a new task and need to analyse something, or you need to remind yourself of a specific technical cue or instruction or you need to regulate your own body.

Focus and imagery skill are often used as part of mental preparation, practice and pre-performance routines. “Functional equivalence” is a word you might hear a lot in this area. It refers to the idea that preparing and mentally running through every part of an action can result in motor responses that are ‘equivalent’ to what would happen in the body if you were to actually execute that movement. For example, many elite performers use mental practice to master all aspects of their performance, without even moving their bodies and it can be especially useful during times of overtraining or injury when physical practice is not possible to the same degree.

Transitioning from practice to performance becomes a smaller shift when our mental practice has already prepared us for most of the facets of the performance. It begins to feel familiar, as though we have already done the performance before and it gives us something beneficial to focus on.

Mental practice can be exhausting and intense! Ellis recommends starting slowly and regularly and not doing it for too long. When mental rehearsal is done well, it can feel cognitively draining. If it does not, you might be fantasising or visualising recreationally. Try, for instance, 15 min uninterrupted, 3 times a week to start off with and build up gradually. It takes a lot of practice to become aware of all of the things that you do as you compete/speak/play/act/dance or sing, but this type of practice can have a huge impact on your performance.

Introducing the PETTLEP model for imagery and performance preparation:

PETTLEP is an acronym that stands for Physical, Emotion, Timing, Task, Learning, Environment and Perspective. The PETTLEP model is based on the work of Holmes and Collins (2001) and its ideas have drawn from the work of, for instance, Jeannerod (1997) a neurologist, a neurophysiologist and an internationally recognized expert in cognitive neuroscience and experimental psychology. PETTLEP has been used in applied sport psychology as an approach to achieve functional equivalence (see Holmes & Collins, 2001) and it has also been experimented with in performing arts (e.g., Folvig, 2011; Wright, Wakefield & Smith, 2014). PETTLEP is a more comprehensive model for imagery and encourages the performer to think about various aspects of performance without dictating a state of relaxation.

 

Adapting PETTLEP for a pre-performance scenario

 

This exercise is an example of how you might practice a pre-performance imagery exercise. It can feel uncomfortable – really allow yourself to observe and notice what you feel and allow the anxiety. Notice what happens when you try the imagery sequence under this level of arousal.

• PHYSICALITY: How does my body feel? Notice the symptoms like heart rate, breathing, trembling hands, dry throat, etc. What will you be thinking about before you are about to start?

• EMOTION: What emotions do I feel? What am I thinking and experiencing?

• TASK: What are the task relevant elements to think about? What are the cues I need to remind myself of and where should I allow myself not to get too invested in the task and avoid overanalysing?

• TIMING: What will I do to set myself into the right ‘timing’ or cadence of speech or movement? What does this timing sound like and what do I notice myself doing mentally in terms of timing? Am I speeding it up in my head under pressure? Should I adjust the timing I have in mind? Think about how you will pace the setting of a rhythm (e.g., the 1-2-3-GO! as mentioned above) and how it will feel to do this when you are under pre-performance pressure. Notice also how the excitement is affecting the mental representation of timing.

• ENVIRONMENT: Image the stage, the floor, the smell, the lights, the fabric of your clothing and your shoes in the moments before you walk onto the stage.

• PERSPECTIVE: Really see yourself before the performance and as you are about to walk on. You can also try a 3rd person perspective if you feel ready. Now right before you go on, try switching your focus to your ‘vision image’ we described above. How does it feel to switch? What do notice? What is your mind doing? Why are you really here? What really matters to you? What is your intention? What is the greater meaning and purpose of what you are about to do? Keep your eyes on this vision and notice how this affects you.

 

Q & A with Ellis

Q: I often don’t get the chance to think pre-performance because I work in a business setting where we go from one thing to the next. How do you create that space?

 

A: A thing to remember is that a lot of theories in performance originate from domains in which peak events are trained for long in advance and in between those peak events, there is a lot of time devoted to training and recovery. In business, for example, people are under pressure to peak non-stop – which is very different to the context of, say, sports, military or elite performing arts. In the real world, things happen. In an ideal world you can create the space – ask for it, intend to have it, protect it etc, but that is not always possible and we have to roll with the punches and do what little we can sometimes. Simple strategies like turning off your phone, closing the door or using headphones have helped some of my clients. Even when there is ‘no time’ – a second can be enough to help you refocus or take the time to practice external or broad focus or focus on your vision image can help too. You really don’t need a lot of time and opportunity to do these small things. It’s like looking at a picture of a furry puppy or kitten. You will instantly feel something. If you hear a good joke, you will instantly laugh – and you can carry that energy with you into the next task that you are about to do. These small bursts of (re)focusing on energising material in between never-ending tasks are often the best bet. Also, of course, things like taking breaks, food, exercise will have a knock-on effect on any situation.

I would also like to mention that if we use the elite performance model of peaks and troughs, it is assuming short episodes of peak arousal (pressure/stress/competition) followed by a return to a baseline of training and recovery in-between these peaks, often supported by coaches and a team of nutritionists, psychologists, sports massage and what have you. This is simply not available to everyone in every context. When people try to replicate this acute peaking in a context where people do not have the support and are asked to peak non-stop, the result is often chronic stress (living in a constant state of arousal) and/or a kind of performance ‘flat line’ from which it is difficult to achieve true peak performance. It is crucial to invest in strategies that promote recovery, rest and reflection where possible. But also, remember this: your attitude to stress makes a lot of difference. If you fear the fear, the cycle becomes more vicious. Think of it this way: stress if fuel that simply wants an outlet, without which we would probably procrastinate. And if you are under stress – you also get more opportunities every day to practice applying your strategies. You need to be in that moment of aversion and discomfort to really practice how to apply and work with a strategy. Otherwise it’s just someone practising in the comfort of their home and not having good transfer to the pressure situation. Consider fear as an opportunity to practice.

Q: Can you change your focus, vision or image?

A: Absolutely. As you change, so might your intentions, values, purpose, priorities and principles and the strategies that work best will have to reflect that. Also, training this kind of focus will probably lead to changes in the first place.

Q: What should you do if things don’t go how you envisioned?

A: It is impossible to prepare for every eventuality because you don’t control and know every variable and in the end we are dealing with probability. Often we think that doing the same ‘perfect’ thing or achieving one version of our ‘perfect performance’ under pressure is what we need, while actually it is flexibility that we are really after. What doesn’t bend, will break. A key characteristic of an expert performer is not that they do exactly the same thing every time, but that they show a flexibility in their movement patterns and that they work around and correct performance in real time. They do this very quickly because they have that flexibility and expertise. Training this way will make you much stronger under pressure. It’s about movement variability and responding in the moment to what is happening. Mental rehearsal techniques could help with this too. If things never go wrong for a performer, they also never learn how to recover and when things hit them hard for the first time, they become vulnerable. We need to learn this flexibility throughout performance. It’s also related to the idea of resilience where you have knock-backs that you recover from and then you come back to it. So we shouldn’t aspire towards this rigid idea of ‘a perfect routine/performance/performer/progress’, but rather training the flexibility to dance with whatever happens in the moment so we can bend rather than break.

And with regards to what we spoke about when we discussed, imagery, focus and vision, we also need to accept that solutions may feel counter-intuitive in the moment. For instance, if you are under pressure pre-performance, feeling irritable and afraid and your attention is drawn to your symptoms and thoughts you might not want to have… it can be hard to trust that doing the counter-intuitive thing of, for instance, shifting focus might help. It is also useful to learn to learn to trust our preparation (even if it isn’t where you want it to be at the moment) and I have found from experience that performers do quite well when they focus on something they truly believe in and care about. Sometimes we don’t want to believe in ourselves, but we can be absolutely sure about what we care about or visions we have. If you can’t trust yourself, trust something else to get you there. A focus on vision or a higher principle can be very empowering.

As with all skills, it does take practice, so think about

• Experimenting with different types of focus. Notice that when you prepare and analyse a specific aspect in preparation, that you are applying a more narrow focus, if you focus on how you feel or specific things you experience in your body, you are applying an internal focus. Now in addition to this, practice applying the opposites too. Think of ways you could apply a broad focus. And an external focus. Experiment until you can switch between them reliably and notice when you benefit from each the most.

• Applying a narrow and/or internal focus regularly during practice and in preparing for a performance can be useful to help focus on technique, specific cues you need to think of or specific things that you need to limit your attention to.

• A broad and/or external focus can be focused outside of yourself, and in subjective and communicative disciplines, experiment with what that means to you and how you can pull focus away from yourself and technical concerns. Think about meaning, purpose, images, the effects of your movements and projected ‘outward’,…

• Try practising imagery training regularly and allow yourself to feel anxious

• Try reminding yourself of the vision image you constructed above as a quick and powerful refocusing tool.

About Ellis Pecen

Ellis Pecen is an Applied Performance Psychologist working across human performance domains and specialising in speaking, consultancy and private practice. She holds a PhD in Performance Psychology, an MSc in Applied Psychology, an MSc in Performance Science, a BMus(Hons) from the RCM and a Dip in Drama & Theatre.

Ellis’ focus is on enhancing performance and/or wellbeing and to make clear the distinction between the two and tailor strategies accordingly. She works on enabling skill acquisition through psychological skills training as well as by focusing on building vision unique to the individual.

Ellis retired from professional performance in 2017 and has worked with organisations and individuals in entertainment, sports, dance, finance, business, music, comedy, theatre and education. She has worked with people of all ages and has extensive experience working with children and teenagers as well.

Ellis combines applied research and experience to make performance psychology practical and accessible. Popular training topics have included: dealing with performance anxiety, psychological skills training, productivity, decision-making, communication, professional skills, lifestyle management, memorisation, study skills and wellbeing in high performance environments.

How to get in touch with Ellis:

Ellis Pecen Linkedin

www.EclecticPerformance.com

info@eclecticperformance.com

Ellis Pecen on twitter

 

References

Holmes, P. S., & Collins, D. J. (2001). The PETTLEP approach to motor imagery: A functional equivalence model for sport psychologists. Journal of applied sport psychology, 13(1), 60-83.

Jeannerod, M, (1997), The cognitive neuroscience of action, Oxford, UK: Blackwell

Folvig, E. (2011). Imaging mastery: Applying the PETTLEP model of imagery to music performance practice (Master’s thesis). Faculty of the VCA & Music, The University of Melbourne.

Nideffer, R. M. (1976a). The Inner Athlete. New York: Thomas Crowell.

Wright, D. J., Wakefield, C. J., & Smith, D. (2014). Using PETTLEP imagery to improve music performance: A review. Musicae Scientiae, 18, 448– 463. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1029864914537668

 

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