February 10, 2025 • 35 mins
Ever wonder how elite performers tackle their stage fright? Join us as we chat with Dr. Jean-Ron Lafond, a distinguished opera performer and educator, who takes us on a journey from the beaches of Haiti to the opera stages and tennis courts, unraveling the mysteries of performance anxiety. Discover how Dr. Lafond's unique blend of vocal science and martial arts principles can help you overcome the mental blocks that hinder your performance, whether you’re a musician or an athlete. With valuable insights drawn from his personal experiences and professional expertise, Dr. Lafond offers strategies that promise to enhance your mental fortitude in high-pressure scenarios.
Hear the inspiring tale of a young man who transformed the challenge of a pronounced stutter into a flourishing operatic career. Moving from Haiti to New Jersey, he faced cultural shocks and communication barriers, yet found liberation in the world of music. Encouraged by compassionate teachers, his journey reveals how music can be a powerful vehicle for self-expression and overcoming personal obstacles, setting him on an unexpected path to success on stage. This story highlights the potential within each of us to turn our struggles into strengths.
Finally, we explore the striking similarities in performance anxiety experienced by tennis stars and singers, underscoring the need for a robust mental approach in both fields. From top tennis players like Daniel Medvedev to accomplished musicians, the psychological battles are universal. Uncover the mental techniques employed by athletes and how these can be adapted to help musicians. Through visualization, self-hypnosis, and grounding exercises, we offer listeners practical tips to silence self-doubt and improve their performance, whether on the court or on stage. Tune in, as next week we continue our conversation with Ron, diving deeper into these transformative approaches.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Are you feeling stuck , trapped by barriers holding
you back from reaching your fullpotential?
Well, let's bust through thosebarriers so that you can live
your best life.
Hi, I'm Matt Brooks, founder ofMatt Brooks Coaching, and I'm
passionate about helping peopleovercome barriers to achieve
success.
Join me for insights,strategies and inspiring stories
(00:35):
as we explore practical tipsand powerful tools to unlock
your true potential.
This is the Barrier BustingPodcast.
Well, welcome back everybody.
I am so excited today becauseI've got a special guest.
(00:57):
He's someone I've known fordecades and the last time I did
a podcast, we did a couple showstogether that were fascinating.
So I know he's going to befascinating today, and he's
actually agreed to do twobecause we've got a lot to talk
about.
So he'll be on this week andnext week.
As you know, last week I wastalking about performance
anxiety, and I was talking aboutit from the perspective of how
it can happen to anyone, notjust people who actually get up
(01:19):
on stage and perform.
You know it can happen if yougot to make a presentation at a
meeting, it can happen if yougot to give a toast at a wedding
, et cetera, and so we talkedabout that last week and I gave
some tips as to how to deal withit, discuss some treatment
options if it's severe.
But today my special guest isfrom the world of opera and he's
(01:40):
here to shed light on howperformance anxiety affects
professional performers, in thehopes that learning about how
professionals handle it willenlighten us as to how we should
handle performance anxiety inany situation.
He's also a lifelong tennisplayer, a very serious tennis
player, so we'll be talking fromthe perspective of performance
anxiety in tennis as well.
You know we don't think of theprofessional performer as a
(02:02):
person who struggles withperformance anxiety, but it
turns out that they do.
A 2019 study in Frontiers ofPsychology showed that 50 to 70
percent of professionalmusicians reported compromised
performances due to anxiety, andother studies have shown,
interestingly enough, that 20 to34 percent of elite athletes
(02:22):
experience performance anxietyas well.
So how do they deal with thatand get through it?
We're going to talk to thattoday.
My guest is Dr Jean-Ron Lafond,or, as those of us who know him
well call him, ron.
Dr Lafond has both a master'sand doctorate from the
University of Michigan and abachelor's degree from the
famous Westminster Choir College, having performed over 40
(02:43):
operatic roles as a baritone andgiven at least as many
performances of oratorio solos.
He has also presented over 400recitals in his prestigious
career.
He's worked as a stage directorand also is an experienced
theater actor.
Throughout his career as aperformer, dr LaFond maintained
a strong presence as a teacherand mentor.
He's taught at the Universityof Florida, east Carolina
(03:06):
University, the University ofDelaware and Westminster Choir
College.
Currently, ron works as afreelance teacher, regularly
presenting masterclasses andprivate study all over the world
, and he's developed his ownphilosophy for teaching singers
that incorporates principlesfrom both vocal science and are
you ready for this?
Martial arts.
Ron is fantastic.
(03:26):
Ron, it is so great to see you.
Welcome to my new show.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So glad to be here, Matt, to have a good chatting.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I know, and he's coming to us from Spain, so Ron
and I don't get a chance to talkoften, so it's really great to
see him.
I want to start with a littlesomething about you.
You have been facing stressfulsituations since you were a kid
right, and as an opera singerand teacher you've certainly
been exposed to all sorts ofperformance anxiety.
But I want to go back to yourchildhood a little bit, because
(03:57):
it created a scenario that youhave had to struggle with and
overcome your whole life.
That, I think, is reallyimpressive.
Having known you, you were bornand raised for the first 11
years of your life in Haiti, inPort-au-Prince, and you have
told me it was a very, almostidyllic period.
It was a wonderful upbringingat the time in Haiti, but you
(04:19):
moved.
Your family moves you fromthere.
You were on a beach all thetime, right, and your family
moved you from that to NewJersey, to Newark, right.
Was it Newark, newark?
first yeah, Newark first.
And what?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
And then eventually Elizabeth Orange.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, but Newark from Haiti, I mean, that's a huge
cultural shift and a huge shock,I know, and I know that it had
a profound effect on you, anddue to the stress or shall we
say we really can call it PTSDfrom this move, you developed a
stutter and yet you became anopera singer and when I first
(04:57):
knew you, which was 30 some oddyears ago, your stutter was very
pronounced compared to now, butyou became an opera singer and
a theater actor and all that.
I mean that's amazing.
Let's start here and discusshow you overcame the stuttering,
or at least figured out how towork with it, so that the
inevitable performance anxietythat would come from your worry
(05:20):
of that would go away, to allowyou to be a professional
performer.
Talk about this, please.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Great question.
In fact it's because of thisthat I eventually became an
opera singer.
I never really thought ofbecoming an opera singer.
It kind of was a fluid processbecause of my stuttering.
I started to stutter prettybadly when I went to school in
the States.
That's where the extremeculture shock happened.
(05:51):
The first day in class I got up, the teacher called on me and,
as I used to do in my country, Istood up to speak and all the
students started to laugh at me.
It was just wild.
So that was a shock.
I had a wonderful teacher soshe managed to get me through
all of that.
But from that day on thestutter was pretty extreme.
(06:14):
And I remember specifically Iwas in my room in Elizabeth, new
Jersey, because we moved fromNewark to Elizabeth pretty soon
after we had moved to Newark andI remember in my room I was
singing.
We listened to music at home alot.
Nobody was a professionalmusician but we listened to
music and I was singing alongwith I can't remember what song,
and it hit me that I don'tstutter when I sing.
(06:37):
And then I was watching.
Yeah, then I was watching aprogram.
I was watching Johnny Carsonand he had watching a program.
I was watching Johnny Carsonand he had as a guest Mel Tillis
, the country singer, who alsostuttered horribly Really.
Yeah, mel Tillis said that hedoesn't stutter when he sings,
so that became for me a way ofexpressing myself vocally,
(06:59):
because I was scared to speak inclass.
I did not raise my hand and myteachers eventually said listen,
ron stutters, so you guys haveto be patient with him.
So sometimes I had to read inclass and that was an absolute
nightmare, oh I bet.
But again, good, solid teacherswere helpful and that created
(07:21):
an environment where mycolleagues actually were very
tolerant and very nice to me.
I have to say, during thiswhole time no one in my class
ever teased me about mystuttering because of these
teachers.
Oh, that's great.
Yeah, that helped tremendously.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
See the power of teachers.
I'm married to a teacher.
I think they do not get enoughrespect.
But think about this it's nother job to care about your
stuttering, but she did right.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
She did, she did, and that made a big difference.
So eventually I was given ascholarship to a small private
school in New Jersey and when Iarrived I was playing soccer and
they were going to do schoolplay.
It's a very small school soeverybody participated in
everything sports, theater,music, everybody did everything.
So the drama teacher asked meif I would audition for the play
(08:11):
that year.
It was a play called 40 Carats,that's a movie from the 1960s.
And I said I stutter terriblyso there's no way I'm going to
audition for a straight play.
But they knew I sang and I haddone musical theater, uh, at my
previous school, and so theyreally encouraged me to do this.
So I said, fine, I'll do theaudition.
But you'll see, I started sobadly you will not want me to do
(08:32):
it.
I auditioned and the teacherassigned me the lead.
Oh my god, the lead, yeah, thelead, uh.
But in order to do the lead Ihad to give up soccer and I was
the scorer for the soccer teamand I said, no, man, there's no
way I'm going to give up soccerteam.
They depend on me, so I have tobe there.
(08:53):
He said okay, we'll figure outsomething.
I'll talk to the coach.
Well, I ended up with the secondlead, which had even more lines
than the lead, and she saiddon't worry, I will help you out
.
Well, long story short, um, shecouldn't figure out how to help
me out.
We got about midway rehearsals.
I was stuttering to have mylines it was getting
embarrassing, people werefeeling sorry for me walked in
(09:16):
my music teacher, um, who was achoir teacher, and, uh, she said
see me after your rehearsal.
And I went and she said I thinkI can help you out.
We're going to practice all ofyour lines singing.
So if I had to say let's justsay, if I had to say to be or
not to be, that is a question,instead of just saying it that
way, she would say to be or notto be, that is the question.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
So we figured out these wonderful musical lines
Like with tone and pitch you'retalking about With tone and
pitch and legato.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Shoot and sit, breathe, make sure every line is
legato.
So it's to be or not to be,that is the question.
We created a line Interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
For those that don't know legato I'm sure most people
know, but legato is very smooth.
Everything is connected Verysmooth.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, because everything is connected Right.
So at the end of it, yearslater, I found out that singing
and speaking operate ondifferent parts of the brain.
So if anybody has ever had amajor stroke and lose their
speech ability, there was amovie with Robert De Niro who
(10:25):
had a stroke and couldn't speakand what is his name?
A similar Hoffman ended upbeing this actor, voice teacher,
who helped him find his voicethrough singing.
So singing and speakinghappened from different parts of
the brain, and so what Iactually ended up using to work
(10:46):
out my stuttering wasessentially accessing the
singing part of my brain.
When I speak, and as we aredoing this right now, I'm using
this technique right this minute.
It may not sound it becauseI've become very adept at it,
but I'm practically singing toyou right now.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Well, it's interesting because, like I said
when I first met you, which iswhat 30 years ago?
Maybe now um your.
Your stutter was very pronouncedand this was in you were you
were in graduate school atmichigan at the time and the
last several times we've hadchats I don't think you've
stuttered at all and we've hadlong chats, because you and I
(11:25):
don't talk often and when we dowe get going and seasons go by.
It feels like when we talk toeach other, you know, and so
you've really figured this outand I just I don't know.
I want to congratulate you.
It's really inspirational, it's.
I know we talk a lot aboutovercoming challenges and
barriers and I, as a life coach,work with people on this.
This is the main event right,overcoming barriers.
(11:46):
You found a creative way tolive with it and work with it,
and I think that's the verybasic idea about overcoming any
challenge in your life.
So kudos to you, my friendKudos to you.
Can we shift to your work as ateacher now?
Sure, my friend Kudos to you,can we shift to your work as a
(12:07):
teacher now?
You've worked with singers fromall over the world and at all
levels, including singers at thevery highest echelons of the
opera world, and you are also avery serious lifelong tennis
player, as I've mentioned.
You've also witnessed andstudied the effects of
performance anxiety in sports aswell as in the performing arts.
Let's talk about what you'vewitnessed and learned about
performance anxiety First.
(12:28):
How would you defineperformance anxiety, especially
in the context of first opera,singing?
Then we'll come back to tennis.
So how do you define it in thecontext of opera singing?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
It is, for me, essentially a state of mind that
you get into because of ahistory of things not happening
the way you want them to happen.
You have a feeling of you'renot in control of what you're
about to do, even though you'vepracticed, you've practiced,
you've practiced, and so thenyou get to the moment when you
(13:03):
have to do it and there's asense of dread, there's a sense
that I'm not going to do wellhere.
It's not logical.
You may have rehearsed a piece100,000 times and it went well,
but because of some times whenit didn't, a history of things
like that creates essentially astate of mind where you are
(13:24):
convinced that you're not goingto do that well, right, right.
That ends up being aself-fulfilling prophecy,
because what you thinkessentially is what ultimately
is going to happen, right.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
I talked about this in my episode last week.
You know, in terms of anxietyin general, Most anxiety is
caused from fear of anxiety.
You know what I mean.
It's not necessarily caused fromactually some event.
It's caused from fear ofanxiety.
You know what I mean.
It's not necessarily causedfrom actually some event.
It's caused from fear ofanxiety and, like you said,
typically from something thathappened long ago.
You know, like you, beinghumiliated in front of your
(13:57):
class the first day of school inNewark, but that didn't keep
you from performing.
Somehow you found a way to getover that.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Right, and you know, because I could have remembered
that day as being terrified.
But then I also remember thatteacher who came to my rescue
and that was a positive side ofit, right?
So there's always an out.
You have to figure out what theout is, because we're going to
get nervous.
Pavarotti said if any singertells you before a performance
they're not nervous, nervous isnormal.
(14:24):
He said they're not nervous,nervous is normal.
He said they're lying or theydon't care.
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Yeah, I mean, he actually saidthis.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
You can find that well, I believe you, I believe
you yeah, and I'm sorry Iinterrupted your train of
thought there, but, um, I justreally had to jump in on that,
that point.
But yeah, um, they're lying.
So you're saying that basically, this is nervousness.
Have you seen it?
When it's more than nervousness, when it's more severe than
(14:53):
that?
Oh sure.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Absolutely.
Nervousness is normal.
We all get used to.
Okay, I get the butterflies andI'm going to use the energy for
my performance, or the energycan overwhelm you, and then that
becomes panic, and then thatbecomes ptsd, that becomes
essentially anxiety.
Yeah, right, yeah.
So I have seen situations ofreally good singers.
Actually, a very good friend ofmine that I taught for a period
(15:16):
of time was making his metdebut in carmen, his debut at
the met.
Is that what you're saying atthe met?
yeah, man he had a wonderfulcareer in europe.
Especially, and and because ofthat wonderful success, he was
invited to the met and just hada horrific night.
I was listening from berlin atthe time, uh, like at two
o'clock in the morning, uh,early in time, and I'm listening
(15:40):
to him fall apart, oh my.
And this is a role that the guyhad sung several times with
great success, which is why theMet invited him to do it.
Yeah, yeah, because the Metdoesn't invite anybody to do
anything unless they secure that.
You know that you're going tokick ass.
Well, I could hear, piece bypiece, him falling apart and it
(16:01):
was just a wreck of aperformance.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Did they fire him after that or did he get another
shot?
I mean, how does that work?
He has a great manager.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
So originally he had seven performances of this role
and the Met wanted to let him go, but his management, which is
pretty powerful, made them givehim two performances instead of
seven, so he ended up doing onemore performance.
I don't know how that went.
Uh, those things happen yeah.
Yeah, you have a bad night, butin this case it sounds like it
(16:31):
was from anxiety right, it wasbecause he had had a series of
uh performances where thingsweren't going his way, and that
was the last of them so kind oflike a you know a in baseball, a
batter who's in a slump a greatbatter but who's just not
hitting for a couple months.
Right, it's very similar tothat Exactly, you get in a slump
(16:53):
.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's exactly the same thing.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
How about from the tennis world, Because I know
you're very passionate aboutthis and you've had a lot of
experience.
How do you define performanceanxiety in the tennis world and
what have you?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Very similar situation In the tennis world.
It's a very similar situationbecause you have to imagine, a
tennis player is a soloperformer in general let's not
talk about people who playdoubles but a singles player is
a singles performer Might aswell be a soloist at the Met or
(17:28):
if you're going to play a bigmatch anywhere or play a small
match.
I played a small tournamentjust recently and had a bit of
anxiety for that tournament.
We'll get to that.
But anxiety for tennis playersis very similar because you're
trying to do something that'svery precise, as in any
performance.
Or you know, just like you saidin your intro, if you're going
(17:51):
to do uh, uh, you know apresentation at a wedding and
you're going to give the toastat a wedding, you want it to go
just right.
You want to say the wrong thingand to prepare and and you can
get nervous about that tennisplayers as well will play a
first match of a tournament andthey want to win it, and you can
get nervous about that.
Tennis players as well will playa first match of a tournament
and they want to win it, andthey can have doubts about how
things go, because yesterday,during their practice, the
(18:14):
forehand wasn't firing properlyand that's the shot they rely on
the most.
And so they go out there for noreason, even though they've been
going for weeks with a perfectforehead, but just because they
had that little problem the daybefore, they doubt themselves.
And when you end your mindabout how do I hit this forehead
, instead of just hitting itbecause your body remembers you
(18:35):
get in your own way, then thatbecomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy and then you start tohit very badly and then the next
match you have, you're in yourhead again and that continues.
And then the next match youhave, you're in your head again
and that continues and itbecomes anxiety, anxiety,
anxiety.
I just did this tournamentwhere the first three matches I
played lost my first singlesmatch, lost my second singles
(18:55):
match, lost my first mixeddoubles match and then finally,
my last mixed doubles match.
I was like you know what I'm inmy head let's just hit, end up
winning it.
So you have to find a way outof the funk, and tennis players
in general talk about scartissue and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Interestingly enough, years ago I was on the balcony
of a hotel room that I was in inFlorida and on the balcony next
to me was this retired famousprofessional football player I'm
not going to say his name orwhat team he was for and we're
shooting the ball and we'rehaving a nice chat from my
balcony to his.
It was very close and we'rejust having a nice chat and at
one point I said to him becausehe had won a Super Bowl, and I
(19:37):
said to him you know, can youexplain to me what happens when
you have this great team allseason long who then goes to the
Super Bowl and just collapses?
It's just one of those blowouts.
What in your mind?
And I bring this up because hisanswer was so funny he said to
me there's something about goingto the show that makes the ass
get tight Never forget himsaying that but I think that's a
(19:59):
good metaphor actually for thefact that they're in their head,
actually for the fact thatthey're in their head, you know,
for, for singers, I mean, ifthe let's talk about the tension
that comes from anxiety, realbriefly, I mean, the voice has
to be relaxed to work well.
For tennis players, the tension, I'm sure, tightens the muscles
in the arms and the legs andslows you down.
Um, if, if that's happening toyou as a singer let's start
(20:25):
there what can you do to makesure that those muscles that you
need from your diaphragm andwhatever else, your work, your
larynx, whatever?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
the mechanics are.
Don't get too tight to failExactly Now.
There are two parts to this.
There's a preventative side.
If I know that I'm dealing witha singer who's had some issues,
who's had some bad performancesand has a bit of PTSD, we'll do
(21:00):
a little bit of I guess youmight refer to it as
self-hypnosis.
So what we do is you know, I'llgo through it very quickly.
I'd say, close your eyes.
Imagine you go into an elevator,we go down 10 stories.
Then you get down there, thedoor opens and that's the stage
we're going to perform.
So now we're going to programwhat is going to happen.
(21:22):
You're going to walk out.
This is what you're going to do.
So we program the successfulperformance.
Then this performance is over,we go back into the elevator, we
go back up.
It's basically programming thesubconscious Through
visualization Exactly, exactlyRight.
And then the singer has thisprogramming.
(21:43):
And I've experienced this.
It was a teacher of mine thatshowed me this when I was having
a terrible cold and thoughtthat my performance would go
badly.
We programmed it.
I went out and the performancewent pretty much the way we
programmed it.
That was radical, so I neverforgot that.
Or who has some anxiety?
Maybe they have a cold, maybethey feel a bit insecure.
(22:04):
We'll go through that exerciseand then normally things tend to
go pretty well, unless there'ssomething more extreme that we
can't deal with.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Okay, well, hold that thought, and I want to get to
tennis in a second, but we'rerunning long, so I just want to
take a quick break to get my adin, and then we will pick up
where we left off with talkingabout tension with tennis
players.
Is that all right?
So hang tight just for a minute.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
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Speaker 1 (23:17):
Okay, back with Ron.
Sorry for that interruption,but I've got to get that in.
So let's pick this up where weleft off.
We were talking about how thehow the stress can affect the
mechanics of singing.
Let's talk about how stressaffects the mechanics of playing
tennis.
I mean, I imagine, the musclesI'm not a tennis player okay,
connected, I'm going to go rightbecause I told you that was one
(23:38):
part that was preventative.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
That was this exercise that we do to program
the performance.
The other thing thing is whatdo you do in the moment when
suddenly things are goinghaywire?
What do you do there?
The same thing we do in singingas in tennis.
Go back to basics, right.
So if your forehand is aproblem, visualize what the
movement is right.
(24:00):
At what point do you hit theball?
How do you prepare?
How do you step into it?
How do you follow through?
You know exactly what that moveis, without any emotion, just
go through it.
If you watch a tennis match andyou watch a tennis player just
miss the forehand, you'll watchthem make a movement with their
hand of how they were supposedto do it.
It's a reminder.
So that's a reset.
(24:22):
I've never noticed that.
I'll look for that.
Yeah, it happens a lot.
They miss a shot and then yousee them go through the motion
softly just to remind themselveswhat they should have done as
opposed to what they did.
Okay, right.
So tennis, like singing, islightning fast.
It uses the entire body andvery often we focus.
(24:43):
For example, singers focus onthe vocal cords and tennis
players focus on their arms awhole lot and how they hit the
forehand, the backhand, theirserves.
But the problem is, all of thatis based on their legs and very
often tennis players don'tthink about their legs and very
often just getting them to.
There's another exercise thattennis players do a lot.
(25:04):
When things are not goingextremely well, they'll jump up
and down and all that does is itmentally connects them to their
body, Because very often whenthings start to go wrong, you
start to think what am I doingwrong?
Bad thought, because themovement.
If you've been playing tennisfor any period of time, the
(25:24):
movement is already memorized,just like singing, it should be
memorized.
If it's not memorized, thatcould be a source of the problem
whereby you have anxiety.
But if you have already a goodtechnique and things are going
wrong, most likely you need toget out of the way.
So what you need to think issimple stuff Keep your eyes on
(25:48):
the ball the entire time.
If you watch a slow motion ofsomebody hitting a great
forehand, you'll watch them hitthe ball, their arm finishes,
but their eyes are still wherethe ball was.
That's a very important part,because they need to keep their
eyes on the ball until the hitis done.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Well, two things out of what you just said that
relate to the show I did lastweek.
One is grounding.
You're essentially saying feelwhere you are.
And grounding is an exercisewhere you know you feel your
feet touching the floor andyou're focusing on that.
The other is being absolutelypresent in the moment, which
means, yes, you know, lookingfor something to see, feel,
(26:32):
touch, hear.
What do things sound like as toget out of your head, to get
out of the way.
Be present in the moment noteasy to do, by the way.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Sounds easy, but they're not easy to do no, it's
not easy to do, and that's andthat's the thing you need to.
When I was doing martial arts alot, I did Kung Fu and Tai Chi,
and what was so great about TaiChi, which I do daily even now,
is that nothing is moreimportant than the breath.
(27:03):
The movement is based on yourbreathing, not the other way
around.
So things like that themovement is based on your
breathing, not the other wayaround, right?
So things like that.
And singing is about breathing,and tennis, it's about
breathing.
The greatest player who's everplayed the game, Novak Djokovic.
They ask him how do you dealwith the stressful moments?
He said well, there are lots ofthings.
You have to be in the moment,just like he.
(27:25):
And he said, most importantly,conscious breathing, yeah, and
you'll watch playing verydifficult moments and you'll
watch and breathe.
Many players don't breathe well, I talked about.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I talked about breathing exercises for right
before the moment, like boxbreathing, which is something
the navy seals do.
But you're right, in the momentwe still need to breathe.
That's what we need to focusthere too, Really great advice.
Yeah, all right, so just reallyquick.
Do you find in your experiencewith opera singers, performance
anxiety is more pronounced inbeginners or in experienced
(27:57):
people?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I can tell the truth, both for different reasons.
Beginners often don't have asolid technique, but sometimes
they have to get in front oftheir colleagues to sing or do a
little recital in front oftheir parents and neighbors, and
so on.
They get really nervous becausethey want to do a good job.
Same principle, but theirproblems often occur when they
(28:22):
haven't mastered their techniqueyet, and so often they get in
their heads.
They're thinking like I'm goingto sing this song.
I dream of dreaming with alight brown hair.
Instead they're thinking like Ineed to lift my soft palate, I
need to breathe that way, andthen everything becomes an
exercise in tension and thingsdon't go well, at that point and
(28:42):
it's like quicksand, right.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
I remember that from the movie the Replacements.
They talk like quicksand right.
I remember that from the moviethe Replacements they talk about
quicksand Exactly, then you'relost there at that point.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Same thing happens with professionals, for
different reasons.
Professionals often have thephysical technique, otherwise
they would not be at the highestlevel of the game, but they
often get anxiety about thingsthat are not clear to them
Tennis players, for example.
(29:12):
I remember I went to a coachand he said there are no secrets
in tennis.
Every coach will tell you thesame thing, right, because we
see what you're doing and we canall comment about what you need
to do better.
There's agreement there.
There used to be a time whenWeston Shirt somewhat agreed on
stuff, but there's not muchagreement in singing anymore.
(29:33):
So there's a real problembecause you don't see the
instrument.
Most everything is happeningand such.
You have to have a realknowledge of anatomy and
acoustics and how these thingswork, but for the singer, they
have to go by, feel, and youhave to be very clear about what
the sensations are.
However, when it's time toperform, if the physical aspect
(29:54):
of it is not already memorized,you start to think okay, I need
to sing in the mask or I need todo this.
It's too late at this point andif that's not happening
correctly, that's a problem.
Another aspect of singing, forexample, is memorizing words.
Some people have it very easyand other people have a very
hard time with it.
Some singers get panickybecause they think they're going
(30:16):
to forget their lines and so,even though they sing really
well, they're afraid that theirmemory is going to fail them.
Others have a problem with notbeing sure if their melody and
the harmony of the accompanimentwhether it's an orchestra or
piano, if they're clear aboutthat or not, so they're afraid
they might get off.
(30:36):
They might get off key becausethey don't, because they're not
sure about but the harmony,sometimes they don't know that
that's a problem they don't evenknow.
Okay, they get into aperformance and they go off and
they don't know why that is.
And so there are so manyaspects of this that are
conscious and very often notconscious.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
And that's the worst.
Let's shift this to tennisplaying, because you and I were
talking and you used a term thatapparently tennis players use
that I never knew about.
Tell us what scar tissue meansin tennis, the term scar tissue?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Scar tissue is a memory of a bad experience,
right?
Let's say that.
Funny enough.
I just watched one of the mostincredible tennis matches of the
year so far, or maybe of thelast five years.
I've seen A major tennis player, number five in the world,
daniel Medvedev, was playingagainst a young American who was
(31:36):
only playing his second matchin a Grand Slam.
This thing went to five sets,almost five hours long.
Both guys are just tired.
They put everything out there.
Both of them playedmagnificently, but this young
man has a special mentality.
During the entire match youlook at his face there was never
(31:59):
a concern.
He was just in the moment doinghis thing.
That's what's special about him, and everybody's commenting on
this.
Daniel Medvedev, who has won aGrand Slam, who has won a bunch
of tournaments, one of the bestplayers in the world, has lost a
few in long five sets in thepast two or three years.
It's what happened today.
(32:20):
They get in a final set.
Tiebreaker, 10-point tiebreaker.
Medvedev is ahead.
Kidd catches up.
Next thing.
You know the kid won and I'msitting there thinking, oh, I'm
about to have this discussionwith Matt.
The match just ended.
Just right now, from Australia,medvedev is having a major
(32:42):
issue with scar tissue right now, of memories of matches that
were so close, especially long,grueling matches when it's just
giving everything you've got andthe other person gets ahead of
him, and even the analysisthings that we were pretty sure
Daniel had this match in handbut he lost it, and I'm and I'm
very sure that it's got to show.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
You know, there's that book, the Inner Game of
Tennis, tennis and I've read itum, which talks a lot about
these things.
And I I there is a I knowbecause I have several people in
my life who are in in theperforming arts.
I know that there was a bookwritten based on that for
musicians.
But the truth is I was talkingto a few other people, I bet
you'll agree sports people seemto the ones that are really
(33:28):
successful seem to trainpsychologically from an early
age, not just the physical stuff, but they train psychologically
to create that steel mind, theability to do that.
Musicians don't, it seems.
And so I have a friend in theperforming arts who said to me
you know, the truth aboutclassical music is it's an
(33:49):
entire industry fueled byinsecurity.
That's what he said and that'san incredible comment, and I
tend to agree with the waythings are right now yeah, yeah,
and so you know, I imagine it'sjust so much harder for
professional musicians and and Idon't know what they do in the
acting world, but I imagine it'sthe same.
They harder for professionalmusicians and, and I don't know
what they do in the acting world, but I imagine it's the same
they're not training that onpsychological approaches as much
(34:13):
as they're training on theskills.
So they the you know,performance anxiety, I'm sure is
is rampant, um for them.
So all right.
Well, this is a great place forus to to stop today's show,
because we're I don't want torun too long.
I promise my listeners I keepit to 30 minutes.
Sometimes I go to 40.
We're at 35.
That's fine.
But the good news is we'regoing to continue this
(34:33):
conversation next week with Ron.
So hang tight, be with us nextweek.
We're going to finish next week.
Ron, thank you for today andthank you for coming next week
Pleasure.
Absolutely All right If you'veenjoyed today's show.
Thanks for listening.
By the way, if you've enjoyedtoday's show, please like or
subscribe this podcast so youcan be notified the next time I
(34:54):
drop a show and in particular,when for next week, when the
next show with Ron comes out.
If you have any ideas fortopics you would like me to
cover, please feel free to emailme.
It's Matt atMattbrookscoachingcom.
I'd love to hear from you andsee what ideas you have and if I
can make it happen, I will.
So that's all for today.
(35:14):
Thank you for being here.
I really appreciate youlistening.
Thanks again to Ron LaFond,who'll be back next week.
Be well, and I'll catch younext time on the Barrier Busting
Podcast.
Thank you.
Are you feeling stuck , trapped by barriers holding
you back from reaching your fullpotential?
Well, let's bust through thosebarriers so that you can live
your best life.
Hi, I'm Matt Brooks, founder ofMatt Brooks Coaching, and I'm
passionate about helping peopleovercome barriers to achieve
success.
Join me for insights,strategies and inspiring stories
(00:35):
as we explore practical tipsand powerful tools to unlock
your true potential.
This is the Barrier BustingPodcast.
Well, welcome back everybody.
I am so excited today becauseI've got a special guest.
(00:57):
He's someone I've known fordecades and the last time I did
a podcast, we did a couple showstogether that were fascinating.
So I know he's going to befascinating today, and he's
actually agreed to do twobecause we've got a lot to talk
about.
So he'll be on this week andnext week.
As you know, last week I wastalking about performance
anxiety, and I was talking aboutit from the perspective of how
it can happen to anyone, notjust people who actually get up
(01:19):
on stage and perform.
You know it can happen if yougot to make a presentation at a
meeting, it can happen if yougot to give a toast at a wedding
, et cetera, and so we talkedabout that last week and I gave
some tips as to how to deal withit, discuss some treatment
options if it's severe.
But today my special guest isfrom the world of opera and he's
(01:40):
here to shed light on howperformance anxiety affects
professional performers, in thehopes that learning about how
professionals handle it willenlighten us as to how we should
handle performance anxiety inany situation.
He's also a lifelong tennisplayer, a very serious tennis
player, so we'll be talking fromthe perspective of performance
anxiety in tennis as well.
You know we don't think of theprofessional performer as a
(02:02):
person who struggles withperformance anxiety, but it
turns out that they do.
A 2019 study in Frontiers ofPsychology showed that 50 to 70
percent of professionalmusicians reported compromised
performances due to anxiety, andother studies have shown,
interestingly enough, that 20 to34 percent of elite athletes
(02:22):
experience performance anxietyas well.
So how do they deal with thatand get through it?
We're going to talk to thattoday.
My guest is Dr Jean-Ron Lafond,or, as those of us who know him
well call him, ron.
Dr Lafond has both a master'sand doctorate from the
University of Michigan and abachelor's degree from the
famous Westminster Choir College, having performed over 40
(02:43):
operatic roles as a baritone andgiven at least as many
performances of oratorio solos.
He has also presented over 400recitals in his prestigious
career.
He's worked as a stage directorand also is an experienced
theater actor.
Throughout his career as aperformer, dr LaFond maintained
a strong presence as a teacherand mentor.
He's taught at the Universityof Florida, east Carolina
(03:06):
University, the University ofDelaware and Westminster Choir
College.
Currently, ron works as afreelance teacher, regularly
presenting masterclasses andprivate study all over the world
, and he's developed his ownphilosophy for teaching singers
that incorporates principlesfrom both vocal science and are
you ready for this?
Martial arts.
Ron is fantastic.
(03:26):
Ron, it is so great to see you.
Welcome to my new show.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So glad to be here, Matt, to have a good chatting.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I know, and he's coming to us from Spain, so Ron
and I don't get a chance to talkoften, so it's really great to
see him.
I want to start with a littlesomething about you.
You have been facing stressfulsituations since you were a kid
right, and as an opera singerand teacher you've certainly
been exposed to all sorts ofperformance anxiety.
But I want to go back to yourchildhood a little bit, because
(03:57):
it created a scenario that youhave had to struggle with and
overcome your whole life.
That, I think, is reallyimpressive.
Having known you, you were bornand raised for the first 11
years of your life in Haiti, inPort-au-Prince, and you have
told me it was a very, almostidyllic period.
It was a wonderful upbringingat the time in Haiti, but you
(04:19):
moved.
Your family moves you fromthere.
You were on a beach all thetime, right, and your family
moved you from that to NewJersey, to Newark, right.
Was it Newark, newark?
first yeah, Newark first.
And what?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
And then eventually Elizabeth Orange.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, but Newark from Haiti, I mean, that's a huge
cultural shift and a huge shock,I know, and I know that it had
a profound effect on you, anddue to the stress or shall we
say we really can call it PTSDfrom this move, you developed a
stutter and yet you became anopera singer and when I first
(04:57):
knew you, which was 30 some oddyears ago, your stutter was very
pronounced compared to now, butyou became an opera singer and
a theater actor and all that.
I mean that's amazing.
Let's start here and discusshow you overcame the stuttering,
or at least figured out how towork with it, so that the
inevitable performance anxietythat would come from your worry
(05:20):
of that would go away, to allowyou to be a professional
performer.
Talk about this, please.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Great question.
In fact it's because of thisthat I eventually became an
opera singer.
I never really thought ofbecoming an opera singer.
It kind of was a fluid processbecause of my stuttering.
I started to stutter prettybadly when I went to school in
the States.
That's where the extremeculture shock happened.
(05:51):
The first day in class I got up, the teacher called on me and,
as I used to do in my country, Istood up to speak and all the
students started to laugh at me.
It was just wild.
So that was a shock.
I had a wonderful teacher soshe managed to get me through
all of that.
But from that day on thestutter was pretty extreme.
(06:14):
And I remember specifically Iwas in my room in Elizabeth, new
Jersey, because we moved fromNewark to Elizabeth pretty soon
after we had moved to Newark andI remember in my room I was
singing.
We listened to music at home alot.
Nobody was a professionalmusician but we listened to
music and I was singing alongwith I can't remember what song,
and it hit me that I don'tstutter when I sing.
(06:37):
And then I was watching.
Yeah, then I was watching aprogram.
I was watching Johnny Carsonand he had watching a program.
I was watching Johnny Carsonand he had as a guest Mel Tillis
, the country singer, who alsostuttered horribly Really.
Yeah, mel Tillis said that hedoesn't stutter when he sings,
so that became for me a way ofexpressing myself vocally,
(06:59):
because I was scared to speak inclass.
I did not raise my hand and myteachers eventually said listen,
ron stutters, so you guys haveto be patient with him.
So sometimes I had to read inclass and that was an absolute
nightmare, oh I bet.
But again, good, solid teacherswere helpful and that created
(07:21):
an environment where mycolleagues actually were very
tolerant and very nice to me.
I have to say, during thiswhole time no one in my class
ever teased me about mystuttering because of these
teachers.
Oh, that's great.
Yeah, that helped tremendously.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
See the power of teachers.
I'm married to a teacher.
I think they do not get enoughrespect.
But think about this it's nother job to care about your
stuttering, but she did right.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
She did, she did, and that made a big difference.
So eventually I was given ascholarship to a small private
school in New Jersey and when Iarrived I was playing soccer and
they were going to do schoolplay.
It's a very small school soeverybody participated in
everything sports, theater,music, everybody did everything.
So the drama teacher asked meif I would audition for the play
(08:11):
that year.
It was a play called 40 Carats,that's a movie from the 1960s.
And I said I stutter terriblyso there's no way I'm going to
audition for a straight play.
But they knew I sang and I haddone musical theater, uh, at my
previous school, and so theyreally encouraged me to do this.
So I said, fine, I'll do theaudition.
But you'll see, I started sobadly you will not want me to do
(08:32):
it.
I auditioned and the teacherassigned me the lead.
Oh my god, the lead, yeah, thelead, uh.
But in order to do the lead Ihad to give up soccer and I was
the scorer for the soccer teamand I said, no, man, there's no
way I'm going to give up soccerteam.
They depend on me, so I have tobe there.
(08:53):
He said okay, we'll figure outsomething.
I'll talk to the coach.
Well, I ended up with the secondlead, which had even more lines
than the lead, and she saiddon't worry, I will help you out
.
Well, long story short, um, shecouldn't figure out how to help
me out.
We got about midway rehearsals.
I was stuttering to have mylines it was getting
embarrassing, people werefeeling sorry for me walked in
(09:16):
my music teacher, um, who was achoir teacher, and, uh, she said
see me after your rehearsal.
And I went and she said I thinkI can help you out.
We're going to practice all ofyour lines singing.
So if I had to say let's justsay, if I had to say to be or
not to be, that is a question,instead of just saying it that
way, she would say to be or notto be, that is the question.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
So we figured out these wonderful musical lines
Like with tone and pitch you'retalking about With tone and
pitch and legato.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Shoot and sit, breathe, make sure every line is
legato.
So it's to be or not to be,that is the question.
We created a line Interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
For those that don't know legato I'm sure most people
know, but legato is very smooth.
Everything is connected Verysmooth.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, because everything is connected Right.
So at the end of it, yearslater, I found out that singing
and speaking operate ondifferent parts of the brain.
So if anybody has ever had amajor stroke and lose their
speech ability, there was amovie with Robert De Niro who
(10:25):
had a stroke and couldn't speakand what is his name?
A similar Hoffman ended upbeing this actor, voice teacher,
who helped him find his voicethrough singing.
So singing and speakinghappened from different parts of
the brain, and so what Iactually ended up using to work
(10:46):
out my stuttering wasessentially accessing the
singing part of my brain.
When I speak, and as we aredoing this right now, I'm using
this technique right this minute.
It may not sound it becauseI've become very adept at it,
but I'm practically singing toyou right now.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Well, it's interesting because, like I said
when I first met you, which iswhat 30 years ago?
Maybe now um your.
Your stutter was very pronouncedand this was in you were you
were in graduate school atmichigan at the time and the
last several times we've hadchats I don't think you've
stuttered at all and we've hadlong chats, because you and I
(11:25):
don't talk often and when we dowe get going and seasons go by.
It feels like when we talk toeach other, you know, and so
you've really figured this outand I just I don't know.
I want to congratulate you.
It's really inspirational, it's.
I know we talk a lot aboutovercoming challenges and
barriers and I, as a life coach,work with people on this.
This is the main event right,overcoming barriers.
(11:46):
You found a creative way tolive with it and work with it,
and I think that's the verybasic idea about overcoming any
challenge in your life.
So kudos to you, my friendKudos to you.
Can we shift to your work as ateacher now?
Sure, my friend Kudos to you,can we shift to your work as a
(12:07):
teacher now?
You've worked with singers fromall over the world and at all
levels, including singers at thevery highest echelons of the
opera world, and you are also avery serious lifelong tennis
player, as I've mentioned.
You've also witnessed andstudied the effects of
performance anxiety in sports aswell as in the performing arts.
Let's talk about what you'vewitnessed and learned about
performance anxiety First.
(12:28):
How would you defineperformance anxiety, especially
in the context of first opera,singing?
Then we'll come back to tennis.
So how do you define it in thecontext of opera singing?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
It is, for me, essentially a state of mind that
you get into because of ahistory of things not happening
the way you want them to happen.
You have a feeling of you'renot in control of what you're
about to do, even though you'vepracticed, you've practiced,
you've practiced, and so thenyou get to the moment when you
(13:03):
have to do it and there's asense of dread, there's a sense
that I'm not going to do wellhere.
It's not logical.
You may have rehearsed a piece100,000 times and it went well,
but because of some times whenit didn't, a history of things
like that creates essentially astate of mind where you are
(13:24):
convinced that you're not goingto do that well, right, right.
That ends up being aself-fulfilling prophecy,
because what you thinkessentially is what ultimately
is going to happen, right.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
I talked about this in my episode last week.
You know, in terms of anxietyin general, Most anxiety is
caused from fear of anxiety.
You know what I mean.
It's not necessarily caused fromactually some event.
It's caused from fear ofanxiety.
You know what I mean.
It's not necessarily causedfrom actually some event.
It's caused from fear ofanxiety and, like you said,
typically from something thathappened long ago.
You know, like you, beinghumiliated in front of your
(13:57):
class the first day of school inNewark, but that didn't keep
you from performing.
Somehow you found a way to getover that.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Right, and you know, because I could have remembered
that day as being terrified.
But then I also remember thatteacher who came to my rescue
and that was a positive side ofit, right?
So there's always an out.
You have to figure out what theout is, because we're going to
get nervous.
Pavarotti said if any singertells you before a performance
they're not nervous, nervous isnormal.
(14:24):
He said they're not nervous,nervous is normal.
He said they're lying or theydon't care.
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Yeah, I mean, he actually saidthis.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
You can find that well, I believe you, I believe
you yeah, and I'm sorry Iinterrupted your train of
thought there, but, um, I justreally had to jump in on that,
that point.
But yeah, um, they're lying.
So you're saying that basically, this is nervousness.
Have you seen it?
When it's more than nervousness, when it's more severe than
(14:53):
that?
Oh sure.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Absolutely.
Nervousness is normal.
We all get used to.
Okay, I get the butterflies andI'm going to use the energy for
my performance, or the energycan overwhelm you, and then that
becomes panic, and then thatbecomes ptsd, that becomes
essentially anxiety.
Yeah, right, yeah.
So I have seen situations ofreally good singers.
Actually, a very good friend ofmine that I taught for a period
(15:16):
of time was making his metdebut in carmen, his debut at
the met.
Is that what you're saying atthe met?
yeah, man he had a wonderfulcareer in europe.
Especially, and and because ofthat wonderful success, he was
invited to the met and just hada horrific night.
I was listening from berlin atthe time, uh, like at two
o'clock in the morning, uh,early in time, and I'm listening
(15:40):
to him fall apart, oh my.
And this is a role that the guyhad sung several times with
great success, which is why theMet invited him to do it.
Yeah, yeah, because the Metdoesn't invite anybody to do
anything unless they secure that.
You know that you're going tokick ass.
Well, I could hear, piece bypiece, him falling apart and it
(16:01):
was just a wreck of aperformance.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Did they fire him after that or did he get another
shot?
I mean, how does that work?
He has a great manager.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
So originally he had seven performances of this role
and the Met wanted to let him go, but his management, which is
pretty powerful, made them givehim two performances instead of
seven, so he ended up doing onemore performance.
I don't know how that went.
Uh, those things happen yeah.
Yeah, you have a bad night, butin this case it sounds like it
(16:31):
was from anxiety right, it wasbecause he had had a series of
uh performances where thingsweren't going his way, and that
was the last of them so kind oflike a you know a in baseball, a
batter who's in a slump a greatbatter but who's just not
hitting for a couple months.
Right, it's very similar tothat Exactly, you get in a slump
(16:53):
.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's exactly the same thing.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
How about from the tennis world, Because I know
you're very passionate aboutthis and you've had a lot of
experience.
How do you define performanceanxiety in the tennis world and
what have you?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Very similar situation In the tennis world.
It's a very similar situationbecause you have to imagine, a
tennis player is a soloperformer in general let's not
talk about people who playdoubles but a singles player is
a singles performer Might aswell be a soloist at the Met or
(17:28):
if you're going to play a bigmatch anywhere or play a small
match.
I played a small tournamentjust recently and had a bit of
anxiety for that tournament.
We'll get to that.
But anxiety for tennis playersis very similar because you're
trying to do something that'svery precise, as in any
performance.
Or you know, just like you saidin your intro, if you're going
(17:51):
to do uh, uh, you know apresentation at a wedding and
you're going to give the toastat a wedding, you want it to go
just right.
You want to say the wrong thingand to prepare and and you can
get nervous about that tennisplayers as well will play a
first match of a tournament andthey want to win it, and you can
get nervous about that.
Tennis players as well will playa first match of a tournament
and they want to win it, andthey can have doubts about how
things go, because yesterday,during their practice, the
(18:14):
forehand wasn't firing properlyand that's the shot they rely on
the most.
And so they go out there for noreason, even though they've been
going for weeks with a perfectforehead, but just because they
had that little problem the daybefore, they doubt themselves.
And when you end your mindabout how do I hit this forehead
, instead of just hitting itbecause your body remembers you
(18:35):
get in your own way, then thatbecomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy and then you start tohit very badly and then the next
match you have, you're in yourhead again and that continues.
And then the next match youhave, you're in your head again
and that continues and itbecomes anxiety, anxiety,
anxiety.
I just did this tournamentwhere the first three matches I
played lost my first singlesmatch, lost my second singles
(18:55):
match, lost my first mixeddoubles match and then finally,
my last mixed doubles match.
I was like you know what I'm inmy head let's just hit, end up
winning it.
So you have to find a way outof the funk, and tennis players
in general talk about scartissue and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Interestingly enough, years ago I was on the balcony
of a hotel room that I was in inFlorida and on the balcony next
to me was this retired famousprofessional football player I'm
not going to say his name orwhat team he was for and we're
shooting the ball and we'rehaving a nice chat from my
balcony to his.
It was very close and we'rejust having a nice chat and at
one point I said to him becausehe had won a Super Bowl, and I
(19:37):
said to him you know, can youexplain to me what happens when
you have this great team allseason long who then goes to the
Super Bowl and just collapses?
It's just one of those blowouts.
What in your mind?
And I bring this up because hisanswer was so funny he said to
me there's something about goingto the show that makes the ass
get tight Never forget himsaying that but I think that's a
(19:59):
good metaphor actually for thefact that they're in their head,
actually for the fact thatthey're in their head, you know,
for, for singers, I mean, ifthe let's talk about the tension
that comes from anxiety, realbriefly, I mean, the voice has
to be relaxed to work well.
For tennis players, the tension, I'm sure, tightens the muscles
in the arms and the legs andslows you down.
Um, if, if that's happening toyou as a singer let's start
(20:25):
there what can you do to makesure that those muscles that you
need from your diaphragm andwhatever else, your work, your
larynx, whatever?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
the mechanics are.
Don't get too tight to failExactly Now.
There are two parts to this.
There's a preventative side.
If I know that I'm dealing witha singer who's had some issues,
who's had some bad performancesand has a bit of PTSD, we'll do
(21:00):
a little bit of I guess youmight refer to it as
self-hypnosis.
So what we do is you know, I'llgo through it very quickly.
I'd say, close your eyes.
Imagine you go into an elevator,we go down 10 stories.
Then you get down there, thedoor opens and that's the stage
we're going to perform.
So now we're going to programwhat is going to happen.
(21:22):
You're going to walk out.
This is what you're going to do.
So we program the successfulperformance.
Then this performance is over,we go back into the elevator, we
go back up.
It's basically programming thesubconscious Through
visualization Exactly, exactlyRight.
And then the singer has thisprogramming.
(21:43):
And I've experienced this.
It was a teacher of mine thatshowed me this when I was having
a terrible cold and thoughtthat my performance would go
badly.
We programmed it.
I went out and the performancewent pretty much the way we
programmed it.
That was radical, so I neverforgot that.
Or who has some anxiety?
Maybe they have a cold, maybethey feel a bit insecure.
(22:04):
We'll go through that exerciseand then normally things tend to
go pretty well, unless there'ssomething more extreme that we
can't deal with.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Okay, well, hold that thought, and I want to get to
tennis in a second, but we'rerunning long, so I just want to
take a quick break to get my adin, and then we will pick up
where we left off with talkingabout tension with tennis
players.
Is that all right?
So hang tight just for a minute.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
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(22:55):
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Speaker 1 (23:17):
Okay, back with Ron.
Sorry for that interruption,but I've got to get that in.
So let's pick this up where weleft off.
We were talking about how thehow the stress can affect the
mechanics of singing.
Let's talk about how stressaffects the mechanics of playing
tennis.
I mean, I imagine, the musclesI'm not a tennis player okay,
connected, I'm going to go rightbecause I told you that was one
(23:38):
part that was preventative.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
That was this exercise that we do to program
the performance.
The other thing thing is whatdo you do in the moment when
suddenly things are goinghaywire?
What do you do there?
The same thing we do in singingas in tennis.
Go back to basics, right.
So if your forehand is aproblem, visualize what the
movement is right.
(24:00):
At what point do you hit theball?
How do you prepare?
How do you step into it?
How do you follow through?
You know exactly what that moveis, without any emotion, just
go through it.
If you watch a tennis match andyou watch a tennis player just
miss the forehand, you'll watchthem make a movement with their
hand of how they were supposedto do it.
It's a reminder.
So that's a reset.
(24:22):
I've never noticed that.
I'll look for that.
Yeah, it happens a lot.
They miss a shot and then yousee them go through the motion
softly just to remind themselveswhat they should have done as
opposed to what they did.
Okay, right.
So tennis, like singing, islightning fast.
It uses the entire body andvery often we focus.
(24:43):
For example, singers focus onthe vocal cords and tennis
players focus on their arms awhole lot and how they hit the
forehand, the backhand, theirserves.
But the problem is, all of thatis based on their legs and very
often tennis players don'tthink about their legs and very
often just getting them to.
There's another exercise thattennis players do a lot.
(25:04):
When things are not goingextremely well, they'll jump up
and down and all that does is itmentally connects them to their
body, Because very often whenthings start to go wrong, you
start to think what am I doingwrong?
Bad thought, because themovement.
If you've been playing tennisfor any period of time, the
(25:24):
movement is already memorized,just like singing, it should be
memorized.
If it's not memorized, thatcould be a source of the problem
whereby you have anxiety.
But if you have already a goodtechnique and things are going
wrong, most likely you need toget out of the way.
So what you need to think issimple stuff Keep your eyes on
(25:48):
the ball the entire time.
If you watch a slow motion ofsomebody hitting a great
forehand, you'll watch them hitthe ball, their arm finishes,
but their eyes are still wherethe ball was.
That's a very important part,because they need to keep their
eyes on the ball until the hitis done.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Well, two things out of what you just said that
relate to the show I did lastweek.
One is grounding.
You're essentially saying feelwhere you are.
And grounding is an exercisewhere you know you feel your
feet touching the floor andyou're focusing on that.
The other is being absolutelypresent in the moment, which
means, yes, you know, lookingfor something to see, feel,
(26:32):
touch, hear.
What do things sound like as toget out of your head, to get
out of the way.
Be present in the moment noteasy to do, by the way.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Sounds easy, but they're not easy to do no, it's
not easy to do, and that's andthat's the thing you need to.
When I was doing martial arts alot, I did Kung Fu and Tai Chi,
and what was so great about TaiChi, which I do daily even now,
is that nothing is moreimportant than the breath.
(27:03):
The movement is based on yourbreathing, not the other way
around.
So things like that themovement is based on your
breathing, not the other wayaround, right?
So things like that.
And singing is about breathing,and tennis, it's about
breathing.
The greatest player who's everplayed the game, Novak Djokovic.
They ask him how do you dealwith the stressful moments?
He said well, there are lots ofthings.
You have to be in the moment,just like he.
(27:25):
And he said, most importantly,conscious breathing, yeah, and
you'll watch playing verydifficult moments and you'll
watch and breathe.
Many players don't breathe well, I talked about.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I talked about breathing exercises for right
before the moment, like boxbreathing, which is something
the navy seals do.
But you're right, in the momentwe still need to breathe.
That's what we need to focusthere too, Really great advice.
Yeah, all right, so just reallyquick.
Do you find in your experiencewith opera singers, performance
anxiety is more pronounced inbeginners or in experienced
(27:57):
people?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I can tell the truth, both for different reasons.
Beginners often don't have asolid technique, but sometimes
they have to get in front oftheir colleagues to sing or do a
little recital in front oftheir parents and neighbors, and
so on.
They get really nervous becausethey want to do a good job.
Same principle, but theirproblems often occur when they
(28:22):
haven't mastered their techniqueyet, and so often they get in
their heads.
They're thinking like I'm goingto sing this song.
I dream of dreaming with alight brown hair.
Instead they're thinking like Ineed to lift my soft palate, I
need to breathe that way, andthen everything becomes an
exercise in tension and thingsdon't go well, at that point and
(28:42):
it's like quicksand, right.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
I remember that from the movie the Replacements.
They talk like quicksand right.
I remember that from the moviethe Replacements they talk about
quicksand Exactly, then you'relost there at that point.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Same thing happens with professionals, for
different reasons.
Professionals often have thephysical technique, otherwise
they would not be at the highestlevel of the game, but they
often get anxiety about thingsthat are not clear to them
Tennis players, for example.
(29:12):
I remember I went to a coachand he said there are no secrets
in tennis.
Every coach will tell you thesame thing, right, because we
see what you're doing and we canall comment about what you need
to do better.
There's agreement there.
There used to be a time whenWeston Shirt somewhat agreed on
stuff, but there's not muchagreement in singing anymore.
(29:33):
So there's a real problembecause you don't see the
instrument.
Most everything is happeningand such.
You have to have a realknowledge of anatomy and
acoustics and how these thingswork, but for the singer, they
have to go by, feel, and youhave to be very clear about what
the sensations are.
However, when it's time toperform, if the physical aspect
(29:54):
of it is not already memorized,you start to think okay, I need
to sing in the mask or I need todo this.
It's too late at this point andif that's not happening
correctly, that's a problem.
Another aspect of singing, forexample, is memorizing words.
Some people have it very easyand other people have a very
hard time with it.
Some singers get panickybecause they think they're going
(30:16):
to forget their lines and so,even though they sing really
well, they're afraid that theirmemory is going to fail them.
Others have a problem with notbeing sure if their melody and
the harmony of the accompanimentwhether it's an orchestra or
piano, if they're clear aboutthat or not, so they're afraid
they might get off.
(30:36):
They might get off key becausethey don't, because they're not
sure about but the harmony,sometimes they don't know that
that's a problem they don't evenknow.
Okay, they get into aperformance and they go off and
they don't know why that is.
And so there are so manyaspects of this that are
conscious and very often notconscious.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
And that's the worst.
Let's shift this to tennisplaying, because you and I were
talking and you used a term thatapparently tennis players use
that I never knew about.
Tell us what scar tissue meansin tennis, the term scar tissue?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Scar tissue is a memory of a bad experience,
right?
Let's say that.
Funny enough.
I just watched one of the mostincredible tennis matches of the
year so far, or maybe of thelast five years.
I've seen A major tennis player, number five in the world,
daniel Medvedev, was playingagainst a young American who was
(31:36):
only playing his second matchin a Grand Slam.
This thing went to five sets,almost five hours long.
Both guys are just tired.
They put everything out there.
Both of them playedmagnificently, but this young
man has a special mentality.
During the entire match youlook at his face there was never
(31:59):
a concern.
He was just in the moment doinghis thing.
That's what's special about him, and everybody's commenting on
this.
Daniel Medvedev, who has won aGrand Slam, who has won a bunch
of tournaments, one of the bestplayers in the world, has lost a
few in long five sets in thepast two or three years.
It's what happened today.
(32:20):
They get in a final set.
Tiebreaker, 10-point tiebreaker.
Medvedev is ahead.
Kidd catches up.
Next thing.
You know the kid won and I'msitting there thinking, oh, I'm
about to have this discussionwith Matt.
The match just ended.
Just right now, from Australia,medvedev is having a major
(32:42):
issue with scar tissue right now, of memories of matches that
were so close, especially long,grueling matches when it's just
giving everything you've got andthe other person gets ahead of
him, and even the analysisthings that we were pretty sure
Daniel had this match in handbut he lost it, and I'm and I'm
very sure that it's got to show.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
You know, there's that book, the Inner Game of
Tennis, tennis and I've read itum, which talks a lot about
these things.
And I I there is a I knowbecause I have several people in
my life who are in in theperforming arts.
I know that there was a bookwritten based on that for
musicians.
But the truth is I was talkingto a few other people, I bet
you'll agree sports people seemto the ones that are really
(33:28):
successful seem to trainpsychologically from an early
age, not just the physical stuff, but they train psychologically
to create that steel mind, theability to do that.
Musicians don't, it seems.
And so I have a friend in theperforming arts who said to me
you know, the truth aboutclassical music is it's an
(33:49):
entire industry fueled byinsecurity.
That's what he said and that'san incredible comment, and I
tend to agree with the waythings are right now yeah, yeah,
and so you know, I imagine it'sjust so much harder for
professional musicians and and Idon't know what they do in the
acting world, but I imagine it'sthe same.
They harder for professionalmusicians and, and I don't know
what they do in the acting world, but I imagine it's the same
they're not training that onpsychological approaches as much
(34:13):
as they're training on theskills.
So they the you know,performance anxiety, I'm sure is
is rampant, um for them.
So all right.
Well, this is a great place forus to to stop today's show,
because we're I don't want torun too long.
I promise my listeners I keepit to 30 minutes.
Sometimes I go to 40.
We're at 35.
That's fine.
But the good news is we'regoing to continue this
(34:33):
conversation next week with Ron.
So hang tight, be with us nextweek.
We're going to finish next week.
Ron, thank you for today andthank you for coming next week
Pleasure.
Absolutely All right If you'veenjoyed today's show.
Thanks for listening.
By the way, if you've enjoyedtoday's show, please like or
subscribe this podcast so youcan be notified the next time I
(34:54):
drop a show and in particular,when for next week, when the
next show with Ron comes out.
If you have any ideas fortopics you would like me to
cover, please feel free to emailme.
It's Matt atMattbrookscoachingcom.
I'd love to hear from you andsee what ideas you have and if I
can make it happen, I will.
So that's all for today.
(35:14):
Thank you for being here.
I really appreciate youlistening.
Thanks again to Ron LaFond,who'll be back next week.
Be well, and I'll catch younext time on the Barrier Busting
Podcast.
Thank you.
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