[[Notes]] - Topics: [[Perspective]], [[Self-understanding]], [[Uncertainty]] - People: Noa Kageyama and Pen-Pen Chen - Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqgmozFr_GM --- ## Summary - [[Choking is the moment you stop doing and start thinking]]. - [[Extreme focus is the act of unthinking]]. - [[The ideal is unnatural naturalness or natural unnaturalness]]. - [[Pressure is something you allow yourself to feel]]. Practice under pressure to absolve yourself from it. - Become comfortable with the unknown. Become comfortable with uncertainty. - [[Focus on the ball, rather than the motions of your arms while hitting the ball]]. - [[Practice, under pressure, with focus, and with that glorious end goal in sight, makes perfect]] - [[Don't think, feel]]. ## Notes ### Choking - Choking - Despite being practiced, a person "fails right when it **matters most**". - Sports - Performance "occurs under **intense pressure** and depends on **key moments**". - To choke is to lose yourself, even for a second, to something else. - [[Choking is the moment you stop doing and start thinking]]. Choking is the moment subconscious tasks become conscious. - Two sets of theories believe that choking under pressure boils down to **focus**. ### Pressure and focus - [[Pressure is a privilege]]. - [[When relevant and irrelevant thoughts compete for the same attention, something has to give]]. - Extreme focus is no longer thinking. It is being to be with the problem. To be with the idea. To be with the moment. - "Tasks that challenge working memory are especially vulnerable to pressure". - [[Pressure is something you allow yourself to feel]]. - Becoming practiced in execution is just one factor when it comes to performance. You must also practice how you think and **unthink** during performance - [[Extreme focus is the act of unthinking]]. - [[The ideal is unnatural naturalness or natural unnaturalness]]. ### Analysis and performance - Explicit monitoring - Pressure to **over analyze** the task at hand. - Failure to do comes from the analysis of the mechanics while doing. - If you really think about how you are breathing, the human mechanics of taking in air, you may just forget how to breathe (even for a split second). The panic of trying to remember to recover causes a chaotic cascade of irregularities and unexpected and undesirable performance. - Instinct is doing without thinking. Learning is thinking while doing. Theory is thinking without doing. See: [[The three stages]]. - Fear, anxiety and self doubt may make you more susceptible to choking. - Master yourself to master the craft. Master yourself by understanding yourself. ### How to avoid choking when it matters - Practice under stressful conditions. - Anxiety may come from feelings of uncertainty, [[The strange | fear from the unfamiliar]]. To overcome this form of anxiety, you must be comfortable with uncertainty. To [[Be a light in the world of shadows]]. - Center yourself. Prepare yourself. Perform routines before performances. - [[Be water | Empty your mind]] to be in [[The quiet]]. - Have an external focus rather than an internal focus. - [[Focus on the ball, rather than the motions of your arms while hitting the ball]]. - [[Practice, under pressure, with focus, and with that glorious end goal in sight, makes perfect]]. ## Original ![[How to stay calm under pressure-1.jpg]] ![[How to stay calm under pressure-2.jpg]] ![[How to stay calm under pressure-3.jpg]]