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Hi Pauline,
Indeed, freezing up is an extremely common reaction under pressure – and probably the most performance-sabotaging aspect of nerves as it’s so distracting and inhibiting. If this is a sticking point, it might be helpful to go through the Courage lesson first, even before Energy Regulation. The reality is that we are more tense in the practice room than we realize, and than is necessary. And we also don’t have a great appreciation for all the different degrees of tension that we could play with. It’s usually something like too tight, ok, and too loose and floppy. But there is an infinite range of tension in there.
So the idea is to experiment with being totally floppy, and then working up to the “just enough” point, and getting used to where this is, and then testing yourself out in increasingly higher-pressure situations, building trust each step of the way that you can play effectively with much less tension than you’re accustomed to. So that eventually when you get to a big performance, you a) know how to release tension in such a situation, and b) have proven to yourself that it’s safe to do so and know exactly how much to release.
