TPP S1 E1 P2: Episode 1: Dr. Jon Skidmore, Psychologist & Performance Coach (Part 2 of 2)

Thank you, Dr. Skidmore, so much for being with us. I, like I said earlier, I read your book and I just think it's full of so much immensely useful practical information and really fills a gap that performing musicians have been needing for a long time. Also, I think all of us could really relate to what you were describing that so many of these musicians and performers that you've worked with have experienced. I wanted to ask you, as practicing psychologist, how do you define anxiety in general and what is specifically unique about performance anxiety?

You know, anxiety in general is, natural response. As we go back into the history of humankind and our brain and surviving, this mechanism has really become vital to ensure our survival. So the natural state of the body is at rest, is at peace, until activated— that stress response is activated. And it's really designed for the occasional rattlesnake encounter. There's a danger. It's a clear and present danger. We know this is dangerous. We take immediate action. A flood of super juice neurochemicals go from head to toe. We are tensed up. We're ready to fight. We're ready to run. We bolt away. We're now safe. And then we relax and we go on enjoying life. Well, so the first distinction I'd make between anxiety and performance anxiety is first off, the sense of physiological activation is virtually the same. The same flood of neurochemicals, the same increase in tension, the same shifts in attention focus. All this stuff is occurring. It's the same response as if it's an actual danger, except it's not. Now, our midbrain, and that's where our anxiety comes from, is fully developed by the time a child is 2 years old. And so it's learning very quickly what is pleasurable and what is painful. And when people start to associate an audition, a mistake, a disappointment, frustration, even frustration in learning something and not having mastered it, but yet now they're angry or they're scared or they're worried about that. See, it can activate this stress response as well. So one of the big differences is if you encounter the rattlesnake, all the energy goes into getting yourself away from that and you're now safe. So you relax. But if you have a senior recital coming up and it's 3 months away, and every time you think about it and every time you're reacting to it and you go back to that lesson and it doesn't move the way you want it to, and it's like, oh, I'm getting worried. See, this is just compounding the stress. And so performance anxiety was really based in fear, not danger, a very important distinction to make. An audition, a recital, a masterclass, Carnegie Hall, it's not a dangerous place. It's not a dangerous experience, but yet we're reacting to it as if it is. Hmm. And so it makes it actually harder to deal with the anxiety of it because you just don't run away from it clearly, unless people are actually stopping the performance experience, which is a lot of people have done that.

And then they're out of the situation.

Then they're out of the situation and they're fine until they get put back into it.

Right, right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You brought up the midbrain. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the different parts of the brain and how they're impacted by anxiety. Anxiety, because I found that very interesting.

You know, recognizing that our brain is impacted by anxiety is just really, really important. With the technology we have these days, we can actually see what happens when the brain is triggered or activated. That's the word I like to use. We are now activated. And you could say that once we're activated, the midbrain takes over. And we can actually see where the— logical processing centers that are up here and the decision-making centers and the memory centers and those places where we've learned so many skills, motor skills, they're not as important because the midbrain says, "I know what I have to do to survive and I'm going to go do that right now." Fight or flight. See, when someone says, "I sat down and my mind went blank," what they're really saying or describing is, "I got activated." My midbrain took over and I'm now disconnected from the memories, from information that I would use to play the piano, and I'm accessing all my information about surviving. And yes, the mind can go blank. It's literally— it's almost like it just disconnects. And it's not like they forgot that concerto. It's still in their brain somewhere. It's just not connected to it.

Yeah.

And so recognizing that we have our analyzer— this is how I like to simplify the brain. We have our analyzer brain, we've got our decider brain, we've got our motor cortex part of the brain where all those fingerings and all the stuff that we learned to play the piano with, they're stored up here. We have our memory, which tells us how to direct all that. Then we have that fight-or-flight center of the brain. Now they really do all work together. But what we want to be able to do is have the brain work together to support a great performance rather than create interference that starts to get in the way of a great performance.

Yeah, totally. One of the most interesting things to me in this section of the book was when you mention how when the midbrain takes over, it actually cuts off access to the memory portion of the brain, right? Is that right? And this is why memory slips happen. You just, you actually can't access it.

It's not, yeah.

Yeah, it's just not there. So there is an actual physiological reason for that. That's just very kind of cause and effect. So what's the single biggest piece of advice you would give to people struggling with anxiety?

First off, you can conquer anxiety. Secondly, if anxiety is conquering you, your world is going to get smaller. Your ability to engage, your willingness to go out there and do things, it gets smaller. And so again, when we face a fear, our world gets bigger. When we run from a fear, our world gets smaller. And so the biggest challenge is, is don't wait. Start working now. If you're running away from things or you're avoiding things, getting anxious about things, Let's learn how to conquer that. Because if you don't, it becomes bigger than you. And suddenly, oh no, I can't go there. That's just too hard. Oh, I can't go there. That's too scary. And again, we're dealing with fears, not dangers. And so fears are part of our imagination. They're part of a fantasy we're creating. And they just get bigger and bigger. That monster gets uglier and meaner and scarier. And it's like, whoa, that's just going to like— whoa, that's just too scary. I can't go there. But as that gets scarier in our fantasy, it's accompanied with more intense, stronger physiological reactions that make it seem all the more real. And it is real. Anxiety is very real. It can be debilitating. It is so frustrating sometimes. But there really are so many tools and skills that are available to start to, okay, I can conquer this piece. I can move through this. I'm going to turn this into a fantasy and not a danger, and I'm going to deal with this fantasy and I'm going to break out of this fear and move forward and through it. So it's really about our worlds get smaller or our world gets bigger. And it's all about how we manage our anxiety.

Yeah, I think I want to mention at this point that distinction between fear and danger is so critical. It reminded me of— I have a 5-year-old son right now who has difficulty sleeping at night because of these perceived dangers that don't exist, right? He's paralyzed by his fear, but he's 5, you know, and we're trying to help him deal with it, and hopefully he will eventually grow out of that. But as adults, we can be paralyzed by these same types of fears that will really hold us back as we go through life if we don't develop the tools to deal with them and work through it the way I hope that he will. So thank you so much, Dr. Skidmore. I'm going to turn the interview over to Clara now at this point.

Great, thank you so much, Dr. Skidmore and Eric. Yeah, it was great. You know, as a performer since I was 3 years old, and I always have this ongoing interest in psychology. You know, I was sort of a— what they would say— natural performer. But then, you know, at some point down the road, I have developed some anxiety, and I came out of it, and now I teach my students. So for you, as you are a psychologist and a performer— performing— performance coach, and I know you're also a singer, and you helped writing your book, do you ever experience any anxiety yourself?

Absolutely. I have a midbrain. I have this amygdalas in my brain. I actually have a question on my final exam. You can train the stress response out of you. True or false? The answer is false. Once that's been programmed, once that has been trained to react to certain things, you have to really, really work with that. You have to be aware of it. So yes, do I experience anxiety? Yes. But do I have tools and skills to manage it? Yes, I do. And so one of the things that I'm really, really tuned into is what happens when you want to run away. See, avoiding things can become our favorite, whether we know it or not, strategy to deal with anxiety.

Sure.

So yes, anxiety is a part of life. But what's more exciting than the anxiety, you know, what's more important is to recognize once there is that anxiety there, it's a first response. And I like to just talk about how our midbrain will give us a first response. Now, if we're not in danger, this is a fantasy. This is not to be trusted. And, you know, we have to move through that or that anxiety gets bigger. And so, yeah, anxiety is part of life. It happens to all of us. And it's one of the most powerful things to be able to say, okay, I can break through this now. I can grow. Go do this. There was a point in time, for example, I live in Utah. I'm hiking around the mountains and my kids got a little too close to the edge of a cliff. And I was very clear to push them, you know, get them away from that. We want to be safe. Well, about 10 years later, after we'd been trained, we bought equipment, we had rappelling gear. All of us were going over that edge. We were going over that cliff and we were calling it fun. But we had ropes and harnesses and that we knew what we were doing. We had the equipment. See, that's the big difference right there is having the equipment that can help us turn something that was scary and dangerous, so we thought. Now, cliff has an element of danger to it. Something to be avoided is just something that we can enjoy. And so Yeah, it's part of life.

Yeah, that's amazing. Thank you so much. It's really amazing. Sometimes when you teach younger students, you know, you teach them from the very beginning that, you know, fear is just part of life, and they get used to it sometimes. But how do you help a student when you realize that, you know, if they have a lot of anxiety and it's coming from, you know, maybe pressure from their parents?

What would you do? You know, this is where you as a teacher have a really amazing opportunity because you're helping your students work with the piano and work with what they're learning in a safe environment. You're creating a whole different level of safety. So really, one of your first concerns is what you can do to create your piano studio as just the safest place to play with the piano. Play with the piano and to play with the learning of the piano. So that would really— the first suggestion I'd make is make that an intention, make that just a general rule of your studio. This is a no bad zone and no shame zone and no horrible zone. This is a learning, playful, creative zone. Uh, secondly, um, you do have a chance to help your students recognize that some of the things we learn from our families may not always be the most accurate and correct things. And so again, you're giving them another example of how things can be. One thing you also have to recognize as a teacher is that your student is bringing with them a set of beliefs and experiences that really do come from their parents. And so every once in a while, you might want to think about reminding them, hey, look, I'm not your mom. I'm not your dad. See, it's true. We're here to learn and play and figure this out and enjoy this. And right now your midbrain's activated and you're the piano teacher, you're not the family therapist. You get to say, let's just focus on calming down that midbrain right now and let's get back to the piano and see if we can have some fun with this. I mean, the one thing I appreciate about piano teachers, musicians in general, is just how creative you have to be to work with each student. I mean, you have to really connect with them, you have to be in their world, you have to do everything you know to do, and you, you do everything you know how to do. We're just talking about adding to your toolbox right now. And so just creating that safe environment is probably the most important thing you can do, as well as teach tools and skills that they can use in any place or setting. And then also you'll have a chance to work with the teacher, work with the parents. That's one of my favorite things to do is to actually do workshops for parents to help them create a more productive perspective of their developing student and to make sure that they can create a safe place for that as well. And most parents do. They try really hard to do that. And they're so committed and so encouraging. And so, you know, just that sense of safety to learn, to grow, to play, to enjoy something. It's not dangerous. So the recital didn't go the way you wanted it to. This is to learn from. This isn't to get so bent out of shape. But sometimes we do that. And so you have to deal with that too.

That is true. Yeah, that's a great answer. Thank you so much. And yeah, and sometimes I just think about these children, a lot of my students that start with me very young and they go through half of their life with me. They go into high school, and life sometimes gets a little stressful. As you know, living in New York City, having many activities. Sometimes they are in sports and chess and all that. And there has been times— most of them do quite well on stage, but once in a while, at a certain point, and that also happened to me, it just come from nowhere and the anxiety will start. What do you think the number one fear that people actually normally have? Why do you think that's, you know, happening?

You know, at some point, I think in general, the number one fear is that somehow we're not going to be adequate enough, that we're not going to be good enough, we're not going to be competent enough, we're not going to be proficient enough. And sometimes that's tied to very specific consequences. You know, as much as we'd like to say the performing arts is a beautiful thing and it's a great thing, and it is, it absolutely is, and we know that students who really benefit from the performing arts, um, the benefits are lifelong and they're, they're wonderful. But there have been unfortunate situations, whether from parents or peers or sometimes teachers, where those negative imprints are left. My daughter Got a comment from a junior high choir teacher, and she, she sings great, but she still thinks she doesn't sing very well, you know. And so we have to be careful, and sometimes we just have to make apologies and just acknowledge that what we said was either the wrong thing or it was misinterpreted. But it really is about recognizing that we want to do things right, and we want to be accepted in what we're doing, and we want to be able to be competent. But we're also learning. Teacher really emphasizes another key point I like to talk about, is when we can create a perspective like in your studio that the world is about discovery, it's about mastery, it's about learning a positive way to relate to what's going on. Eric mentioned his 5-year-old, you know, you talked about the world of a 5-year-old, there's so much to discover, it's, you know, it's so obvious and They're in the process of mastering all these things, and we want to create an environment in a context that says, let's learn and grow with this, let's relate to this in a positive way. And so we have to create an environment too that when our students have negative experiences— and if they're going to pursue performing, they will have negative performing, performance experiences— we want to be able to teach them that we can relate to these difficult negative experiences in a discovery context, in a mastery context, in a positive forward-moving context. Now our midbrain says this is all bad, run away, fight or flight, this is horrible and terrible. This is why those 5 stages can be so valuable because we can start to create a context that even through difficult experiences we can move forward through them. And again, that's one of the atmospheres and one of the contexts of your studio that you work to create. And I know that you do that. You want to create that for your students. And it really is a wonderful thing when it can support them with their challenges. And then you just have to clean it up. I mean, it's like, you know, that negative performance, this is where the 5 stages can really come into play again. Because whether it's anxiety or anxiety to do poorly, okay, I messed this up, now I'm anxious, now I'm more anxious, I'm messing things up more. It can become a really, just an avalanche of disaster kinds of things. But when you go back to the 5 stages, you can identify, was the breakdown caused by, you know, stage 1, 2, or 3? For example, I had a student talk about how she did her debriefing and she, she thought she was so ready for this recite or this audition, and she didn't do very well. She said, "Let's go to Stage 1," and she explained her Stage 1. It was like, oh, rock solid. That's, that's great. Stage 2, man, she did everything I would have suggested that she do. She starts talking about Stage 3, and then she starts talking about being in front of the orchestra director's office of 11 other violin players, and each one of them could go in, and as they went in, could hear what the other person was playing. Yup. Totally psyched herself out right there. She listened to 5 other people play and she went into this, "I'm not as good as they are. I'm not as good as they are. I'm not as good as they are. I'm not ready. What if this? What if this?" And boy, it showed up. And we identified right there that she had a shift of attention focus. She didn't manage her attention focus or her anxiety. And she didn't know how to manage that difficult situation pre-performance. You know, in an ideal setting, if that were to occur again— and we talked about it— she'd had a friend sit there in line to let her know when her turn was. She'd be down the hall, around the corner, with, you know, listening to whatever she wanted to listen to, but she wouldn't be listening to other violin players playing the same piece that she was going to be playing. And so that became a learning experience, which is really one of the great hallmarks of an amazing teacher, is that we Whatever they experience, we want to capitalize on. We want to help them learn from this and use this to move forward. It's the difference between having an experience turn into a roadblock versus a stepping stone. And we want to create stepping stones. But there'll be things we will stumble on. We just want to be able to step over that and get past it rather than turn it into a roadblock.

That's amazing. Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, it actually brings back a lot of memory from childhood or, you know, early adolescence. And I had this vivid memory of my first onstage anxiety. You know, I just— I guess, you know, when I was younger, I never thought of that. And I was, you know, not the most professionally trained in the beginning being in that environment in China. But then I just never got scared until I got into the conservatory when I was 12 or 13. I had this concert where all the pianists are lined up, you know, next to each other. And, you know, We're kind of keeping score for each other. And that was the very first time I really experienced— like, I have no idea where it came from. So that and my students, I try to do completely opposite. So most of them do very well. But I do have one student who went to the conservatory pre-college, and he decided to come back after a few years. And yeah, he said he misses Miss Clara.

It was cute.

But now he does have this anxiety that I almost see was parallel, and he's at the same age. So do you have any specific advice for pianists themselves, you know, who are trying to become professionals?

You know, the commitment to take on the professional track for anything really is an incredible commitment. And so it's not just about— if they're going to be professional, it's not just about their skills at the keyboard. They've got to have the mindset of a professional. They've got to be able to deal with the pressures of a professional. It's one thing to be a student where you've got a scholarship or you've got mom and dad paying for tuition or, you know, something like that. Then suddenly you have a house payment and you're going, oh, I've got to make some money and I need some more gigs or I need some more whatever I need to do. I've got to get more students. I've got to do whatever. And so those are additional skills that they're going to need to develop. And so really, it's the skills of developing the mindset of the professional and the skill set of the professional, which means they learn how to manage their life, their finances, their relationships, how they, you know, their dog, so to speak. I mean, they learn how to manage everything in their life so it supports their profession, right? And really how we cope with stress, disappointment, breakdowns is one of the most important things because they're going to happen. I mean, disappointments will occur and we've got to be able to roll with those and look and make sure that we're using adaptive, healthy kinds of ways to deal with things versus maladaptive. And so, you know, the student you're talking about, you know, he needs a therapist, he needs a psychologist, he needs a coach. To address those professional skills and to help mentor him in that professional track.

Yep, I got it. That's amazing. Yeah, and you know, the fact that last time when I saw this happening, he almost refused to perform on Zoom, but finally at last second when he was on, you know, on the screen, he was like, "I will just play," and he played perfectly, and we were like, there's nothing to worry about, you know. So it's very interesting. Thank you so much for all your wonderful answers, and I'm going to pass on the mic to Yukimi Song.

All right, so I have two questions, then that's it. Um, so first one is, just I said, uh, at the beginning of this show, I was dealing with a student who has an anxiety issue, performance anxiety issue, because he had a very difficult, poor performance according to him. So I really, I did not know how to deal with because I wish honestly I knew you when I was a teenager so that you could have helped me to deal with my own issues with my performance and anxiety, but which not wasn't, wasn't the case. You know, my piano teachers, all, most of them, like when I was young they weren't that available for me, so they were just there to teach me how to play the piano, but in terms of when it comes to performance, they weren't available. So my question is, how do you help a student dealing with a really disappointing performance?

Okay, um, first off, we've got to normalize it. We get to say, these are part of the game. This is what's going to happen. Football players get bruised. Like, that is part of the game. And so disappointing performances are really a performance that, okay, we get to learn from this. And that's really the difference right there. And this is where we look at the 5 stages again, because that fifth stage, okay, because I don't care what the performance is. I don't know, I don't care how disappointing, how bad, how horrible it was. When you really look at it and say, what was there that worked? There were some elements of it that worked. What didn't work? Okay, now I like to specifically use the words work, didn't work, because we don't have the same emotional energy around those words as we do good or bad. What was good about your performance? What was perfect? What was right? What was wrong? What was bad? See, those are words that have a whole history of emotional energy behind it. But so the first thing is to start putting their performances into the 5 stages and saying, we have a process that you're a part of. We want to use this entire process to get you to move forward. And this disappointing performance is just simply part of this process. So what worked? What didn't? What are you going to do next time? One of the most important pieces of debriefing a performance with a young performing artist like this is to find out what they made it mean about them. Yes, you forgot the entrance. Yes, you forgot that whole section. Yes, the fingerings got all twisted up and it sounded bad. Yes, Whatever yes happened. Okay, what does this mean? What did you make this mean? Our brain is truly a meaning-making machine. And so they've labeled this performance, and they've labeled themselves in relationship to this performance. And so, okay, now I'm— I can't memorize well. Okay, now I don't do Chopin anymore. There's certain beliefs that they've created. And so it's really powerful to look at this and start to say, what are the beliefs? What are the labels? What are the words you're now using to describe yourself because this happened? I'm so stupid. I'm a failure. I'm just not a good musician. Those are powerful, powerful words. I was doing a workshop with the parents of students at a piano studio, and I simply asked a great question. I said, how many of you in this room are singers? And about 3/4 of the hands went up. Okay, great. How many of you are non-singers? Well, the other quarter just popped into the air like immediately, like, I am a non-singer, proud of it. Like, no, I don't sing. Then I asked a question. I said, non-singers, let's explore this a little bit. How many of you have vocal cords? They all raised their hand. Surprise. Okay. How many of you have sung Happy Birthday somewhere before? And they all but one raised their hand. And the whole room looked at this mom like, whoa, hold up. Wait a minute. You're a mom. You don't sing Happy Birthday. It's like, what is up with this? Like the whole room was like, mm, like what is going on here? And she looks and she goes— I mouth the words— "Okay, tell me the story." There's a story here. And what did she tell us? That she was a little girl at a birthday party. Her older brother was at the same birthday party. She was singing "Happy Birthday" with energy and enthusiasm and whatever she had, she was putting it into it. Well, He let her know after that experience that somehow she had the world's worst voice, she should never sing again. However he conveyed that message left that imprint in her brain. And now 30-plus years later, she doesn't sing ever, anywhere. Now in the context of this workshop, I would not let an opportunity like this pass. And at some point I said, "Would you like to sing happy birthday to all of us?" Well, this mom, you can imagine the dance her brain was doing. You know, midbrain saying, "No, run away, you don't sing, you don't sing, run away, run away." And it's like, "No, wait a minute." Well, she broke through that and she was able to sing. What a heroic, I mean, what an act of courage right here. She was able to sing a delightful, even on-pitch rendition of Happy Birthday. Well, what she really did was break through an old story that has been constraining her for years and years and years. So the real challenge with these negative performance experiences is to help your students rewrite them into a victory statement. What did you really learn from this? So your first response was, oh, I never want to do that again. But what if you could really analyze this and work with this? And I, I do this a lot in my individual coaching. I do this in the book. I talk about the story that we created about something, the words we're using, and to turn this into a victory statement. And it's really amazing to hear some victory statements that sound like I learned I could make mistakes and finish strong. See, that doesn't sound like a worst performance ever, does it? Right. I discovered the importance of having a backup read. I'll never perform without one again. You know, these are the kinds of things that you want to turn those disappointing performances into, is to actual victory statements, and get them thinking about the victory in the performance rather than did I hit every note and who did I disappoint.

Wonderful, thank you so much. Very helpful. So speaking of being helpful, so I want to be helpful to my students, and I've read your book from the beginning up to the end, and I try to use some of the information you gave us, including very practical practices in terms of breathing exercises to advices that I can give. I got a lot of information out of your book. However, there are a lot of things to kind of process as a teacher, even just by reading it, because I have been having a really old habitual thinking as a person, as a performer. So it's, you know, I have to kind of rewire myself. In order for me to process and then give it to my students. So is there like a program for teacher, not just even the teachers, but I think parents also should be informed how to deal with their own children's performance anxiety. So is there a program for us or webinar or class?

You know, there's a number of things that I'm offering right now that are really helpful in that area. I appreciate you asking that. Um, it starts with individual coaching. That's certainly available, and I've worked with individuals helping them getting into like scholarship and college auditions. I've worked people through that process. Um, I also do a weekly webinar called Conquer Anxiety Now, and this is something that I run through my clinical psychology practice, which is a great thing. It's, it's free to All people who want to join that, it's every Thursday morning at 10 AM Mountain Standard Time. And I have a number of musicians who are on that as well as other people with other different concerns. And so you can contact me at jon@jonskidmore.com and I can send you the link to that webinar and I can get more information out to you on that. Also, as a parent, you bring up parenting, I've written a little workbook on parenting. I call it the 9-Point Parenting Tune-Up. If you're asking, I'll send you a copy of that for free too, you know, just to get that out there. I love working with parents. Um, one of the things that I also do is, uh, do workshops with studios. I do workshops right now a lot online, and we're talking about putting together a workshop in October, and that'd be a great opportunity for parents and students and teachers to become more acquainted with what I'm doing. And in October, we're going to be doing an introductory workshop, and that'll just share more ideas, and it'll also be a gateway to other areas that would be— or other workshops, other programs that could be of assistance to you as a teacher, uh, and with your students. The date and time is October 11th at 4 o'clock PM. And this is going to be an introductory workshop to Conquer Anxiety and the Five Stages of Peak Performance. It'll also be an intro to different programs that are more intensive in terms of training and developing how to actually practice and use these tools and skills in our lives, in our studios, in our performing.

Great. So how long is that— is going to be the web— webinar?

That's going to be a 90-minute webinar.

Okay, great.

There'll be time for some question and answer in that as well.

Thank you so much for this wonderful interview. We've learned a lot, and we really appreciate you taking the time to spread the word of this wonderful, you know, 5 stages of peak performance. And yeah, thank you so much, Dr. Skidmore.

You're welcome.

I appreciate this opportunity. It's great to be talking with like-minded people who have a commitment to their students, who are wanting to help them excel and to move as far as they can with what they're doing, and especially to have that commitment to break away from those, those interfering factors that seem to get in the way, that make it more difficult. And that's really what the 5 stages are all about. And so I really appreciate your commitment as teachers, and I'm sure your students appreciate that as well.

We want to thank Dr. Skidmore once again for joining our program today, and we want to thank our audience for watching or listening to our first episode.

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Join us again for another episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song.