Help your Child Perform Under Pressure

At Total Martial Arts Swindon we know one of the primary methods for learning a martial art is repetition. Although our job as coaches is to make classes varied and interesting for the students by disguising the repetition, it is important that we constantly repeat particular actions, movements and sequences over and over again. Research has shown that it takes between 300-500 repetitions to learn a new skill.

We have all heard the phrase ‘practice makes perfect’, but if we can already perform a movement why do we have to continue to go back and keep practicing the same things?

PERFORMING UNDER PRESSURE

Performance Choking: an unexplained sudden drop in performance for no physical reason.

It is necessary to perform under pressure in many areas of life and sometimes that pressure can adversely effect on our skill level. For example, you may find that although you know you can perform a technique well, when asked to demonstrate in front of a group of people it can go wrong or we forget things. This is known as ‘choking’, it is brought on through the stress of performing under pressure.

How are these 2 problems related? It’s all to do with the way we learn. To be the best we can be as martial artists, we need our movements to be instinctive. This will ensure that that we can perform to the very best of our ability, even when under pressure – whether that pressure comes from a crowd of spectators or the threat of an attacker.   The key is to understand the learning process. When a junior martial arts student is able to master performing under pressure this will have great benefits in their whole life; achieving results in tests at school and in the workplace later in life.

HOW WE LEARN NEW PHYSICAL SKILLS

There are 2 stages of learning, these are known as Explicit and Implicit.

Explicit learning is the first stage of skill or knowledge acquisition. It relates to how your mind processes new information when learning a task. You receive information and process it into the required action. This action is governed by a part of the brain known as the Prefrontal cortex. At this stage you need to focus and concentrate, putting a lot of thought into your actions (this is called conscious competence). As you practice and develop through repetition the movement becomes automatic, this is the Implicit (second stage) of learning. The control for the action moves to another part of the brain called the Basal Ganglia. This part of the brain is responsible for habits which require no conscious thought (known as unconscious competence) and is a bit like working on auto-pilot, for example blinking or chewing. If you repeat the skill enough, it will become instinctive and unconscious movement. You could be thinking about something entirely different and unrelated, or be surrounded by distractions yet still be able to perform the action perfectly.

So why does it go wrong? When you are under pressure to perform well you go into a state of heightened awareness which can make you think too much about what you are doing and so switch control back from the Basal Ganglia to the Prefrontal cortex within the brain. This is turn then puts you back into ‘learning’ mode making you have to think about each and every move you make which in turn can make you ‘choke’ your performance, make mistakes and make you feel like a complete beginner all over again.

So what can you do about it?

Practice, practice, practice

Preparation is very important to be able to perform actions whilst ignoring distraction. For the movements to become a solid unconscious ability you need to imagine the exact situation for the performance when you practice, similar to actors having dress rehearsals. For example, if you are going into competition, when you practice you need to picture in your head the surroundings you will be performing in, the way you will feel, the noise of the crowd etc etc. When practicing self defense skills you need to imagine that you are in a real situation where you need to defend yourself. Imagine all the things that could go wrong so you are prepared for any situation which could take you out of that unconscious competence. This way, if or when you find yourself in that situation you are much less likely to return to the initial learning process and be able to react better, faster and more confidently.

Test yourself by training under pressure, if performing a kata or form try turning yourself to face a different direction than usual to see if the change in visual stimulus distracts your attention. You could try holding a conversation whilst performing or listening to music.

Make sure that when you train you always do your best. If you practice and repeat movements at a lower level than you are capable of, that is how you will perform under pressure. You will train yourself at an unconscious level to perform badly so make sure you always practice good quality techniques.