How to Master Your Priming Routine for Amazing Performances
Over the last few months, we’ve gotten an in-depth look at performance psychology thanks to expert Clay Frost. We’ve covered why performance psychology matters and all the important how-tos: emotional control, focus, self talk, and imagery. Today we’re wrapping up the series with how to create the perfect priming routine to preface any performance.
A priming routine is what you do just before you perform. A lot of performers warm up physically, but rarely focus on the mental side of preparation. Having confidence in your physical warm-up will go a long way mentally, but there are specific things that you can do to prepare mentally both individually and as a dance crew.
When someone watches a really great performance, they typically describe that person as being “on fire” or “in the zone”. When you perform really well, you might say the same about your performance. Getting in the zone is difficult, it is like falling asleep, the more you try to make yourself fall asleep, the further away from sleep you get. You cannot force getting in the zone by sheer willpower, but you can develop a priming routine to help set in motion your mind and body so that getting in the zone, like sleep, just seems to happen.
Look at what’s worked for you in the past
The first step of developing a priming routine is to find out what already works for you and what doesn’t work. You have performed many times and you have been training hard. You already have a ton of information that you can look at to see this. You’ll identify your three best performances and three worst performances to find these things out.
- Write out your three best and your three worst performances.
- Review the three best performances and see what they have in common: What did you eat, how many hours did you sleep, did you text or talk to your family/friends before you performed, what was your mindset, were you confident, were you happy, were you having fun, were you physically ready, did you listen to music, what kind of music, did you use imagery, or did you practice deep breathing?
- Repeat with the poor performances, write what was in common between these performances.
- Now you should have a good a list of at least 5-7 things that have helped you perform at your very best and your very worst.
Now that you have a list of what helps you and what doesn’t, create a priming routine and try it out! Here is an example with the purpose of each action in parentheses.
Before the event starts:
- Pray (to remain connected)
- State my affirmation (to remember what is important to me)
- Walk around arena/stage practicing imagery (to get comfortable with my environment)
- Drill some skills and techniques (to get physically prepared)
- Roll out and stretch (to stay loose)
Before your performance:
- Complete physical warm up (to be confident in movements)
- Say affirmation (to remember what is important to me)
- See myself crush my routine with imagery (to prepare mentally)
- Power stance for 2 minutes with deep breathing (to be confident and calm)
This is a simple priming routine and was developed over the span of months, trying new things, different order and finding out what worked best. Your routine should be YOURS! You can start with the one above and change things as needed. The important thing is to make sure you are doing whatever works best for you. It is very important to approach this as a science, ask questions, try new things, collect the data and make conclusions. Over the past few articles I have given you a few things to try, hopefully you have tried them and you can make a conclusion to know if it helps you perform better or not! If it helps, keep doing it. It it doesn’t help, then throw it out and stay away from it.
