#performance psych

For Ravi Walia’s students, posted on IG June 6, 2020

Kristi: She would really want us to put in our minds that, ok, this is it. Like you don’t have 5 chances to stop your music and rewind it and do it again. Like this is your one chance for your long program. We’re putting the music on, this is your competition run through. So, you know, in practice she would put us in that competition mode of thinking, and then at the competition it was like the exact opposite. It was, ok, now you’re back at home. You’re in Edmonton, and this is your practice, and you’ve done this a hundred times, and this is no different, you know. You know you can do a clean program. And you know, just go out and you know one thing at a time and go out there and do it.  So, so it was kind of that mentality of like, ok, you know, competition- I was just at home I was you know, my friends are around me, we’re just skating. And then, at at home it was kind of, you know, trying to put that pressure on yourselves.

Kristi: You know the one thing that my coach always talked to me was like one thing at a time. And Ravi probably heard this all the time too-  was like: One thing at a time, you know, you don’t think of the big mountain ahead, but really think about, k, your starting pose. Think of your preparation into that first element in your program, and don’t think beyond that. And once you complete that, then it’s on to the next one. Really take it element by element,  and you know focusing on that and then moving forward.

For Ravi Walia’s students posted to IG April 1, 2020

Patrick: I ask myself ok, what if, what if I fall on the first quad, or what if I fall on the second one- I land the first one but miss the second one. So there was a lot of.. a lot of, I think.. sometimes.. panicking, And when you do that, you do waste a lot of energy...one time I did, that happened to me, and I got on the ice, and I had no energy to do my free program, and I was I was baffled. I was like why am I so tired I haven't even started, and it's because I was so - my brain was overactive, and I was thinking of all the scenarios and ended up killing all my energy, so..

I managed pressure by really first of all managing my expectations.. also having a plan.. understanding that..for me one of the most helpful tools was having a my own dialogue while I was doing the program. Having key words. You know, Ravi and I did some work in that, and that made me feel more confident and a lot more calm, because I felt like I could fall back on, on something which was my key word before each element  So that's I think really important.

Meditation's another good one. breathing is always a really really important part of my, I guess my pre-performance routine..because I just talked about the whole creating scenarios in my mind, which ended up using all my energy. So in order to get away from that ..you know, I used-  my sports psychologist gave me some breathing exer- - really basic breathing exercises,.. one of them is like, you close your eyes and you - while you're breathing in, you picture a triangle, and then you picture like a dot moving from each corner to each corner to each corner. So when you breathe in you're going to move the dot- this is in your mind, you're going to move the dot to the top of the triangle, and then as you breathe out you're going to breathe out to the next corner, and then you breathe in again and you breathe out you breathe in. so you do this- you just repeat that It's really simple.