So yesterday I went to a presentation over performing with Coach Alexander who is the coach for the Bengals and is a concert pianist. This REALLY applied to my final project because he talked about the Alexander Technique in his presentation and how not only musicians, but athletes go through the nerves. The movement/mental ability to do a certain skill as close to perfection as possible is hard in a performance setting. He mentioned that for example when he teaches football players a certain drill, he tells them to not think of each step they take, but rather more of where they are going. If you are thinking of so many different steps while in performance, failing will be a likely outcome. One interesting connection he used was with geniuses. Geniuses are so successful because they find an easy solution to things that may take a lot of steps. This I can apply to performing, because after you've practiced so much you should be able to put yourself on auto pilot for the performance so in case you do mess up, you can keep moving forward. You shouldn't have to think of every little thing when you are performing because that makes it easier to feel nervous and be more likely to fail. This was a great presentation, and I learned so much!