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As a teacher,
artist and performer, I have participated in, directed and
instructed creative and learning performances throughout my
own professional, educational and personal life and can speak
with firsthand experience of these fields. It is without doubt
that physical and emotional trauma and stress and anxiety
impact creative and learning performances. There are
strategies and solutions here that I've seen, experienced and
used that can greatly help and resolve these difficulties for
artists and learners. Here the specific Arts, activities and
teaching areas that I have worked with for years and now use
the expansion techniques discussed, with effective results.
The Creative
Performance and
discipline of Visual Artists, Actors, Martial Artists, Dancers,
Musicians, Writers and Public Speakers
can often
be impacted by forms of anxiety, stage fright, panic attack,
writer's block, and to injury left recorded in the body and
mind. There can be current or past physical and/or emotional
trauma. There might be early negative direction, instruction,
or environment. There are times when the core performance of
the actor and other artists can be unfulfilled potential or
even lower quality than past performances have been due to
fear and emotional or physical pain. Sometimes early training
can itself be a source of stress and anxiety during and in
later years. Physical injuries both related and unrelated to
performance can have an effect on the artist's life, and
anxiety and panic attacks often result.
Also,
Learning
Performances in various fields including
Test Taking and Language
Learning, ESL are concrete examples of success or less
than optimum work when stress and anxiety overwhelm the
student's efforts to perform. Test anxiety can appear and/or
study skills evaporate from past difficulties and even unrelated
trauma can bar the success of planned test taking strategies
hard won by that student. When the goal is a language to learn,
especially ESL for students, it is difficult enough overcoming
the fear of being in the classroom as a new person,
often from another country, let alone to "learn the
english".
 Actors,
Dancers, and Musicians can all
experience creativity barriers to wonderful human performance
onstage. The actor who develops extreme stage fright or an
occasional panic attack, even late in a career (as did the
great Sir Laurence Olivier in King Lear) finds it
may have been a result from an old injury or current trauma
that makes overcoming anxiety difficult to handle and coping
with stress becomes impossible. Dancers, and
often particularly ballet dancers frequently incur injuries
that may sideline them permanently without strategies and
treatment to get them back onstage and in one piece. Musicians have their own unique relationship with
their vocal and physical instruments, that can be strained
over time and young musicians must be trained carefully to
include the development of voice and musical discipline that
is age appropriate, in order to have long lasting careers. Writers and Artists often find
themselves blocked, staring at a blank canvas, screen, page
wondering where did the rendering, painting, character, idea,
or words go? Public speaking is an art that demands resolving the fear
of public speaking at the very beginning of the career, and
organization, public speaking tips and a good speech writer is
not enough for amateur and professional speakers to rely on
without anxiety help. Martial Arts require exact
training, not just of the body but the mind, and there can be
barriers erected through injury or other circumstances that
get in the way of precision and the art of the martial arts
practice.
I've worked with considerable success and
fulfillment with all of these fields, both with craniosacral
therapy and Brainspotting. overcoming sometimes huge obstacles
and releasing fear and past and sometimes recent traumatic
experience that gets in the way of the best Creative and
Learning Performance possible.
 In addition
to physical and psychological therapies, there are
complementary modalities, and there are strategies that can
benefit these artists, as well as visual Artists and Public
Speakers. Stress relief and anxiety help can come in the form
of breath work, energy exercises, craniosacral therapies,
Brainspotting and other modalities. Injuries can be alleviated
with Craniosacral Therapy and the trauma involved can be
directly addressed and resolved with both cranial work and
Brainspotting. Old and new creativity barriers to best
performances can be shifted and changed to enhance the work of
the actor, musician, martial artist and dancer who may have
been literally stopped in their tracks with injury or
apprehension, after years of study and performance in their
field.
What it means to perform onstage involves:
Characterization, stage movement, blocking, lyrics, dance
routines and choreography, orchestration, rehearsals, stage
combat, learning lines and music and much more--these are all
HARD work and all enormous undertaking. Overcoming anxiety and
overcoming fear are often part of the territory of that creative
work. In addition, there are effective strategies and therapies
that can make a huge difference to the creative performer and
learner who has not had obvious trauma and stress but who has
not achieved the level of excellence that is required to
succeed.
 In many university research studies Test
taking anxiety has been proven to lower
scores in a testing environment. Often a panic attack during or
before a test can paralyze a student with fear. It is possible
to reduce anxiety with test taking strategies that include
Brainspotting and the help of an experienced craniosacral
therapist to calm the nervous system. When testing or
instruction of ESL for students is the goal,
overcoming anxiety can be even more difficult, and yet English
language learning or learning a new language as an English
speaker can be improved with the same modalities mentioned.
Overcoming fear in any educational setting is possible with
stress relief and anxiety help and strategies that the student
can continue to use on their own.
This is
also true of the Writer. Writer's block can be
dissolved and the freelance writer, the technical writer, the
medical writer, the author who is writing short stories or
online writing can go on writing quality work and meet the
deadlines imposed that add further to anxiety. Creative
writing can benefit from Brainspotting to remove angst, trauma
and anxiety that may be impacting the work.
The visual Artist's performance can grow with
Creative Performance enhanced by Brainspotting. Barriers to
that creativity and technique in making Art can be removed and
excellence. originality and productivity is developed further.
New design and painting techniques is fostered, on canvas or
computer, in sculpture, fine art, photography, or any media,
without being hindered by creativity barriers, further
developed with BSP.
Musicians
and Singers find that BSP opens possibilities of vocal
range and instrumentation technique, often overwriting
negative direction or training or even physical trauma.
Brainspotting is helpful in achieving new levels and layers of
developing technique and stage presence.
The Martial Artist, young or old, beginning or with
years of experience can hone skills and remove blocks to
stronger, more centered performance for personal fulfillment
or for competition. With the two modalities of Brainspotting
with Creative Performance and Learning techniques many
athletes have excelled. David Grand Ph.D developed BSP out of
EMDR that he was using for many years in empowering athletes
with sports psychology and found that BSP worked more
completely and for a longer time. (This
Is Your Brain On Sports, David Grand, Alan Goldberg)
 "if you focus
on your goals, you can accomplish anything." Korean
saying
In Martial Arts there is a sustained energy, requiring ongoing
constant mind and body awareness, practice and skill--BSP can
greatly enhance the martial arts training and practice in
regular training, but also release fear from injury or trauma
that has been experienced and can have an effect on recovery.
BSP is being shown to enhance athletic performance in athletes
and Brainspotting is effective with both children and adults
training in martial arts. I often combine Craniosacral Therapy
with BSP for the best results in overcoming fear and
recovering from injury or anxiety about competition and
training.
In my
small grandson's first day of Tang Soo Do, his Korean Martial
Arts class, his instructor taught "The Black Belt Focus" to a
group of little ones from 3 to five years:
I focus my eyes
I focus my mind
I focus my body
They listened carefully and repeated and understood what he
meant. With that training, they will learn the skills they
need in all of the areas of their lives. It's a pretty
accurate description of how BSP can work, for those who didn't
have the opportunity of martial arts training !
In my experience as a stage director, I
have been honored to often have ALL of these fields brought
together in one place, in Theatre productions, even including
martial arts ! It was completely essential to have all
performers, creative and learning, work together as a team to
the fullest potential. I do recall, years ago, directing an
experimental production very much like the Japanese woodblock
below (including the Kabuki stage makeup ! ) and it would have
been a great benefit to have had access then to the knowledge
and modalities discussed in these pages.
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