Nike’s mantra says it all: Just Do It. If you want to get things done, achieve some personal or professional goal, be a better athlete or a healthier human being: Just Do It.
As musicians we all want to get better every day. Practice more, perform better, and get greater results. But the longer we stay in this eagerness to excel the more we risk exposure to stress and frustration. It’s a competitive world and, some how, we feel that if we don’t keep it going we might fall off the wagon and get run over by something called Life.
So, what if we consciously get to choose to step off that moving train while, at the same time, enhancing our natural talents to raise performance to an even higher level? How do we help our students, our community and ourselves in order to lead more productive, meaningful, and fulfilled lives through musical performance, composing and teaching?
To DO is actually easier said than done, mostly because we know “what” we want, some know “how”, but only a few realise “why”. And the outcome manifests in tension, anger, sadness or lack of inspiration and motivation.
In Portugal we use an old expression that goes like this: “O segredo é a Alma do negócio” (Secret is the business’ Soul). And I’ve always wondered why. Why does it have to be like this, especially in a world-wide… web? Why can’t we share our knowledge and expertise to bring the best out of our fellow mates and ourselves? How do we do it?
What are the best ways to lead naturally and effortlessly to the centre of our beings? Focus and meditation can centre the self. As any other activity! But what I aim for is not only to benefit from the relaxed state of mind that focus and meditation can induce.
What we need is to bring our performance to that core. What we want is to transform our practice into meditation. By doing so we will no longer meditate to perform better. We will perform to meditate because maximized performance IS focus and meditation.
