Why do we choke?

With thanks to Andy Smith, I’d like to draw your attention to this post in The Guardian newspaper.

It’s aimed at high-performance sports but the same ideas apply to presentations (or any other kind of performance for that matter).

The long and the short of it is that that when you’re a beginner you need to concentrate on the details of your technique but once you become competent in them, concentrating too hard/in too much detail can actually hinder your performance. I watched a dance piece recently called “Don’t sweat the technique” :)

Actually, the idea is something I’ve been using for a long time: the techniques I train people in for making presentations are, essentially, like walking. When you’re a toddler you spend so much effort trying to walk you don’t have much spare space in your head to look at where you’re going and I’ve often seen toddlers end up in a different part of the room to the one they intended. As an adult however, you’ve mastered how to walk, so you let your sub-conscious deal with that, leaving you free to concentrate on where to walk.

The idea is to become so proficient in your technique that you don’t have to concentrate on it consciously, leaving you free to think about what you say, not how you’re saying it. Once you’ve got your presentation skills sorted out you can forget about them, concentrating on your presentation’s content.

There’s a great quote from Charlie Parker that I love in this context: “Master your instrument, Master the music, and then forget all that *!xy!@ and just play.”