6 Steps to Overcoming Your Performance Anxiety

As any dancer knows, performance anxiety is a pretty common thing. Dancing in front of all those people can be scary! Thoughts have a way to slip into your mind before a show, like, what if you were to trip? Or what if you forget your routine?

Here are 6 steps to overcome your performance anxiety:

1. Don’t Fight It
2. Breathe
3. Practice Makes Perfect
4. Get Some Sleep the Night Before
5. Talk With Family and Friends
6. Remember Why You Dance

Let break down each one real quick.

You’re backstage with your fellow dancers and you hear the audience begin to grow quiet behind the curtain. For weeks, possibly months, you have been practicing your routine. You know the choreography backward and forward, there’s nothing to worry about, right?

More often than not, the anxiety fades away as the music starts playing, but those moments beforehand are not fun! It doesn’t matter if it is an audition, small recital, or large show, performing in front of people can be nerve-wracking at times!

Here at More Than Dancers, we’ve been there. So, in this blog post, we want to give you a few helpful tips to deal with your performance anxiety.

Don’t Fight It

You might get mad at us for this tip at first, but hear us out! When your anxiety kicks in, embrace it! Trying to ignore your nerves and convincing yourself that you’re not experiencing anxiety, usually just makes matters worse. What many professional athletes and dancers have found to be helpful is viewing their anxiety as something good such as excitement, and using that feeling during their performance.

Breathe

The main thing you need to do is relax. Sometimes, before a show, you might panic and forget to take in deep breaths. This can cause you to become light-headed. Not good! Even before you get backstage, practice your favorite deep breathing technique. This will go a long way in avoiding that moment of fear before the dance begins.

Practice Makes Perfect

Like nearly every skill in life, in order to be the best dancer that you can be, you’re going to have to practice. Dancing is not easy and it requires your time and dedication if you want to succeed. Practice will also help you to know your routine so well that you would be able to perform it in your sleep. This will also help you to avoid the performance scaries. When you have confidence in your knowledge of your routine, you’ll be less intimidated before going out on the stage.

Get Some Sleep the Night Before

A lot of the time, the fear hits you even worse the night before your show. You lay in bed thinking about the choreography and you get into your head about what is to come. While this is normal, getting a full night’s sleep is super important since you need to be well-rested and have a clear mind before dancing your heart out. So do things the night before that are calming and takes your mind off of the performance. This could be anything from binge-watching a few episodes of your favorite show, reading a good book, or even just laying back and listening to your favorite tunes.

Talk With Family and Friends

We all need a little guidance from time to time, and a lot of the time our loved ones know just what to say when we need their help. If you feel like your anxiety is going to kick up before your performance, take some time to talk to your parents or your best friends. Not only will they tell you what you need to hear and raise your confidence, but there is just something special talking with loved ones. This will help you to shake off some of your concerns about the show.

Remember Why You Dance

There’s a reason why you got into dancing. You’re passionate about it! You feel free when you glide across the stage and there is no better feeling than when you nail your choreography. While performing in front of people can definitely be intimidating, you have to remember that you are doing what you love, and how all of the previous times you were nervous before dancing, all of that fear faded away as soon as the music started and you were dancing underneath the lights. Dancing is an incredible experience, and we know that you’ll get over your performance anxiety and show the crowd the skills that you have!

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