{"id":734,"date":"2008-03-20T10:18:26","date_gmt":"2008-03-20T15:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=734"},"modified":"2008-03-20T13:12:03","modified_gmt":"2008-03-20T18:12:03","slug":"whence-this-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=734","title":{"rendered":"Whence this doubt?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, Tuesday&#8217;s rehearsal went by without major incident. We were practicing music, our Julie and me attempting to open emotionally in the music. My voice seemed all right, though not at 100%. But man, I could barely keep my breath consistent. Granted, I had not warmed up as much as I normally do, but there was some other obstacle I could feel keeping me from doing my best.<\/p>\n<p>I think my voice works solely at my level of confidence. When I feel secure in my ability, it&#8217;s strong and, while not Broadway caliber, certainly passable for musical theater. That night, it reflected my self-doubt clearly. And this character has no such doubts, so the more I feel like I can&#8217;t perform up to snuff, the less I&#8217;m convincing in the role, and the more doubt I have, the worse I perform.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, I can understand what it means to have a batting slump. But how to break the cycle? How does one feel confident, particularly early in the rehearsal cycle when the music still needs to be learned? It is at once the easiest and most difficult thing a person can do. That is: when it works, it&#8217;s such a pleasure it hardly seems like work,  but when it doesn&#8217;t, it&#8217;s grueling and taxing.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe I&#8217;m just coming to this realization late. It seems pretty obvious now that I&#8217;ve typed it all out. Anyway, I plan to suck it up and make it work, but for now I need to be prepared to be disappointed in myself, and have others disappointed in me. That sort of thing is just natural.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, Tuesday&#8217;s rehearsal went by without major incident. We were practicing music, our Julie and me attempting to open emotionally in the music. My voice seemed all right, though not at 100%. But man, I could barely keep my breath consistent. Granted, I had not warmed up as much as I normally do, but there [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p73iP8-bQ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":707,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=707","url_meta":{"origin":734,"position":0},"title":"Assets and Improvements","date":"12\/20\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I did this mainly as an affirmation and a resolution for the upcoming year. I think it's a good exercise to recognize your strengths and weaknesses and address them with specifics. I have noted that my self-confidence wanes fairly often, and that can cause me to doubt whether I have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Self-service&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":302,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=302","url_meta":{"origin":734,"position":1},"title":"Really?","date":"4\/21\/2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Someone said to me, about Jenna Jameson, \"She's really smart!\" The tone of voice used was one of incredulity, of surprise. And while I'm still too much of a social pussy to have snapped back with a witty comment, my brain did stammer a bit at the clear obliviousness of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Ennui&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2764,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=2764","url_meta":{"origin":734,"position":2},"title":"Your Daily Digest: Time Well Spent","date":"11\/25\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I took on the directing job for\u00c2\u00a0Bridge to Terabithia\u00c2\u00a0in Racine. The new knowledge and the\u00c2\u00a0possibilities have to outweigh my own brain. Fantasy, depression, guilt, family issues, escapism, music... that's a lot to delve into, YA fiction or no. If I feel too suburban about it all later, I can tell\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Ennui&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":471,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=471","url_meta":{"origin":734,"position":3},"title":"Where have I been? Where haven&#8217;t I?","date":"11\/14\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Fifteen years ago. I was just 15, starting along a path which is only now revealing itself to me. I don't remember what caught my attention exactly, I remember only the uncomfortable chair in the high school library, the doubt and insecurity and the strangers' eyes trying to discern my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Best of the Buddha&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":154,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=154","url_meta":{"origin":734,"position":4},"title":"Here we go again.","date":"6\/28\/2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Is there a conspiracy among drummers and percussionists that they must back out of shows at the last minute, as long as I am within a few degrees of separation from the show's director? Once again, in an heroic showing of good will and desire for even a small taste\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Self-service&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":958,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=958","url_meta":{"origin":734,"position":5},"title":"Camaraderie","date":"3\/10\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently updated the look of this blog to be sort of a personal motivation experience when I visit it. After all, I'm not really posting any links that you could not find on digg or metafilter or oneplusinifinity or bblinks or any other more timely and robust aggregator. Nor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Self-service&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}