When are you ready?

When are you ready to first perform? Or play that spot for the first time? Or compete in a tournament?

The answer, of course, is never.

I'm just kidding! The answer is way more complicated than that.

What does it even mean to be "ready"? It's going to be different for each person - comfort level, confidence level, knowledge of the material, etc. It's going to be different for each group you're in - if they're performance-oriented, if they want to push your skills, positions available, etc.

There is a point when you truly aren't ready, but I see a lot of people doubting themselves to where that period is artificially extended. It's then not about skill, it's about confidence. A classic chicken-and-egg scenario: you're not ready to perform because you don't feel confident enough, but you're not confident because you haven't performed enough.

My dojo is holding a tournament in a couple of weeks and we're running through practice rounds of kata. There are a lot of people running through their kata who are visibly nervous and it affects their entire performance. After a few times, it starts to sink in that all the people watching them just don't matter, and their training takes over. That nervousness has to be burnt off through doing; there's no shortcut around it.

No one wants to get up in front of others and look weak or stupid or wrong. That fear can often prevent us from performing until we finally stop worrying about what the people think, and focus more on letting our training shine through.

I've been performing taiko for 17 years and have done tournaments and had testing dozens of times. I miss the butterflies in my stomach, the nervous energy that keeps you kind of buzzed, that feeling mild terror mixed with excitement. It may sound weird to say that, but it's true. Once it's gone, it hardly ever comes back.

The first time you perform, your brain will be all over the place. If you wait until the magical time when your brain is "ready" to play, you'll never perform. So take the plunge and enjoy the ride, because the journey leads to a stronger you!