Centering ebook

Tired of sounding great in the practice room… but only so-so on stage?

It’s frustrating to practice with such dedication, to be so completely prepared, yet feel everything start to fall apart literally within seconds once your audition begins.

You know you have the talent. You know you have put in the work. So why do you end up sounding like some lesser version of yourself when it really counts?

It’s not what you think…

Most of us conclude that it is just our nerves, and that we must be dealing with some degree of stage fright or performance anxiety. Naturally, we try everything in an attempt to reduce our nerves – eating bananas, drinking chamomile tea, various over-the-counter supplements, relaxation strategies like meditation, the old audience in their underwear trick, even beta blockers. Unfortunately, we discover that much of this never works as well as we wish it would.

That’s because targeting nerves as the culprit for our on-stage frustrations is a no-win strategy. Our nerves are not the problem.

What?! How could nerves not be the problem?

The truth is, your nerves are hard-wired and happen for a reason. They’re not likely to just magically disappear one day, so long as you continue to care about playing your best.

Successful performers don’t eliminate their nerves. Instead, they have learned to harness the adrenaline and enter into that “flow” state often referred to as “the zone”  – where everything just seems to click into place and performing feels natural, easy, even exhilarating!

Well sure, but that’s not something we have control over…

Given that many of us experience so few of such performances and so sporadically, it’s easy to conclude that these must be random occurrences, and that we have no control over whether it ends up being a bad day, a good day, or a great day.

This inconsistency used to frustrate me to no end, and I often wondered why I found myself on the losing end of the performance lottery (where you luck into an amazing performance at a moment that isn’t particularly important to you).

The truth is, playing your best under pressure is a learned skill. It is not something that most of us do naturally. Nor is it something that many of us can pick up intuitively. Some of us do figure it out after years of trial and error, but some never quite do.

I certainly couldn’t figure it out – I had no idea what made some performances special, and others mediocre.

Then I learned about Centering, and things changed.

So what is Centering anyway?

Centering, is a set of principles and guidelines that will help you learn how to focus, get yourself under control physically, and begin your performance by putting your best foot forward.

First developed by sport psychologist Robert Nideffer, and later adapted for musicians by Olympic sport psychologist Don Greene, I’d like to share it with you from two perspectives – my own experience as a musician who used Centering successfully in real-live performances and as a performance psychologist who now understands the mechanisms underlying these principles.

Centering is not just a bunch of psycho-babble and gimmicky mind-tricks. It’s actually pretty simple when you get the hang of it. Yes, it takes practice and commitment, but isn’t that true of anything else you do as a musician?

Does Centering really work?

Centering has been utilized successfully by Juilliard students, New World Symphony fellows, and many others to win auditions and major positions in some of the finest orchestras around the world. Centering has also been used by established professional musicians in top-tier orchestras such as the Met and New York Philharmonic as a way to take their performing to a new level.

So yes, Centering has an established record of success. Dr. Greene often points out that in 15 years of teaching Centering to musicians, he has never had anyone win an audition without it.

Here’s what a recent workshop participant had to say…

After attending one of Dr. Kageyama’s seminars on performance enhancement, I was eager to share his techniques with my students.  At the start of the new semester, the entire woodwind studio read Dr. Kageyama’s e-book “Centering.”   Students read half of the book one week and the other half the following week.  At the end of each half, we met for group discussion and practiced the activities together.  All students felt levels of improvement.  One student in particular, who warned everyone she was accustomed to breaking out in hives before each performance, never experienced that level of performance anxiety again.

“Centering” is not simply a pep talk.  It offers real, step-by-step, instructions on how to channel your thoughts for focused performance.  These activities can easily be practiced, and my students often comment on how it has improved their overall confidence and musicianship.

Nathan Muehl
Assistant Professor of Music
Alderson-Broaddus College
Philippi, WV

Say hello to The Musician’s Guide to Centering

The Musician’s Guide to Centering is a downloadable workbook, containing 27 pages of detailed explanation, examples, a handy dandy 1-page cheat sheet, and most importantly, a 7-day action plan with daily worksheets designed to help guide you through the learning and application of this technique.

The pdf format of this workbook works on all computers and operating systems, and is formatted to be printer-friendly. Despite being the most in-depth explanation of Centering for musicians out there, it is also short enough to read easily in a single sitting.

And at $19.95, it costs less than a large BBQ chicken pizza at my favorite pizza place down the street.

Wait…if Centering is really all that impactful, why does it cost less than a pizza?

When I was first exposed to Centering, I didn’t pay it much attention. Frankly, it didn’t seem worth the effort to learn, and I figured it wouldn’t do much for me anyway. It was only later, when I gave Centering a chance and integrated the principles into my performing, that I realized I was wrong to dismiss it so quickly.

That is why this workbook doesn’t cost more. I believe you will find this information to be invaluable, but if I charged more, you might hesitate and click the back button on your browser. What makes me so sure? Because before I experienced first-hand what Centering was able to do for my performing, I probably would have done the same. I would have been like “Huh? Musician’s Guide to what? Mmm…ehh…whatever.”

So why not give it away for free? Well, if I did that, you’d download it, perhaps even skim through some of it, but ultimately it would soon disappear and live a very lonely and inconspicuous life hidden in some dusty corner of your hard drive. And that is the reason for the “Bulletproof 100% Money-Back Guarantee”.

The Bulletproof 100% Money-Back Guarantee

I found Centering to be a big deal. It changed the level and consistency of my performances, how I felt about performing, and even my practice habits. So even though I am confident that you will find the information in this workbook to be indispensable, I want you to feel that way too.

Therefore, if at any point in the next 365 days (that’s right, a full year), you decide for any reason that the workbook is not worth at least 100 BBQ chicken pizzas, just send me an email asking for your money back, and I will be happy to do so. Yes, really.

Get the workbook now

So now that you’ve got nothing to lose, and an awful lot to gain, here’s how to get the workbook.

Click on the “Buy Now” button below to purchase with a credit or debit card (or your PayPal account if you have one). You’ll be directed to a page where you can choose your form of payment. When you’re finished, check your inbox for an email from me with the link to your copy of The Musician’s Guide to Centering.

The Musician’s Guide to Centering – $19.95

Just in case…

If you have any questions, or run into any problems at any point during this process, just send me an email and I’ll do my best to help.

Sincerely,

Dr. Noa Kageyama