The difference? She was skating for the joy of it, not under the pressure to win.
Sports psychology and performance psychology for singers is identical. When you sing for the love of the music and for the desire to communicate you will sing your best. If you focus on "winning, by which I mean impressing people such as your colleagues, the judges, the audience, the casting director, your family, your teacher etc, before you sing as wellas during the act of singing, you will never sing your best.
By focusing on the love of singing , you will be increase your chance of “winning”.The ability to do your best is the gift you get for taking your mental focus off of yourself.
Singers and musical performers have a lot to learn from Carolina Kostner's triumph at this past Olympics, as well as the performances of the other skaters. Kim Yuna, the superstar reigning queen and gold metal winner at the last olympics was the favorite and was in the position of defending her title. She was in a position that she had little to gain but a lot to loose in terms of her legacy. She skated a safe program,lovely,but entirely lacking in excitement to maintain her position.
Along came Adelina Sotnikova a teenager who had recently been left off the Russian team and had to fight her way back. She had everything to win and she delivered a thrilling performance that won her the gold. This "underdog advantage" is what every up and coming singer has on their side, but sadly many times big ambition robs aspiring singers of this psychological advantage.
There is a story about how a then superstar Judy Garland, and a young and upcoming Barbra Streisand were speaking back stage before a live TV show when Garland confessed she had terrible stage fright. The expectations on her as the greatest singing star of the day, were not just to sing well, but to be great and this was crippling her. Streisand an unknown had no expectations on her, and could only gain from the broadcast performance. Streisand confessed to Garland that she never felt performance anxiety. Garland, recognizing Streisand's great talent and the probability of her becoming a great star told her "some day you will". Sadly, it did come to pass that after Streisand became one of the most celebrated and respected singers of her generation, she developed crippling stage fright and could not perform live for many,many years. Finally,interestingly long after her prime, when she was, in reality, no longer the singer she once was, Streisand's desire to perform overcame her anxiety and she was once again able to perform before the public.
My grad school roommate was an elite level concert pianist who had crippling performance anxiety and required beta-blocker medication in order to perform in competitions concerts, degree recitals and even for her teacher and other students in her studio class. She placed and even won in competitions but she never performed at the level she could in the practice room. Never the less, she beat out literally thousands of other young pianists when her artistry gained her an offer from a top level agent who wanted to take her on his roster. But my roommate,who happened to be an orthodox Jew, had to make the decision to not accept this position, that she had worked all her life to achieve, because it would have required her to perform on the sabbath. Although she would keep performing and working professionally as a pianist, the decision to tern down the top agent meant she would never make it big as a pianist. After she turned down this offer and nothing was "riding" on her performances, she suddenly lost all of her performance anxiety. She no longer needed medication to calm her nerves when she performed. She felt her new ability to play was a gift from g-d because she chose to keep the sabbath. I see, though, that when she had nothing to loose or gain from making a mistake, she could not be distracted from the music by her ambition, but she could have chosen to perform just for the love of it all along.
How do you, as a singer, put your head into the best place possible in order to perform? First, prepare to the best of your ability, because not being prepared is a source of very rational of performance anxiety. Then, whether you are a great star or want to be one sing ONLY for the love of singing and the desire to share the music, and you will free yourself from irrational performance anxiety.
Click the link below to watch a video about Carolina's journeyhttp://screen.yahoo.com/carolina-kostner-love-rao-141623602.html
