Breathing Out Stage Fright

You're stepping onto the stage, amidst opening night flurry and last minute stage directions. In the audience are the director you'd like to work with, the reviewer everyone listens to, and your first acting coach. The blood pumps in your ears, your heart is racing, and your throat is so dry you can't possibly speak your lines. Every muscle is tense and you want to run.

It's called the "fight or flight" response. It's also called stage fright. Stage fright comes in many different forms. For some, it's a nervous energy that disappears as soon as they begin performing, or a familiar sensation that's always under the surface but feels manageable most of the time. For others, it's so debilitating that they can't get through an audition to even be part of a performance.

Stage fright has huge repercussions to the health and well-being of the performer.

Dr. Louise Montello of Musicians Wellness, Inc. has worked with injured, blocked and anxious performers for many years, and has developed a rich set of tools that we can use in moments of stress and anxiety.

One of her most powerful techniques, from the Yoga tradition, is breath. Breath is a key link between the mind and the body. Our body's autonomic nervous system is made up of the parasympathetic nervous system (related to relaxation, creativity and awareness) and the sympathetic nervous system (related to analytical thinking and action). When we're in "fight or flight" mode, our sympathetic nervous systems are in charge, and our bodies, minds and emotions are locked into battle with an imaginary enemy (while our creative expression gets caught in the crossfire).

Deep breathing and the specific techniques that will be described in this article can reawaken your parasympathetic nervous system.

Note: In yogic breathing exercises, it's important to always breathe in and out through the nose.

1. Diaphragmatic breathing ("belly breathing")

Why? It allows you to move more air into your body and also to send more stale air out on the exhalation.

How? Practice this type of breathing while holding your hands on your belly, to feel it expand as you inhale, and contract as you exhale. Your back and sides should expand and contract as well. watch a baby sleeping to get a really good demonstration of belly breathing.

2. Even breathing

Why? Will smooth out your breathing and help you to feel grounded.

How? Breathe in and out for the same number of counts.

3. two-to-one breathing

Why? Since exhalation is associated with the parasympathetic nervous system (related to relaxation, creativity and awareness), long exhalations also help to induce relaxation. This exercise is helpful in times of great stress (i.e. auditions).

How? Breathe in for a certain number of counts, and then breathe out for twice as many counts (count evenly in your own time), pushing the breath out from the belly.

4. Alternate nostril breathing

Why? By alternately breathing through our right nostril (connected to our sympathetic nervous system) and our left nostril (connected to our parasympathetic nervous system), we can balance our entire autonomic nervous system.

How? To prepare for this exercise, clear your nostrils by breathing in and out quickly several times in a row (another technique called "cleansing breath"). Now, fold the index finger and middle finger of the right hand into the palm, and use the thumb to close your right nostril and your ring finger to close your left nostril.

begin by inhaling through both nostrils. Then breathe out through one nostril, while blocking the other, and then switch and breathe in through the other nostril.

After three complete breaths, exhale without switching sides, and do three more breaths. This means you're now inhaling on the opposite side that you started from.

Now rest and breathe deeply and evenly through both nostrils for a few minutes. Then repeat that cycle two more times (with a rest in between), so you've done three cycles in total.

You'll be amazed at the difference these simple breathing exercises can make, with a few short minutes of practice every day. Then, at times of stress, you'll have a valuable tool to support your performance, and all your creative dreams.

Copyright 2005, linda Dessau. All rights reserved.

linda Dessau, the Self-Care Coach, helps artists enhance their creativity by addressing their unique self-care issues. Visit www.preparingforperformance.com for more help with performance anxiety.

Yguide Yoga Software

Software is Now SaaSy

I hate it when a market matures. Sure, the profits are more predictable, but the excitement evaporates. Kinda like getting married.

As a marketable technology concept, SaaS has matured. This is evidenced by several factors, from adoption rates by enterprises, and by seeing companies with the most to loose from SaaS competition joining the fray. The giddy days of SaaS are soon behind us, but reduced profits ahead.

The good news is that enterprise customers have shaken their SaaS jitters and are adopting services at a fair clip. A recent survey of CIOs showed some interesting numbers:

10-15% of IT budgets are spent on SaaS
86% are using SaaS non-experimentally either for department point solutions or corporate wide
An average of six SaaS solutions are in use in an enterprise
73% of the CIOs plan on expanding use of SaaS
This bodes well for software companies who bet the farm on SaaS. Adoption and satisfaction rates are high and growing, which drops the barrier to adoption. SaaS will soon be given equal consideration in all project planning within IT.

And all a pure play SaaS software company has to do is make less money.

The McKinsey Quarterly reported that SaaS software vendors do not make as much as traditional software firms. This may be a side effect of being a relatively new offering, and that SaaS start-ups face significant SG&A costs (49% of revenues compare to 35% for a traditional and established software concern). but the net effect is that today a SaaS software company keeps about 13% of their revenues as profits (EBITDA), and folks that sell bits on CD keep 31%, almost three times as much.

So why would Microsoft be at all interested in SaaS? Microsoft rakes in a lot of money from software, upgrades and technical support services. Given that the average cost of goods sold and SG&A expenses are so much higher for SaaS than Microsoft's existing business model, it would seem suicidal to adopt SaaS.

"The industry will change," is what Allison Watson, the corporate vice president of Microsoft's worldwide partner group, said in a recent interview. Microsoft is old and cagey enough to spot trends, and know when to not fight them. SaaS will dominate in some markets, and CRM is the top achiever ( 36% enterprises that have deployed SaaS deployed SaaS-based CRM applications ). SalesForce.com added 253,000 new seats in 2006, and Microsoft had far fewer with their Dynamic CRM product ( some estimates claim that Microsoft owns a mere 1.4% of the total CRM license sales ). Thus, Microsoft is entering the SaaS market and targeting the low end, with a long-term plan of up-selling SaaS accounts to software licenses.

Microsoft's changing strategies avoid treating software as a zero-sum game. They see when they are being cut out of a market, and drive to adapt -- to claim or recapture market share. Knowing the lifetime value of a customer, they are willing to suffer lower margins in a highly competitive market to gain customers, and begin the insidious processes of creating interdependencies between Microsoft products, and raising customer switching costs.

SaaS is now officially here to stay, so you had best think through SaaS as an offering. It may be on your customer's requirements list.

Guy Smith is the chief consultant for Silicon Strategies marketing. Guy brings a combination of technical, managerial and marketing experience to Silicon Strategies projects. Directly and as a consultant, Guy has worked with a variety of technology-producing organizations. A partial list of these technology firms include ORBiT Group (high-availability backup software), Telamon (wireless middleware), Wink Communications (interactive television), LogMeIn (remote desktop), FundNET (SaaS), Open-Xchange (groupware), VA Software (enterprise software), Virtual Iron (server virtualization), suse (Linux distributions and applications), BrainWave (application prototyping) and Novell.

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Drive For Show - Balance is Key

The last thing most of us think of when squaring up for our tee shot is balance. Without a doubt, this should be the very first thing on our minds. Without proper balance, all the swing fundamentals in the world will never allow you to hit a straight shot consistently.

The next time your standing on the driving range, try this exercise. square up to the ball just like you always do. Pay close attention to the distance you are from the ball. Now, how do you feel. Do you feel like your reaching for the ball or maybe you feel like your a little to close. If you notice either of these things your probably not going to be able to make a true balanced swing. Too far from the ball and your gonna try to reach to hit the ball. This is going to set you up for a nasty little outside-in path and an ugly slice. Too close to it and you'll be too inside-out and tend to hook it.

Step away from the ball, pick a blade of grass on the ground and set up to it. Don't focus too much on hitting the blade of grass. Instead, focus on making your swing on plane and keeping perfect balance through your entire swing. Make sure your not leaning into or away from the blade of grass during your swing. Now, take note of the distance your body is from the path the club actually swept across the grass. You might be surprised how far this path is from the grass blade you set up to. If your swing was balanced, this should be the actual distance you should stand from the ball when you tee up. With a lot of practice, this set up position will become ingrained and you will soon have a balanced, consistent swing that will allow you to drive for show.

Hopefully you have found this article to helpful. For more valuable golf swing tips, please visit my website www.bettergolfswing.org

Larry Moore has spent several years studying proper swing technique and is an avid golfer. He is also the creator and owner of http://www.bettergolfswing.org

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