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Sit back, Doctor Nem is in session...
Here are a couple of things to keep in mind.
Firstly, if you are tired or stressed it can always have a negative impact. It goes without saying basically.
Here is another theory that I actually learned in sports but I find that it works here too. Our bodies go through various stages of mental and physical development. Often when you find yourself going through a tricky stage, be it at the gym or even mixing records it’s when your body is adjusting itself to something. With your DJing it could be that you are so set in your routine that you are actually not concentrating as hard as you might normally because you are adjusting to something that is becoming habitual. Your muscle memory is so familiar with the movement that your brain does not actively have to engage in it.
Take this as an example:
Someone throws a ball at you that you have to kick. For the sake of this example assume that it’s always the same person.
Stage one, you have to focus on the person throwing you the ball, they advise you when they are throwing. You then have to consciously react to their command and think about how you place yourself and the technique you use in order to apply force to the moving object. There is a lot of time and space awareness at play and it will be a very conscious effort. You will find that you have to be 100% task focused in order for you to succeed.
Stage two, you still have to focus on the person throwing the ball but you no longer depend on the voice command. Your motor skills have also adapted so you actually don’t need to concentrate on each detail of the movement in your leg to achieve this action, but you still have to concentrate in order to place your foot to the ball as you are still dependant on the visual indicators and need to be fully focused on Time and Space.
Stage three, you no longer depend on thought process to carry out the actions and you can react purely based on visual indicators. Your actions have become automatic responses rather than conscious thought process .
Stage four, your actions are purely instinctive and require no additional thought putting you in a position where you can even engage in thought process about other things as the task at hand requires minimal concentration.
Well, how does this apply to DJing I hear you ask. Truth be told, this applies to absolutely everything that you do in your life full stop. If you look at children who are learning to drink from a glass for the first time you will observe that they are completely task focused and nothing else exists in their world. When you think in terms of DJing, when you have to think about the particular actions on a fader or pitch correction, the more thought this requires the more likely it is that thing can go wrong due to the speed at which things happen during a mix.
In addition, if you are going through a particular phase, let’s say you are moving from three to four, there is a certain crossover period where your brain can get confused and will often under perform. What I am saying is that it is possible that you are just breaking through a barrier rather than suffering from a loss of talent.
Don’t beat yourself up over it, throw this in with inspiration and other life factors and it can easily get your down, but the reality is that this will come back to you, probably stronger and better than it was before.
You may also be getting bored and could be in need of new stimulation. New genre, new tricks, new tunes etc.
Cheers
Nem
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https://www.mixcloud.com/Calvin_Karass/
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