Ever had horrible flu that laid you flat? I was once out of circulation for a whole week.

With no plans to do anything as I couldn’t, I remembered an exercise I’d heard about at a drum workshop. It involved playing four different rhythms with each limb, at the same time. Intrigued and with nothing better to do I decided to give it a shot… and play it in my head.
 
Before continuing: there’s a lot of gobbledegook about Creative Visualisation so I’m going to keep this grounded and real.

1.  There’s nothing mystical about this! Athletes do it all the time, like golfers imagining the perfect shot. Or concert pianists visualising flawless performances.
2. It’s proven that your brain doesn’t know the difference between something real, or vividly imagined.

Back to my story…

Wallowing in my fluness and feeling sorry for myself, with closed eyes I imagined a screen split into four squares. Each one represented a limb. I began by mentally ‘seeing’ me play quarter notes with my left hand, then eighths with my right hand. When I could comfortably focus on these, I added triplets with my right foot. Finally, I added sixteenths with my left foot. (if the description of notes mean nothing, then think of rubbing your tummy and patting your head, then jumping up and down on one foot and going in opposite circles with your other foot).

The above took some focus and I stumbled at times, but eventually, I got all four rhythms going at once. I could even feel the muscles twitching in my limbs as I ‘played’ this in my mind.

When I had recovered from the flu I sat down at my drum kit and tried it for real. In my anticipation, I hesitated a little… and then nailed it. Why? Because I’d already figured it out and played it inside my mind.

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Adapted from the upcoming book ‘Rock Your Performance’ (formerly Creating Performance Excellence) by Georg Voros

Georg Voros is a Performance Consultant with 45+ years of top-level experience and author of two books on performance. He delivers high-impact workshops on productivity and flow, and offers tailored mentoring packages to support personal growth and achievement. Learn more at www.vorosperformance.co.uk