My whole life I have been a very organized person. I enjoy when everything is perfectly laid out in front of me. I have a lot of practice writing outlines, essays, and speeches. This being said, I’m not the best at practicing them. I tend to be the type of person who just wings it and prays that I’ll remember what I want to say. Over the years of giving presentations and speeches I’ve realized maybe I should start practicing, that’s why I’m taking this class.
Growing up, I went to catholic school so I would read at mass a lot. I remember my mom telling me to read slowly and remember to pause at commas and look at the audience. Every time I give a speech or read out loud I remember this. Through high school I was at a private prep school so I did a lot of projects and speeches. I also had to lead a very spiritual retreat where I gave very emotional talks about my life where I had to try not to cry, that was definitely a building experience3 for me. Overall, I’ve definitely had my fair share of public speaking, but I definitely can get better.
I took this class because I am hoping to improve my public speaking in hopes to better my career in the future. I am a med bio/ pre PA student and being a PA I will need to be able to effectively communicate injuries and when someone needs surgery. I need to be able to cleary explain what is happening and be able to answer on the spot questions. I want to sound like I know what I’m doing and very confident. I’m excited for this class because I think it will really help me in the future.
From ages 3-13 I was a competitive dancer. This brought a lot of rehearsal and constant practice to perfect everything from the rhythm to the dance moves, all while aligning with the people around me to have the best possible outcome. Dancing taught me many lessons, but the largest one it did was the importance of practice. Without practice, and proper preparation, I would not only be letting my teammates down, but also I would be very upset with myself. My dance career was something I took a lot of pride in and it brought a lot of joy to my life, but without the endless hours in the studio, practicing, I would have not achieved the things I did. Furthermore, I learned that to succeed, you must put in the effort in rehearsing what you are trying to achieve. Being able to grasp this concept has helped me greatly in life. With, this concept has always been frequent in my life. Not only was practice prevalent in my every day hobbies, like skiing, driving, playing sports, performing everyday tasks, etc. I also learned I must practice to strive to perform my best academically. Without many hours of practicing/rehearsing my study guides, going over my endless amount of work, etc. I would not be where I am today academically.
Looking back at my experiences with rehearsal and practice, I haven’t had to practice or rehearse a speech, but I have had to do practice with cheerleading and rehearsal for a play. From 3rd grade all the way to 8th grade, I had cheer practice everyday in preparation for about 6 cheer competitions as well as football games. Each night we would work on different aspects of the routine, one night was stunts, another night was tumbling, another was multiple run throughs of the whole routine. We continued this 4 times a week until we reached each competition. Another time I had to rehearse was lines for plays. In 5th grade I was in 2 plays, one for a church, another for my school. As a main character in the plays, I had to constantly rehearse and practice my lines, so I didn’t mess up or make a fool of myself in front of a larger crowd. When it comes to those things such as performing, I may succeed in the end, but I have a difficult time while I practice because I would forget my lines a lot of the time as well as get major nerves before performances and play practices. Cheer practices were a lot easier for me because it was choreography, which for me means I don’t have any words or anything to mess up. I can remember movements better than remembering words.
I haven’t done too much presenting overall in my lifetime but the biggest presentation I have ever done was my high school graduation speech. It was incredibly nerve wracking and gave me a lot of anxiety since it was in front of hundreds of people and it carried a lot of weight as it is supposed to be moving and inspirational. I spent a lot of time in the weeks leading up to it writing and rewriting and practicing. For me practicing entailed standing in front of my mirror and presenting it in the exact way that I wanted to when I was doing it in real life. So I would project and use my hands to talk (as that is how I always talk so it was the most natural) and I did my best to not look at the notes I had in front of me. But I also tried to present to small groups ahead of the event. I got together with some close family and friends and gave my speech (projecting, pauses for laughter, and all) over and over again until I felt so comfortable that I felt I barely needed my notes. This allowed me to have less anxiety going into the actual event and let me enjoy the process and the experience in a more authentic way. It was a very important experience for me as it taught me that I can do hard things, I can put myself out of my comfort zone and I can hold a crowds’ attention with my speaking and writing which is a really cool thing to learn about yourself.
I have two experiences when it comes to rehearsing and practicing at something so I can become better at it. The first was during my junior and senior years of high school when I practiced coding with both Javascript and Python so I could get my certifications for both. It took a lot of work and memorizing what you were and weren’t able to do with these different coding languages. We also only had a few months to prepare ourselves for the exam. For my senior year of high school, when I first took the exam I had failed by only 20 points. I worked with my teacher studied coding and tried my best to memorize the functions of each variable. Doing this helped me pass and get my Python Certification. I am very proud of this achievement because I was the only one in my friend group who was able to get the certificate. Going back to practicing and reviewing the material helped me pass the exam and have a better understanding of what I was doing. Even though I do not want to pursue a career in coding, this experience showed me that if I want to have a good performance or outcome I have to work hard and try my best to memorize the material.
When I was a junior in high school, I took a Debate and Rhetoric class where we had to write a few different types of speeches and read them aloud to our class. Our teacher had us do lots of preparation for this, we had to prepare a full script of our speech with notations in it about when we would pause or look up at the audience. That class made me understand that it takes a lot of practice to deliver a speech aside from just writing it. Although, for this first speech we only have to prepare an outline. I will still need to practice reading it numerous times to perform it well. Academically, anytime I must prepare for a test I practice the act of preparation. If I do not prepare/study for enough time, then my performance will reflect that. I also do have some experience with active rehearsal as I did participate in some plays while I was in middle school. To memorize songs or lines you have to continue to read or sing so you can act to the best of your abilities. I predict that as a Pharmacist I will continue to prepare for situations. I will have to prepare medication for patients and my performance would reflect that if I did something wrong or did not double check before I gave a patient their prescription.
In my experience in life, I have had to practice and rehearse for many things in many different formats, whether it be stage production or any live performances. One of the biggest passions I have in my life is acting in film and theater shows put onto stage. Growing up, it always fascinated me because I used to talk to myself a lot because of my social anxiety, and there were times where I pretended to be imaginary people or people that weren’t there because it gave me a sense of joy and adventure, so when I discovered that people actually do these things for a living, it really made me excited and that was something I decided to tackle when I got older. In theater and acting, the only way that you will perfect everything is by practicing and rehearsing everything that you are given. When you are handed a script, the words and scenes that you are looking at become real and jump off the page at you, and it is your job to bring those words to life. I started acting professionally at my schools since I was in Elementary school, I would audition for small plays, study and dissect famous film scenes and observe how actors succeed with the choices they make to bring their role to life. When playing someone you are not, you must think about the choices that character would make in their daily life that YOU yourself wouldn’t make in YOUR daily life. When I started taking acting classes and auditioning for plays in middle school, I started rehearsing daily with a group of trained actors, all of which I thought were better than me. I would stay after school, sometimes until 10 pm at night, looking over my lines and thinking about the acting choices I could make that could make me stand out to an audience and bring my character to life. I practiced my lines by reading them and memorizing certain letter patterns that occurred throughout the script to ensure I could memorize everything to the point that I could practice my lines without looking back at my script. Once that was out of the way, I could focus on getting myself into character more. I would change my actual voice, tone and accent to one I thought matched the character, I would make myself shorter, taller or thinner to match the physique of my character and I would work on certain movements I thought my character would perform. One thing I practiced was pronouncing my words correctly because of my speech impediment and my fast paced talking speed, and that is important because your voice needs to have clarity in it when you perform for an audience. The audience needs to hear and understand you, as well as connect to you because these aren’t just characters in a movie or play, these are also people that you yourself are portraying, and having the ability to make the audience connect to you is a talent only some possess. Preparation and Performance are two things some people may not think go hand in hand, but actually, they both influence each other greatly. In one way, preparation can drastically affect your performance because the more you prepare for your role and performance, the more likely your performance will be actually good and blow your audience away. More practice towards your role will mean that you fully memorize your lines and you will also become your character enough to the point where you forget that your acting and you think you are actually the character. In another way, the more you prepare for a public speaking role, the less anxiety you may have performance wise and the more likely you are to remember your entire speech without stumbling over anything or forgetting anything. On the other hand, performance can drastically effect your preparation in general because the more times you perform a role or a public speaking role, the more experience and exposure you gain, and that makes you more determined and comfortable with these performances. You then gain a lot more motivation to actually want to prepare fully for your next performance. Something I noticed when I was doing acting was that every time I was done with a performance, I felt the urge and need to do it over again with much more preparation involved. You actually want to get better and better after every performance because it is that instinct and adrenaline that kicks in, and that affects your preparation skills in the best way possible. Practice makes perfect and when you truly love doing something, you practice until you make no mistakes, and that is where I got my perfectionist attitude and huge drive from. Thank you for reading.
Practice has always been a big part of my life, as I played three different sports. Since the age of four years old, I have played hockey. I continued to play hockey till my senior year of high school. Hockey takes a lot of practice, not often are you able to find someone who can just start skating without any practice at all. I practiced hockey at least 3 times a week until high school when I started to practice every day. This practice allowed me to learn how to pass the puck, how to shoot on the net, and how to use my body properly to take the puck away. I found that over time as I practiced my performance started to improve, for example, in senior year I doubled the amount of points I had in junior year. My performance really started to peak when I took my practice seriously and started working on specific details that needed to be improved in order to improve my overall performance. Without practicing my performance would not be nearly as good as it was. I needed to practice the little details to improve as a whole player. I have learned that I need to be patient when practicing as it can get frustrating but also to really focus on what I am doing.
I have a lot of experience with practice and rehearsal, both directly and indirectly related to public speaking. For example, when I was in high school, I decided to run for student council. During the elections, each candidate was required to give a speech in front of the whole school. I was nervous, but I sat down with my dad and wrote an outline for a speech. I rehearsed my speech over and over again with him until I felt that I was ready to present it. After a successful speech, I was elected to the student council for my class, and proceeded to do this for all four years I was there. Another time I had success was during sports. Each week for football, I would practice with my teammates to ensure we knew all of our plays and were prepared to play on Friday night. This translated into successful performances each week that helped us break a twenty-two game losing streak and ultimately pushed us into the playoffs that year. I can also look back to last semester during finals week. I was stressed for my upcoming calculus and chemistry finals as they were the hardest of my classes. However, I managed my time wisely and made sure to study hard by reviewing and completing practice tests and problems for both classes. I was happy to receive an A on both final exams before leaving for winter break.
Preparation is the key to nailing any type of performance, whether that is academically, professionally, and or in everyday life. Preparation is like having a roadmap you know where you’re going, and you’ll feel more confident getting to where you need to go when you’re prepared, you can handle surprises and not get thrown off by what comes at you. Additionally, being ready shows that you are able to perform in any aspect, confidently, and without having any doubts. As an athlete preparation is vital to performing well, not only in practices, but in game situations. In sports it’s all about the training strategy and mental game before you play. When you put in the hours, practice your skills and get your head in the right headspace you’re setting yourself up for success. It’s almost like your muscles in your brain, have this muscle memory that’s going on, so when it’s go time, you’re ready to react and make those winning plays that you have practiced before. The more prepared you are, the less stress you’ll be, which will allow you to enjoy the game that you play a lot more.
In my own personal experience it is all about the reps and how much time and effort you put into elevating yourself as a player and as a person. As a collegiate athlete, it’s about having that edge. When you’re prepped you’ve got the physical strength the right techniques and a solid plan to use in all aspects of your sport. It means you work on your weaknesses and you’re ready to take advantage of your strengths. Additionally, being a mentally prepared keeps those pregame nerves in check so that you can be focused and ready to react fast when it counts.
As an athlete, practice is an essential part of everyday life. I have played sports for most of my life and what I liked about it was challenging myself to be better than I was the day before. Practice is how I become better and stay consistent with what I already know. Practicing every day prepares and conditions me for the high-intensity games we play. As a D3 hockey player, it is important to prepare for games not only on but off the ice as well, putting in extra hours to analyze film. Consistency also plays a big role in becoming better. If you aren’t consistent in your effort or the time you put in, you may not get better or see improvements in your game.
I have lots of experience with practice/rehearsal and the relationship that preparation has to performance.
Academically, I have had to prepare for exams, presentations, discussions, etc. I have learned while being at college that classes can go a lot smoother when I am well-prepared for each meeting time. Whether that be reading articles for a class discussion, taking notes on a topic, reading material before it’s gone over in class, etc. Being prepared has helped me be able to achieve better exam grades overall for my classes.
Professionally, the only real experience I would say that I have with it is my waitressing job. Especially when I first started working as a waitress, there were a lot of new things that I needed to learn. My first day I brought home a food and drink menu so that I could start preparing for any questions that customers asked. I also wanted to be able to navigate the menus when needed. When I work in customer service, before I have a shift I would try to mentally and physically prepare myself for it. People can be ruthless, but where I work we learned that the customer’s needs come first! As it should be in customer service.
Athletically, I also have lots of experience with this. I am a student-athlete currently on the Varsity field hockey team as well as the Club Ice Hockey team. I have learned that time management is something that I need to be on top of heavily. Lots of demands come with playing a D3 sport. Not only pressure from your coach but from other factors as well like family and your teammates. Lots of preparation comes with being a student-athlete. We have to be prepared mentally and physically for each practice and game that we have. Our team puts in lots of practice and preparation for each game that we play in. We also have a spring season where all we do is practice! Conditioning, reps, film sessions, and many other ways that my team prepares for the upcoming season.
I feel as though I have a great amount of experience when it comes to both rehearsal and performance. My first reason for thinking this is because I grew up as a competition dancer. This taught me to practice over and over again until the piece is perfect, and then to continue practicing after that. I am used to repetition and taking time out of the day to rehearse, which helps not only with dance numbers but also with speeches. Another reason is because of a class I took in my high school career. The class was called Debate and Rhetoric, which taught me both debating and public speaking. I am used to speaking in front of the class, as well as being able and ready to defend a point I may believe. As well as these first two reasons, I also compete in pageants. This has a very strong stereotype surrounding it, but I am here to promise that there is more to me than big dresses, pretty makeup, and sparkly crowns. I compete against like-minded women, all smart, talented, poised and driven. We compete in an interview portion of competition as well as an onstage question phase. Doing this for five years has taught me to think on my feet and be prepared to answer any question the judges may have. Due to these reasons, I believe I am prepared for the rehearsing and performing this class requires.
Preparation has been invaluable in many of my experiences. I grew up in the world of dance, often spending four to five days a week in the studio. Practice was the key when preparing for the dance recitals. I could never just learn a section of a routine, do it once, and then perform. It takes hours of practice to get the steps down, the technique, and the execution. This is why we spend months preparing for performances and then spend time rehearsing to perform on the stage. Another experience I have with practicing is through my academics. A lot of my classes have required me to spend time going over practice problems to fully grasp the material. This is the same when it comes to studying. I would never succeed as a student if I did not practice. Professionally, I have had experience with practicing for interviews. Preparing for interviews usually involves going through questions that may be asked. I often struggle when asked questions on the spot without being able to think about them first, so it is easier for me to prepare for them. Performances would not be successful without preparation. It may happen, but it might not be done well. With this course, practicing will be crucial when preparing for speeches.
I have had a few experiences with practice and rehearsal, I used to dance classical ballet. From the ages of 4-12, 8 years, I danced. All we did, along with learning techniques and moves, we learned dances. Over and over, every day, we would practice over and over and over until it was perfect, and a hundred times after. So that the second we walked out on the stage, we had the routines down perfectly (well, as well as anyone that age can dance “perfectly”) and with no questioning what came next. I also danced in the Victorian Nutcracker for 5 of the last years I danced, we performed 4-6 shows each winter and prepared for months before performing at Merril Auditorium in Portland in front of 2 thousand people in a packed audience. But because of how much preparation and repetition we had done it was easy and remembering what to do came with no hesitation, 5, 6, 7, 8…I could count on every dance, including all of mine. Knowing everything that was going to happen helped leech the anxiety and nervousness from me, that’s what practice does for performance. And even that young, we were responsible for ourselves (to an extent) once we got to the dressing rooms. I’ve danced in hundreds of shows, in front of countless audiences, but one day it was clear I wouldn’t last. Eventually, I stopped and found other interests, but knowing how much practice and preparation was needed to perform with minimal mistakes has carried over to every other aspect of my life and was an important thing to learn
Journal 2
As a student athlete playing on the basketball team I think preparation is extremely important for performance. I feel this way because if you are not mentally prepared for a practice or even a game you could be the reason your team loses a game or you could get hurt. You could easily get hurt during a game if you don’t stretch and get loose by just going to see the Athletic Trainer. Preparation can be as simple as reading the play book. If you are not prepared and you don’t know the plays or you do not understand what you are doing on defense. If you don’t take preparation seriously it will have an impact in a lot of ways and can affect a lot of people. It’s not just about you. Being unprepared can affect everyone. This can also translate to the academic side of your life. Not being prepared for a test or a class are all things that you need to be prepared for because it could affect you or your overall grade for that class. Studying is a key factor in any class. You can’t just show up and expect to be ready. Preparation should be a part of everyone’s life because it will help you succeed in life and make the most out of every opportunity.
You need to know how to publicly speak as most of us use it every day. It’s a necessary skill that will last you 50-60 years. We use it so we can be heard and have a voice such as voting. Public speaking is a skill that improves with practice that you will not be good at it at first unless you work on it. And how to develop an effective public speaking style to get the message across. Communication skills are both verbal and written. It is a very important skill that everyone should have since it is something we will use forever.
In navigating my college journey, rugby has stood as a focal point, offering profound insights into the interconnection between preparation and performance. The demanding nature of the sport mandates relentless rehearsal and practice, reflecting the same discipline essential for academic and professional achievement.
During middle school, I ventured into public speaking, delivering a speech to the entire school. This experience underscored the significance of thorough preparation, shaping my communication skills and instilling confidence, a foundation proven invaluable in diverse academic and professional arenas.
Beyond rugby and public speaking, my high school years saw me embracing the cricket field. Playing cricket further enriched my understanding of the preparation-performance dynamic. The methodical practice of cricket techniques, strategic teamwork, and adapting strategies to game scenarios parallel the demands of rugby, highlighting the universal importance of consistent rehearsal in varied pursuits.
In sport, training sessions and strategic preparation directly impact our in-game performance, fostering better decision-making under pressure. This parallels my academic endeavors, where consistent preparation through study sessions mirrors the discipline required in sports training. Immersion in academic subjects translates to heightened understanding and improved performance.
In conclusion, my collegiate journey, intertwined with rugby, public speaking, and cricket, underscores the fundamental truth that unwavering rehearsal and practice are linchpins for success. Whether on the sports field, in academic pursuits, or in the professional realm, these experiences have forged a profound appreciation for the transformative power of preparation, creating a robust foundation for peak performance in the intricate tapestry of life.
The relationship between preparation and public speaking is huge. There is no possible way to create an effective, interesting speech without having first prepared. Whether it is practicing the speech several times, editing your own or having somebody else help edit the speech or trying find ways to keep the audience intrigued, or all of them, not taking these actions is detrimental to the professionality and effectiveness as the speech. My personal experience with public speaking has taught me this in several different instances. Probably the most pronounced version of this would be my experience in my high school’s drama club. Memorizing the lines was difficult for me and so was the interpretation of how I though each line should be delivered. Nearly every single time I say the lines out loud, I change them to see what I like the best, what my director likes the best, and how the audiences would react. I also tended to give speeches in grade school when I was with the student council for a few years. I would stumble over my words because they were prewritten speeches that I had no time to read beforehand. Had I gotten time to prepare, I have no doubts that those speeches would have been much cleaner.
Journal 2
Casey Jordan
My Experience With Practice and Rehearsal
I believe that I have a good understanding of the relationship between preparation and performance through playing sports. I have been involved in playing sports since I was five years old and have attended hundreds of practices for the teams I was involved with. As a football player you practice much more than you play, and I have seen the phrase “practice makes perfect” be proven true through myself, and or teammates countless times. Whether it be in the weightroom with the team and achieving a new personal best lift, or on the field watching the play that we have been working on all week score a touchdown. Furthermore, I believe my position as a quarterback understands the importance of practice more so than others. From knowing and reciting playcalls, to understanding and reading defenses, and then actually throwing the ball, it takes a lot of work during my free time if I want to see real improvement. Such as studying the plays, watching film on opponents, and hitting the field with receivers to make sure I have good chemistry and timing with the routes they run. With all of this practice I can say that on a large scale I have seen it increase my performance and growth as an athlete enough to play college football. Furthermore on a smaller scale I have noticed that how seriously you take practice and preparation on a day to day scale, can set a team or person up for success or failure. I believe that through the knowledge and experience I have gained from practicing sports I can better prepare myself as a public speaker. While also applying these lessons to everything I can whether it’s applicable to sports, school or life.
Practice and rehearsal play a crucial role in the outcome of someone’s performance. In my experience, playing sports, practicing everyday was crucial to our field hockey team’s performance. It would be nearly impossible to win games without our 2 hour practices everyday. I think winning games and having a successful season is a direct outcome of the work we put in at practice. The same goes for academics, unless you have prior experience and knowledge in a class you have to put in the time to study and learn the material in order to be successful in the course, in college especially. I believe a lot of students who come to college aren’t ready to have to learn things on their own, however I have found that most of the learning for some courses happens mostly outside of the classroom on my own time. If you are unwilling to spend that time studying and learning on your own then your grades will reflect that. An example of this is the calculus class I was in last semester, to review for the midterm and final we were given a large packet of practice questions to complete on our own. The kids that spent time doing the practice problems, checking answers, and reviewing for the exams did much better than the students who didn’t. This is proof that the outcome or grade you receive is dependent on the quality and amount of practice and work you put in.
With public speaking, I have never had a bad experience and honestly I don’t know if it is a fear I will ever be able to overcome no matter how often I do it, or how much I would like to get over the silliest fear of speaking to people. I have done multiple presentations for classes as well as even taken a public speaking class in middle school but can’t get over my fear no matter how much practice I put into it. Practice to me feels like the most important thing in reference to getting things close to perfect because in reality nothing is ever going to be perfect and I think that is something I really need to remember when it comes to public speaking. Looking into the crowd and thinking to myself that most people in the room are probably having the same fears of making a fool out of themselves as I am. I think practicing your speeches can be a very hit-or-miss kind of thing. For example, some people if they practice their speeches enough they will completely memorize it and feel completely confident in their skills to deliver their speeches. In my case, it is the complete opposite I forgot major parts of my speech as well as do not feel confident once I step foot in front of the crowd I am talking too.
22 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 2”
My whole life I have been a very organized person. I enjoy when everything is perfectly laid out in front of me. I have a lot of practice writing outlines, essays, and speeches. This being said, I’m not the best at practicing them. I tend to be the type of person who just wings it and prays that I’ll remember what I want to say. Over the years of giving presentations and speeches I’ve realized maybe I should start practicing, that’s why I’m taking this class.
Growing up, I went to catholic school so I would read at mass a lot. I remember my mom telling me to read slowly and remember to pause at commas and look at the audience. Every time I give a speech or read out loud I remember this. Through high school I was at a private prep school so I did a lot of projects and speeches. I also had to lead a very spiritual retreat where I gave very emotional talks about my life where I had to try not to cry, that was definitely a building experience3 for me. Overall, I’ve definitely had my fair share of public speaking, but I definitely can get better.
I took this class because I am hoping to improve my public speaking in hopes to better my career in the future. I am a med bio/ pre PA student and being a PA I will need to be able to effectively communicate injuries and when someone needs surgery. I need to be able to cleary explain what is happening and be able to answer on the spot questions. I want to sound like I know what I’m doing and very confident. I’m excited for this class because I think it will really help me in the future.
From ages 3-13 I was a competitive dancer. This brought a lot of rehearsal and constant practice to perfect everything from the rhythm to the dance moves, all while aligning with the people around me to have the best possible outcome. Dancing taught me many lessons, but the largest one it did was the importance of practice. Without practice, and proper preparation, I would not only be letting my teammates down, but also I would be very upset with myself. My dance career was something I took a lot of pride in and it brought a lot of joy to my life, but without the endless hours in the studio, practicing, I would have not achieved the things I did. Furthermore, I learned that to succeed, you must put in the effort in rehearsing what you are trying to achieve. Being able to grasp this concept has helped me greatly in life. With, this concept has always been frequent in my life. Not only was practice prevalent in my every day hobbies, like skiing, driving, playing sports, performing everyday tasks, etc. I also learned I must practice to strive to perform my best academically. Without many hours of practicing/rehearsing my study guides, going over my endless amount of work, etc. I would not be where I am today academically.
Looking back at my experiences with rehearsal and practice, I haven’t had to practice or rehearse a speech, but I have had to do practice with cheerleading and rehearsal for a play. From 3rd grade all the way to 8th grade, I had cheer practice everyday in preparation for about 6 cheer competitions as well as football games. Each night we would work on different aspects of the routine, one night was stunts, another night was tumbling, another was multiple run throughs of the whole routine. We continued this 4 times a week until we reached each competition. Another time I had to rehearse was lines for plays. In 5th grade I was in 2 plays, one for a church, another for my school. As a main character in the plays, I had to constantly rehearse and practice my lines, so I didn’t mess up or make a fool of myself in front of a larger crowd. When it comes to those things such as performing, I may succeed in the end, but I have a difficult time while I practice because I would forget my lines a lot of the time as well as get major nerves before performances and play practices. Cheer practices were a lot easier for me because it was choreography, which for me means I don’t have any words or anything to mess up. I can remember movements better than remembering words.
I haven’t done too much presenting overall in my lifetime but the biggest presentation I have ever done was my high school graduation speech. It was incredibly nerve wracking and gave me a lot of anxiety since it was in front of hundreds of people and it carried a lot of weight as it is supposed to be moving and inspirational. I spent a lot of time in the weeks leading up to it writing and rewriting and practicing. For me practicing entailed standing in front of my mirror and presenting it in the exact way that I wanted to when I was doing it in real life. So I would project and use my hands to talk (as that is how I always talk so it was the most natural) and I did my best to not look at the notes I had in front of me. But I also tried to present to small groups ahead of the event. I got together with some close family and friends and gave my speech (projecting, pauses for laughter, and all) over and over again until I felt so comfortable that I felt I barely needed my notes. This allowed me to have less anxiety going into the actual event and let me enjoy the process and the experience in a more authentic way. It was a very important experience for me as it taught me that I can do hard things, I can put myself out of my comfort zone and I can hold a crowds’ attention with my speaking and writing which is a really cool thing to learn about yourself.
I have two experiences when it comes to rehearsing and practicing at something so I can become better at it. The first was during my junior and senior years of high school when I practiced coding with both Javascript and Python so I could get my certifications for both. It took a lot of work and memorizing what you were and weren’t able to do with these different coding languages. We also only had a few months to prepare ourselves for the exam. For my senior year of high school, when I first took the exam I had failed by only 20 points. I worked with my teacher studied coding and tried my best to memorize the functions of each variable. Doing this helped me pass and get my Python Certification. I am very proud of this achievement because I was the only one in my friend group who was able to get the certificate. Going back to practicing and reviewing the material helped me pass the exam and have a better understanding of what I was doing. Even though I do not want to pursue a career in coding, this experience showed me that if I want to have a good performance or outcome I have to work hard and try my best to memorize the material.
When I was a junior in high school, I took a Debate and Rhetoric class where we had to write a few different types of speeches and read them aloud to our class. Our teacher had us do lots of preparation for this, we had to prepare a full script of our speech with notations in it about when we would pause or look up at the audience. That class made me understand that it takes a lot of practice to deliver a speech aside from just writing it. Although, for this first speech we only have to prepare an outline. I will still need to practice reading it numerous times to perform it well. Academically, anytime I must prepare for a test I practice the act of preparation. If I do not prepare/study for enough time, then my performance will reflect that. I also do have some experience with active rehearsal as I did participate in some plays while I was in middle school. To memorize songs or lines you have to continue to read or sing so you can act to the best of your abilities. I predict that as a Pharmacist I will continue to prepare for situations. I will have to prepare medication for patients and my performance would reflect that if I did something wrong or did not double check before I gave a patient their prescription.
In my experience in life, I have had to practice and rehearse for many things in many different formats, whether it be stage production or any live performances. One of the biggest passions I have in my life is acting in film and theater shows put onto stage. Growing up, it always fascinated me because I used to talk to myself a lot because of my social anxiety, and there were times where I pretended to be imaginary people or people that weren’t there because it gave me a sense of joy and adventure, so when I discovered that people actually do these things for a living, it really made me excited and that was something I decided to tackle when I got older. In theater and acting, the only way that you will perfect everything is by practicing and rehearsing everything that you are given. When you are handed a script, the words and scenes that you are looking at become real and jump off the page at you, and it is your job to bring those words to life. I started acting professionally at my schools since I was in Elementary school, I would audition for small plays, study and dissect famous film scenes and observe how actors succeed with the choices they make to bring their role to life. When playing someone you are not, you must think about the choices that character would make in their daily life that YOU yourself wouldn’t make in YOUR daily life. When I started taking acting classes and auditioning for plays in middle school, I started rehearsing daily with a group of trained actors, all of which I thought were better than me. I would stay after school, sometimes until 10 pm at night, looking over my lines and thinking about the acting choices I could make that could make me stand out to an audience and bring my character to life. I practiced my lines by reading them and memorizing certain letter patterns that occurred throughout the script to ensure I could memorize everything to the point that I could practice my lines without looking back at my script. Once that was out of the way, I could focus on getting myself into character more. I would change my actual voice, tone and accent to one I thought matched the character, I would make myself shorter, taller or thinner to match the physique of my character and I would work on certain movements I thought my character would perform. One thing I practiced was pronouncing my words correctly because of my speech impediment and my fast paced talking speed, and that is important because your voice needs to have clarity in it when you perform for an audience. The audience needs to hear and understand you, as well as connect to you because these aren’t just characters in a movie or play, these are also people that you yourself are portraying, and having the ability to make the audience connect to you is a talent only some possess. Preparation and Performance are two things some people may not think go hand in hand, but actually, they both influence each other greatly. In one way, preparation can drastically affect your performance because the more you prepare for your role and performance, the more likely your performance will be actually good and blow your audience away. More practice towards your role will mean that you fully memorize your lines and you will also become your character enough to the point where you forget that your acting and you think you are actually the character. In another way, the more you prepare for a public speaking role, the less anxiety you may have performance wise and the more likely you are to remember your entire speech without stumbling over anything or forgetting anything. On the other hand, performance can drastically effect your preparation in general because the more times you perform a role or a public speaking role, the more experience and exposure you gain, and that makes you more determined and comfortable with these performances. You then gain a lot more motivation to actually want to prepare fully for your next performance. Something I noticed when I was doing acting was that every time I was done with a performance, I felt the urge and need to do it over again with much more preparation involved. You actually want to get better and better after every performance because it is that instinct and adrenaline that kicks in, and that affects your preparation skills in the best way possible. Practice makes perfect and when you truly love doing something, you practice until you make no mistakes, and that is where I got my perfectionist attitude and huge drive from. Thank you for reading.
Practice has always been a big part of my life, as I played three different sports. Since the age of four years old, I have played hockey. I continued to play hockey till my senior year of high school. Hockey takes a lot of practice, not often are you able to find someone who can just start skating without any practice at all. I practiced hockey at least 3 times a week until high school when I started to practice every day. This practice allowed me to learn how to pass the puck, how to shoot on the net, and how to use my body properly to take the puck away. I found that over time as I practiced my performance started to improve, for example, in senior year I doubled the amount of points I had in junior year. My performance really started to peak when I took my practice seriously and started working on specific details that needed to be improved in order to improve my overall performance. Without practicing my performance would not be nearly as good as it was. I needed to practice the little details to improve as a whole player. I have learned that I need to be patient when practicing as it can get frustrating but also to really focus on what I am doing.
I have a lot of experience with practice and rehearsal, both directly and indirectly related to public speaking. For example, when I was in high school, I decided to run for student council. During the elections, each candidate was required to give a speech in front of the whole school. I was nervous, but I sat down with my dad and wrote an outline for a speech. I rehearsed my speech over and over again with him until I felt that I was ready to present it. After a successful speech, I was elected to the student council for my class, and proceeded to do this for all four years I was there. Another time I had success was during sports. Each week for football, I would practice with my teammates to ensure we knew all of our plays and were prepared to play on Friday night. This translated into successful performances each week that helped us break a twenty-two game losing streak and ultimately pushed us into the playoffs that year. I can also look back to last semester during finals week. I was stressed for my upcoming calculus and chemistry finals as they were the hardest of my classes. However, I managed my time wisely and made sure to study hard by reviewing and completing practice tests and problems for both classes. I was happy to receive an A on both final exams before leaving for winter break.
Preparation is the key to nailing any type of performance, whether that is academically, professionally, and or in everyday life. Preparation is like having a roadmap you know where you’re going, and you’ll feel more confident getting to where you need to go when you’re prepared, you can handle surprises and not get thrown off by what comes at you. Additionally, being ready shows that you are able to perform in any aspect, confidently, and without having any doubts. As an athlete preparation is vital to performing well, not only in practices, but in game situations. In sports it’s all about the training strategy and mental game before you play. When you put in the hours, practice your skills and get your head in the right headspace you’re setting yourself up for success. It’s almost like your muscles in your brain, have this muscle memory that’s going on, so when it’s go time, you’re ready to react and make those winning plays that you have practiced before. The more prepared you are, the less stress you’ll be, which will allow you to enjoy the game that you play a lot more.
In my own personal experience it is all about the reps and how much time and effort you put into elevating yourself as a player and as a person. As a collegiate athlete, it’s about having that edge. When you’re prepped you’ve got the physical strength the right techniques and a solid plan to use in all aspects of your sport. It means you work on your weaknesses and you’re ready to take advantage of your strengths. Additionally, being a mentally prepared keeps those pregame nerves in check so that you can be focused and ready to react fast when it counts.
As an athlete, practice is an essential part of everyday life. I have played sports for most of my life and what I liked about it was challenging myself to be better than I was the day before. Practice is how I become better and stay consistent with what I already know. Practicing every day prepares and conditions me for the high-intensity games we play. As a D3 hockey player, it is important to prepare for games not only on but off the ice as well, putting in extra hours to analyze film. Consistency also plays a big role in becoming better. If you aren’t consistent in your effort or the time you put in, you may not get better or see improvements in your game.
I have lots of experience with practice/rehearsal and the relationship that preparation has to performance.
Academically, I have had to prepare for exams, presentations, discussions, etc. I have learned while being at college that classes can go a lot smoother when I am well-prepared for each meeting time. Whether that be reading articles for a class discussion, taking notes on a topic, reading material before it’s gone over in class, etc. Being prepared has helped me be able to achieve better exam grades overall for my classes.
Professionally, the only real experience I would say that I have with it is my waitressing job. Especially when I first started working as a waitress, there were a lot of new things that I needed to learn. My first day I brought home a food and drink menu so that I could start preparing for any questions that customers asked. I also wanted to be able to navigate the menus when needed. When I work in customer service, before I have a shift I would try to mentally and physically prepare myself for it. People can be ruthless, but where I work we learned that the customer’s needs come first! As it should be in customer service.
Athletically, I also have lots of experience with this. I am a student-athlete currently on the Varsity field hockey team as well as the Club Ice Hockey team. I have learned that time management is something that I need to be on top of heavily. Lots of demands come with playing a D3 sport. Not only pressure from your coach but from other factors as well like family and your teammates. Lots of preparation comes with being a student-athlete. We have to be prepared mentally and physically for each practice and game that we have. Our team puts in lots of practice and preparation for each game that we play in. We also have a spring season where all we do is practice! Conditioning, reps, film sessions, and many other ways that my team prepares for the upcoming season.
I feel as though I have a great amount of experience when it comes to both rehearsal and performance. My first reason for thinking this is because I grew up as a competition dancer. This taught me to practice over and over again until the piece is perfect, and then to continue practicing after that. I am used to repetition and taking time out of the day to rehearse, which helps not only with dance numbers but also with speeches. Another reason is because of a class I took in my high school career. The class was called Debate and Rhetoric, which taught me both debating and public speaking. I am used to speaking in front of the class, as well as being able and ready to defend a point I may believe. As well as these first two reasons, I also compete in pageants. This has a very strong stereotype surrounding it, but I am here to promise that there is more to me than big dresses, pretty makeup, and sparkly crowns. I compete against like-minded women, all smart, talented, poised and driven. We compete in an interview portion of competition as well as an onstage question phase. Doing this for five years has taught me to think on my feet and be prepared to answer any question the judges may have. Due to these reasons, I believe I am prepared for the rehearsing and performing this class requires.
Preparation has been invaluable in many of my experiences. I grew up in the world of dance, often spending four to five days a week in the studio. Practice was the key when preparing for the dance recitals. I could never just learn a section of a routine, do it once, and then perform. It takes hours of practice to get the steps down, the technique, and the execution. This is why we spend months preparing for performances and then spend time rehearsing to perform on the stage. Another experience I have with practicing is through my academics. A lot of my classes have required me to spend time going over practice problems to fully grasp the material. This is the same when it comes to studying. I would never succeed as a student if I did not practice. Professionally, I have had experience with practicing for interviews. Preparing for interviews usually involves going through questions that may be asked. I often struggle when asked questions on the spot without being able to think about them first, so it is easier for me to prepare for them. Performances would not be successful without preparation. It may happen, but it might not be done well. With this course, practicing will be crucial when preparing for speeches.
I have had a few experiences with practice and rehearsal, I used to dance classical ballet. From the ages of 4-12, 8 years, I danced. All we did, along with learning techniques and moves, we learned dances. Over and over, every day, we would practice over and over and over until it was perfect, and a hundred times after. So that the second we walked out on the stage, we had the routines down perfectly (well, as well as anyone that age can dance “perfectly”) and with no questioning what came next. I also danced in the Victorian Nutcracker for 5 of the last years I danced, we performed 4-6 shows each winter and prepared for months before performing at Merril Auditorium in Portland in front of 2 thousand people in a packed audience. But because of how much preparation and repetition we had done it was easy and remembering what to do came with no hesitation, 5, 6, 7, 8…I could count on every dance, including all of mine. Knowing everything that was going to happen helped leech the anxiety and nervousness from me, that’s what practice does for performance. And even that young, we were responsible for ourselves (to an extent) once we got to the dressing rooms. I’ve danced in hundreds of shows, in front of countless audiences, but one day it was clear I wouldn’t last. Eventually, I stopped and found other interests, but knowing how much practice and preparation was needed to perform with minimal mistakes has carried over to every other aspect of my life and was an important thing to learn
Journal 2
As a student athlete playing on the basketball team I think preparation is extremely important for performance. I feel this way because if you are not mentally prepared for a practice or even a game you could be the reason your team loses a game or you could get hurt. You could easily get hurt during a game if you don’t stretch and get loose by just going to see the Athletic Trainer. Preparation can be as simple as reading the play book. If you are not prepared and you don’t know the plays or you do not understand what you are doing on defense. If you don’t take preparation seriously it will have an impact in a lot of ways and can affect a lot of people. It’s not just about you. Being unprepared can affect everyone. This can also translate to the academic side of your life. Not being prepared for a test or a class are all things that you need to be prepared for because it could affect you or your overall grade for that class. Studying is a key factor in any class. You can’t just show up and expect to be ready. Preparation should be a part of everyone’s life because it will help you succeed in life and make the most out of every opportunity.
You need to know how to publicly speak as most of us use it every day. It’s a necessary skill that will last you 50-60 years. We use it so we can be heard and have a voice such as voting. Public speaking is a skill that improves with practice that you will not be good at it at first unless you work on it. And how to develop an effective public speaking style to get the message across. Communication skills are both verbal and written. It is a very important skill that everyone should have since it is something we will use forever.
In navigating my college journey, rugby has stood as a focal point, offering profound insights into the interconnection between preparation and performance. The demanding nature of the sport mandates relentless rehearsal and practice, reflecting the same discipline essential for academic and professional achievement.
During middle school, I ventured into public speaking, delivering a speech to the entire school. This experience underscored the significance of thorough preparation, shaping my communication skills and instilling confidence, a foundation proven invaluable in diverse academic and professional arenas.
Beyond rugby and public speaking, my high school years saw me embracing the cricket field. Playing cricket further enriched my understanding of the preparation-performance dynamic. The methodical practice of cricket techniques, strategic teamwork, and adapting strategies to game scenarios parallel the demands of rugby, highlighting the universal importance of consistent rehearsal in varied pursuits.
In sport, training sessions and strategic preparation directly impact our in-game performance, fostering better decision-making under pressure. This parallels my academic endeavors, where consistent preparation through study sessions mirrors the discipline required in sports training. Immersion in academic subjects translates to heightened understanding and improved performance.
In conclusion, my collegiate journey, intertwined with rugby, public speaking, and cricket, underscores the fundamental truth that unwavering rehearsal and practice are linchpins for success. Whether on the sports field, in academic pursuits, or in the professional realm, these experiences have forged a profound appreciation for the transformative power of preparation, creating a robust foundation for peak performance in the intricate tapestry of life.
The relationship between preparation and public speaking is huge. There is no possible way to create an effective, interesting speech without having first prepared. Whether it is practicing the speech several times, editing your own or having somebody else help edit the speech or trying find ways to keep the audience intrigued, or all of them, not taking these actions is detrimental to the professionality and effectiveness as the speech. My personal experience with public speaking has taught me this in several different instances. Probably the most pronounced version of this would be my experience in my high school’s drama club. Memorizing the lines was difficult for me and so was the interpretation of how I though each line should be delivered. Nearly every single time I say the lines out loud, I change them to see what I like the best, what my director likes the best, and how the audiences would react. I also tended to give speeches in grade school when I was with the student council for a few years. I would stumble over my words because they were prewritten speeches that I had no time to read beforehand. Had I gotten time to prepare, I have no doubts that those speeches would have been much cleaner.
Journal 2
Casey Jordan
My Experience With Practice and Rehearsal
I believe that I have a good understanding of the relationship between preparation and performance through playing sports. I have been involved in playing sports since I was five years old and have attended hundreds of practices for the teams I was involved with. As a football player you practice much more than you play, and I have seen the phrase “practice makes perfect” be proven true through myself, and or teammates countless times. Whether it be in the weightroom with the team and achieving a new personal best lift, or on the field watching the play that we have been working on all week score a touchdown. Furthermore, I believe my position as a quarterback understands the importance of practice more so than others. From knowing and reciting playcalls, to understanding and reading defenses, and then actually throwing the ball, it takes a lot of work during my free time if I want to see real improvement. Such as studying the plays, watching film on opponents, and hitting the field with receivers to make sure I have good chemistry and timing with the routes they run. With all of this practice I can say that on a large scale I have seen it increase my performance and growth as an athlete enough to play college football. Furthermore on a smaller scale I have noticed that how seriously you take practice and preparation on a day to day scale, can set a team or person up for success or failure. I believe that through the knowledge and experience I have gained from practicing sports I can better prepare myself as a public speaker. While also applying these lessons to everything I can whether it’s applicable to sports, school or life.
Practice and rehearsal play a crucial role in the outcome of someone’s performance. In my experience, playing sports, practicing everyday was crucial to our field hockey team’s performance. It would be nearly impossible to win games without our 2 hour practices everyday. I think winning games and having a successful season is a direct outcome of the work we put in at practice. The same goes for academics, unless you have prior experience and knowledge in a class you have to put in the time to study and learn the material in order to be successful in the course, in college especially. I believe a lot of students who come to college aren’t ready to have to learn things on their own, however I have found that most of the learning for some courses happens mostly outside of the classroom on my own time. If you are unwilling to spend that time studying and learning on your own then your grades will reflect that. An example of this is the calculus class I was in last semester, to review for the midterm and final we were given a large packet of practice questions to complete on our own. The kids that spent time doing the practice problems, checking answers, and reviewing for the exams did much better than the students who didn’t. This is proof that the outcome or grade you receive is dependent on the quality and amount of practice and work you put in.
With public speaking, I have never had a bad experience and honestly I don’t know if it is a fear I will ever be able to overcome no matter how often I do it, or how much I would like to get over the silliest fear of speaking to people. I have done multiple presentations for classes as well as even taken a public speaking class in middle school but can’t get over my fear no matter how much practice I put into it. Practice to me feels like the most important thing in reference to getting things close to perfect because in reality nothing is ever going to be perfect and I think that is something I really need to remember when it comes to public speaking. Looking into the crowd and thinking to myself that most people in the room are probably having the same fears of making a fool out of themselves as I am. I think practicing your speeches can be a very hit-or-miss kind of thing. For example, some people if they practice their speeches enough they will completely memorize it and feel completely confident in their skills to deliver their speeches. In my case, it is the complete opposite I forgot major parts of my speech as well as do not feel confident once I step foot in front of the crowd I am talking too.