After reading this article (gift link) and delighting in reporting about Beyonce’s pre-stage turkey sandwich (makes sense really!), the author Michael Connelly listening to the same jazz saxophonist, and seeing how many of you clicked on our past post about preparing for trainings – I thought I would share a few of my own warm-up rituals. . . and ask you for yours!
Before In-Person Teaching:
- Apply make-up while drinking coffee, in a bathrobe, BUT with my teaching clogs on. Hey, it works! Then I get dressed and snap on my fanny pack, and The Together Lady is ready to go.
- Snap a selfie of my teaching dress (I have exactly two, different colors) and send to my husband. This lets me center myself on my family.
- Triple check I have approximately 15 cords and wires needed for various tech connections. This calms my preparation nerves, and I say, “The more planned you are, the more flexible you can be!”
Teaching dress selfies go to Dr. Together every time.
Before Online Teaching:
- Okay, this one is super odd, but I turn off my entire computer set up for ten minutes and tell my computer, “It’s time to rest now.” There, I said it.
- Have my teaching team log in 30 minutes early so we can chit-chat, allowing me to warm myself up for an audience, and plan the pre-class question to put myself in my participants’ shoes.
- Make an iced oat milk latte (Grady’s chicory concentrate for the win!) and place on the black bear coaster to the right of my teaching station.
All of these ensure I’m headed into the space loose and comfortable for my afternoons of teaching.
My online teaching set up, currently in it’s “resting” stage.
Before Writing or Deeper Work:
- This one is probably not a ritual, and more procrastination, but I usually find I do at least one organizing task before I can settle in. This week it was changing my computer’s wallpaper to a cute May calendar.
- Set the Forest app for 25 minutes of identified deeper work with a very specific outcome.
- Turn on an instrumental movie soundtrack with headphones. It is important to me that the music doesn’t have words since I write words for a living.
Before a Triathlon or Open Swim
- Give myself a second-person pep talk, like “Maia, you have done this before. You can do it again. Race your own race. Also, don’t get a flat tire or leaky googles, but if you do, you can always quit.” Literally, that is my pep talk.
- Envision the meal I will have after the race. Usually it is a pizza and the images stay in my head as I paddle through open water.
- Follow my timeline for the time before the race when I’m waiting for it to start. There are lots of things to do like body marking, putting on the timing chip, checking goggles, labeling bike helmet, etc. that adrenaline can make it easy to forget. Having it all written down helps me settle in.
What about you? Any warm-up rituals? The weirder, the better.
