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Hey First name / Friend! 
 
Alex Honnold is quite possibly one of the most remarkable athletes alive. 
 
If you’ve seen or heard about Free Solo, you know it’s a documentary about his ascent, with no ropes, climbing up the side of El Capitan in Yosemite. I (Tiffany here) honestly can’t even fathom this. The documentary won an Oscar. If you’re scared of heights, I recommend watching it with your hands partially over your face. 😰
 
Honnold has become known as some sort of fear-free freak of nature. But… I was listening to him talk to Adam Grant on the Re:Thinking Podcast last week and he said something that was REALLY interesting to me. 
 
He said… I don’t think I’m immune to fear at all. Instead, I think I’m acutely aware of fear. I’m acutely aware of when to take my fear response seriously.
 
And I had this really emotionally impactful moment as I listened. When likening this to performance anxiety or doing anything hard, Honnold teaches us to ask a very important question: 
 
Are we doing a good enough job of vetting our fear response?
 
Read more about this on the blog this week 👇 
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// CLARINET!! // 
 
Last week we made a post about recording yourself… are you doing that? We all know recording ourselves is VITALLY IMPORTANT for improvement. But it can be a bit overwhelming to listen back. You hear all these things you need to improve. You start being overly critical. And then you don’t really work on changing the things you heard that you could absolutely change. Or maybe you listen and you’re like …. What am I even listening for? 
 
CHALLENGE TIME! 
What if this week you promised to record yourself for 3 minutes each time you practiced and then listen back to ONE thing at a time as objectively as you can? Pick one or two of the categories below and write down every observation you can, only focusing on one each time you listen back.
 
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1. Pick a 3 min or less passage 
2. Record each time you practice the rest of the week
3. Listen back by isolating one element of your playing 
4. Jot down your observations 
5. Pick a thing to work on next practice session 
 
:|| every day! 

And - don’t forget to ask yourself what sounds GOOD about these, too! 💜
 
Much love, 
 
Tiffany & Ixi 
 
 
TL;DR? Read about Alex Honnold, a super human and what his take on fear has to do with you, and record yourself this week + isolate what you're listening for when you listen back. 
 
 

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