VACUUM IV: Training for the Void (MENTAL) (Patreon)

MENTAL CONDITIONING: 

It's not quite so simple to separate 'mental training' from 'physical training'. If you tuned into the HRV and Nervous System Optimization workshop I did on Crowdcast with the epicly awesome Jen Crane (@cirque_physio on IG) last month, you may already be familiar with this topic. But if you didn't ...
Conditioning yourself mentally is additionally a kind of physiological skill acquisition process. So much of our nervous system response to external and internal stimuli is automatic, but there's still a reason why sport psychology is such a massive and important aspect of high level athletics:
Where the mind goes, the body follows.
When you train yourself to be mentally disciplined – to remain calm under pressure – you're engaging in a kind of nervous system regulation.

Mental training is always part of the big picture. And the opportunity to train your mindset is hiding everywhere, if you're looking for it.

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Going inside the tower for the first time made my heart climb up into my throat so fast that I immediately questioned the sanity of my creative decisions. 
This first experience being vacuumed in was manageable enough: the vacuum was being operated by Doug Harrison (of Kink Engineering) and his partner, Marika (the fabricator, also of Kink Engineering and general Latex Expert), was standing right there next to him; having experts in the room always helps with confidence. Additionally, I was in an upright position – an 'easy' or 'rest' position, as I've come to think of it now.

Things have started increasing in difficulty as I carefully explore more and more shapes that have absolutely no business being attempted inside a vacuum tower (handstands, backbends, bridges ... you name it).
Not only is there the distraction of,
Am I safe? Is my airway clear here? The walls are closing, where's the breathing tube? Is it getting kinked or squished? No? Okay. Where's my neck? Is a body part going to cross against my neck? Is this squeezing too tight? What position is my head in? Is my neck going to get cranked to the side in a second? Aw shit the tube is going to just get shoved against my gums in this position, too late to change now...
But there are also the artistic considerations of,
Does this shape look like anything from the outside? Where am I in the volume? How much of my body is showing and hidden? Are my legs at the front or the back* (*it's already disorienting to be upside down, but something about the inside of the tower makes it even more exaggerated)? Is my foot pointed? Are my legs even? Oh no don't move quickly, this has to be a slow transition. Oh my god my arms are fatiguing like crazy. Okay hold on you have to get out of the shape now. Where are your feet? Keep them pointed. No toenails against the latex. Don't rip the latex. Don't fall. Don't crash. Keep your limbs inside the roller coaster at all times ...

There is a lot happening at once.

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Specifically in regards to the VACUUM project, I've accumulated quite a wide range of specific and nonspecific skills that made this idea tip over into the realm of "yes, I think I can do this" (from the realm of "abso-***-ing-lutely not"):

To begin with, I'm not claustrophobic.
I've been covered in many layers of prosthetic makeup applications that smother the entirety of my skull to play monsters and creatures on TV. Sometimes it starts to feel a little dicey in the makeup chair, but I'm able to calm my breathing and heart-rate and ride out the moments that feel panicky in these situations.   
My work in film has largely been a stunt performer and stunt actor. I think the external perception of working in stunts is that every single day is car hits, fire burns, high falls, and general Jackie-Chan-level-badassery.
I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that this is generally not the case.
If you're on the stunt team for a big Marvel movie down the in States, maybe this is what your daily grind looks like (I wouldn't know) ... But if you're working on the odd TV episode or a feature film or two that rolls through Toronto, this generally isn't the case.
One of my absolute favourite stuntwomen once remarked to me at work that if you're not scared of what you're doing, you're an idiot. The difference after that, when it comes to stunts, is whether or not you're dumb enough / brave enough to do it despite being scared shitless. I am likely some kind of combination of those last two adjectives, and there has still been enough moments in my relatively short, unimpressive stunt career where I've had to do a stunt that scares the shit out of me.  
First of all, if I'm not holding onto a wrist loop (i.e. aerial straps) or similar apparatus, or doing wire work, or stunt rigging and clipped on in some way in a harness, and you want me to be very high up in the air?  Terrified.  I am not cut out to be a high fall specialist.  Luckily, there's lots of other people who enjoy that job.  
Some days you go to work thinking you're going to do one stunt, and then for a series of reasons it ends up being a completely different stunt that you're asked to do.
Like thinking you're going to do a big six or seven-storey wire descend, but then the crane won't fit behind the building and they decide to do it 'old-school', so, suddenly you're perched on a 45-degree angle roof on the third storey, trying not to slip off before they roll camera, looking down at the entire film crew and director and knowing that choking is not an option if you ever, ever, ever want to work again.  
Or – completely nothing to do with heights – you might show up to work one day expecting to do a horse-related stunt that falls within your zone of "I'm confident I have the skills to execute this with relative safety", and then it ends up being, "Oops, sorry, we didn't tell you that you're doing this bareback gallop also with no reins, with your hands bound, and with a bag over your head. Oh, and another guy behind you on the same horse. Have fun!"
It happens.  
While the moments of anticipation leading up to these situations might be unpleasant, part of what makes it possible to get through the day safely and sanely is being ready to mentally adapt on the fly.

In most recent years, I've started SCUBA diving. My dive partner, Tig Fong, is an experienced Rescue Diver with over 400 dives; this means that if I want to go diving, I'm often going diving in places that maybe are a touch bit too challenging for my experience level. Nonetheless, we go, we dive, and don't die. Is it scary? Sometimes. Am I obsessively checking my gear for depth and oxygen at all times when we're something like 110 ft below with hammerhead sharks cruising around? You bet.  I'm a strong swimmer and was a lifeguard, but when you're 60 or 70 ft underwater with a tank strapped to your back and air pressure and the bends to worry about, it's a very different feeling ... But does it always end up ok? Yes.  You do not have the option of freaking out that far underwater. If anything did happen, it wouldn't go well for you.  Freaking out uses oxygen.  Freaking out takes up too much space in your brain that could be used to try to quickly find a way out of the situation you're in.  Freaking out is unacceptable.  

Long before I ever strapped a SCUBA tank to my back, I had a career in Muay Thai. This was the realm in which I actively began seeking out how to train myself to be tougher mentally for both training and competition scenarios.
In training, I was most often sparring with men who were far heavier, far taller, and far more experienced than me. While this was mostly fine, there were periods that I would cycle in and out of where I would be having a borderline panic attack at the idea of stepping between the ropes and putting my fists up on a random training day. This was obviously not conducive to good training, which in turn was messing with my ability to properly prepare for competition, so I had to start looking at ways to calm my mind and instil confidence in myself before I walked through the door of the gym. Those habits saw me through many successful fights, and slowly worked their way into a kind of baseline attitude for the rest of my life, even after I stopped fighting.
Calm confidence lets you hold onto physiological states that are ideal for whatever you are trying to accomplish.
Calm confidence helps keep your mind clear and prepared.
Calm confidence is where it's at.

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Between SCUBA, Muay Thai, and stunt work, I've built up years of experience (a) evaluating the level of risk in a situation, (b) arming myself with the knowledge or training to mitigate risks, (c) adapting rapidly in a given situation for when things inevitably change, and – for better or for worse – (d) held onto that certain je ne sais quoi of "you want to hire me to do WHAT? .... Yeah, sure, why not."

More and more in rehearsal, my mind becoming occupied by what I would say are more familiar thought patterns for creation: ugh that looked bad; that transition was rough; shit I forgot to do ____; etc.

Really, this is a very good thing: as my body physically adapts to the demands of the vacuum tower as a circus apparatus, it takes up less mental space for me to know (roughly) where my body needs to move within the volume; as I become more and more familiar with the sounds and sensations that I must be aware of for both choreography and safety cues, I can 'turn down the volume' on the safety considerations that I'm always keeping in the back of my mind.

Soon enough, the thing to be guarding against will be negative creation talk, rather than the don't freak out, don't freak out, don't freak out talk.



Until next time, 

xx. 

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