20 Years Later, I Still Get Nervous Before Competitions

This month marks 20 years since the first time I stepped onto a competition floor. Twenty years. Two decades of training, competing, coaching, judging, winning, losing, learning, and evolving.

And yes… I still get nervous. A lot.

I think this surprises people. There is this common belief in the dance world that nerves disappear once you become experienced. Once you have competed enough, won enough, coached enough, or judged enough.

But that is not how competition works.

Competition Is Exposure

You spend weeks, or sometimes months, preparing. You invest time, money, energy, sacrifice, and emotional bandwidth.

You train. You rehearse. You obsess over details. And then one day, you walk onto the floor and essentially say:

Of course that feels vulnerable. Of course that creates pressure. And of course that creates anxiety.

This Morning It Hit Me

This morning, after teaching my competition bootcamp and coaching two of my athletes, something suddenly hit me.

Euroson is exactly five months away.

Five months.

The moment I realized that, I felt a wave of anxiety. Immediately. Not panic, but definitely anxiety.

That familiar feeling many competitors know very well. The mental spiral starts:

I know that spiral. Very well.

But here is what is different now compared to 20 years ago: I no longer expect anxiety to magically disappear. Instead, I know what to do with it.

The Real Problem Is Usually Not Fear

Most dancers think competition anxiety comes from fear. Sometimes it does. But in my experience, competition anxiety usually comes from something deeper:

Your brain hates not knowing where you stand, what is weak, what needs work, what matters most, and whether your current training is enough.

That uncertainty creates mental noise. And mental noise creates anxiety.

A Message From One Of My Athletes

Later that same day, one of my athletes messaged me. She told me she had not recorded herself yet because she felt nervous, frustrated, and did not like watching herself dance.

And honestly? I understood exactly what she meant.

I told her:

She could not believe it. But it is true. Twenty years later, I still feel nerves.

The Goal Is Not To Eliminate Anxiety

This is where most competitors misunderstand the process. They think the goal is to stop feeling nervous.

That is not the goal.

The goal is to stop letting anxiety control your process.

Anxiety does not disappear with magic. It does not disappear because you wait to feel ready. It decreases when uncertainty becomes clarity.

And clarity comes from systems.

This Is Why I Built Trophy Roadmap

This is exactly why I built Trophy Roadmap. Originally, I built it to help my athletes train more intelligently: to stop guessing, to stop spiraling, and to stop wasting time.

Today, I used that same system on myself. I opened Trophy Roadmap and ran my own diagnostic.

And I immediately found something uncomfortable:

Not one. So I went back to basics.

I broke my choreography into sections, analyzed each segment, and identified technical demands, weak areas, performance gaps, skill limitations, and training priorities.

And almost immediately, my anxiety started dropping. Why? Because uncertainty was turning into clarity.

The higher the uncertainty, and the lower the clarity, the higher the anxiety.

But when you increase clarity and strategy, anxiety decreases. That does not mean the nerves disappear. It means they stop controlling you.

Still Nervous. But Now With A System.

Twenty years later, I still get nervous. I still feel pressure. I still doubt myself sometimes.

But now I have something I did not have 20 years ago: a system, a process, and a roadmap.

I know what to do next. And that makes all the difference.

That is why I have decided to document my journey leading up to Euroson. No filters. The nerves, the training, the strategy, the setbacks, the breakthroughs. Everything.