Pre-Race Anxiety.You've been ready for a while. Now it gets to actually start.

The wait in the start block drags on, your pulse is racing, your stomach's turning. And your training is done. Your body can do exactly what it's supposed to.

What it is

Pre-race anxiety is the tension that comes up in the minutes before competition and grows stronger the closer the signal gets. It has nothing to do with your skill. It's an alarm reaction in your nervous system. Often it drops the instant the gun goes off. The agony lives in the before.

Sound familiar?

The night before competition, you lie awake counting the hours to the start.

In the start block you feel queasy, while everyone else looks completely calm.

You've already been to the bathroom three times, and it doesn't help.

The moment the gun fires, it's gone, and you run your race.

Right before, all you want to do is bail, even though you've trained for weeks for this.

Why more of the same won't fix it.

In the minutes before the start, your nervous system reads the situation as a threat and flips to alarm. Racing heart, shallow breath, shaky knees, none of that is in your head, that's your body in flight mode. No extra training breaks down that reaction, because it has nothing to do with your preparation. It runs on a track that intervals never touch.

This fear isn't something you can talk yourself out of. It sits in your body, in a spot that tightens, flutters, or gets heavy before the start. That's exactly where the session works, at the felt address of the block.

The way out: one session.

Find your desired feeling

We start with the feeling you want carrying you at the start. For a lot of people it's calm, solid ground under your feet, a clear yes to going, felt in your heart space. That feeling becomes your lighthouse for the start block.

Locate the block, don't explain it

Then you locate where the fear sits in your body. No need to explain it or justify it, just point: where does it get tight when you picture the countdown? Your body finds the spot on its own. Your Guide only asks where, and stays right beside you.

Release it and anchor it for 40 days

In the session, the block releases at that spot. To make sure the calm is there on race day too, you anchor it for 40 days with the app, morning and evening, about 90 seconds each time. Two short sessions a day, until your nervous system files the start away as safe.

session

days of anchoring

times telling your story

Common questions.

Why is the before worse than the race itself?

Because your nervous system sees the biggest threat in the waiting: lots of time, lots of mental movies, no action. The moment you can actually run, your body has a job to do and the alarm drops. That's why the tension often flips right when the gun goes off. The block lives in the before, and that's exactly where we work.

Do I have to talk about anything?

No. You don't have to tell where the start anxiety comes from, and you don't have to go through old competitions. The session works through the body, through locating the spot. Talking is only needed to name the spot, nothing more.

Is one session enough before competition?

Yes, the release happens in one session. Time it so the 40 days with the app can run their course before your next start. Then the calm is trained in and ready when you're standing in the start block.

Is this mental training or therapy?

It's neither. FIVE MOVES is its own body-based method. Mental training relies on visualizing, therapy relies on processing the past, this session goes straight to the physical spot of the block. It grew out of roughly 1,000 sessions, and today it's carried by more than 40 Guides in five countries.