Coping under pressure: Reflections on presenting at the 2025 IADMS Conference
Last week I had the pleasure of presenting my poster, Coping Under Pressure: Attentional Focus and Performance Anxiety in Pre-Professional Dance Training, at the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science (IADMS) annual conference. It was my first time sharing this project at an international level, and the experience was both energising and affirming - not just for the research itself, but for the sense of community and shared curiosity that makes dance science such a dynamic field.
Preparing to present
When I submitted my abstract months ago, I had imagined the poster as a compact version of my data and findings. What I hadn’t anticipated was how much thought would go into shaping the story behind the numbers. Turning a research paper into a visual narrative required asking: what’s the one message I want people to remember when they walk away? For me, that message was simple: how we direct attention under pressure - internally or externally - can shape a dancer’s experience of performance anxiety.
Creating the e-poster was an exercise in clarity and restraint. I wanted the visuals to communicate the key relationships between coping skills, attentional focus, and performance anxiety without overwhelming the viewer. The data showed that dancers who focused internally (on their body or technique) experienced greater concentration disruption than those who adopted an external focus (on artistry or the effect of the movement). Importantly, dancers with weaker coping skills seemed to benefit most from an external focus - suggesting that how we train attention might be as important as how we train the body.
The presentation experience
The conference’s e-poster format meant I had seven minutes to present, followed by three minutes for questions. It sounds brief, but those seven minutes are surprisingly expansive when you know your material intimately. I aimed to make the session conversational - not simply walking through results, but drawing connections to the lived experience of dancers and teachers.
I began by situating the study within performance psychology: what we know from sport science about attentional focus, and how that knowledge hasn’t yet been fully integrated into dance pedagogy. From there, I described the study design - 29 pre-professional students and 8 teachers from six pre-professional dance schools in the UK - before walking through the main findings and their implications for training.
What surprised me was how receptive and engaged the audience was. Many dance science professionals already recognise the importance of psychological skills, but attentional control is often assumed rather than explicitly taught. Teachers approached me afterwards to say that the distinction between internal and external focus had made them reconsider the way they give corrections or feedback in class. That, for me, was the most gratifying outcome: seeing the research spark reflection in practitioners.
Engaging with the questions
The Q&A that followed was as stimulating as the presentation itself. Questions turned towards pedagogy: if teachers traditionally emphasise internal focus, is that a cultural legacy or a conscious choice? My answer - that it’s both - opened up a rich discussion about how dance training has inherited certain assumptions from its classical roots, often without re-examining them in light of current psychological research. Some attendees shared examples of how they’re experimenting with external focus cues in their own teaching, such as imagery, metaphor, or audience simulation. It felt like a genuine dialogue between research and practice.
Personal reflections
Presenting at IADMS was not only a professional milestone but also a personal learning experience. Standing beside my poster, I realised how much confidence comes from knowing your data inside out - but also how much connection comes from telling a story that others can relate to. Other delegates approached me to share their own experiences of performance anxiety as dancers or teachers, and those conversations reminded me that research in dance science ultimately serves a deeply human purpose: helping dancers perform, create, and thrive.
It was also inspiring to see how multidisciplinary the field has become. Talks ranged from biomechanics and injury prevention to cognition, pedagogy, and identity. The boundaries between disciplines are softening, allowing richer, more holistic conversations about what it means to support dancers physically and psychologically.
Closing thoughts
Presenting at IADMS reaffirmed something I’ve long believed: that effective dance training isn’t just about physical mastery, it’s about cognitive and emotional agility. Teaching dancers what to focus on, and how to recover mentally under pressure, may be as transformative as teaching them steps or shapes.
If I had to summarise the takeaway from both my research and the conference experience, it would be this: to help dancers thrive under pressure, we must train not only their bodies, but their minds.
