On the bayfm radio show “Tonight, Under the Sakura Tree” (every Wednesday 24:00-24:30) broadcast on Wednesday, December 23, 2020.
Miyawaki Sakura: First, from radio name Ponko.
Listener email: Hello, I’m a high school senior and a fan of Saku-chan.
I’m about to take my university entrance exams, and when I think about the day of the exam, I get really nervous and unsure of myself.
Saku-chan, do you ever feel nervous and anxious?
And how did you overcome it?
I’d love to hear a message of support if you don’t mind.
I love Saku-chan. I’ll always be your fan.
Miyawaki Sakura: Ah, when I was in elementary school, didn’t we have a time when someone would come to do a play at school and we’d all watch it together? There was something like that at my school.
So, I was taking musical lessons at that time and I wanted to be on stage, so after the performance, my teacher gave me a special opportunity to talk to the actress who was performing there.
She asked me if there was anything I wanted to ask her, so I asked her, “What should I do when I’m nervous?”
She said, “It’s good to be nervous, but it’s not good to feel anxious.”
She said, “So keep practicing until you get rid of your anxiety, and going on stage feeling anxious and nervous is completely different from going on stage feeling nervous but thinking that it’s okay because I’ve practiced so much.”
From that moment on, I learned that practice is really important.
So, although it might be a different story from taking an exam, I think it’s better to study until you feel confident, and everyone gets nervous, so rather than taking the exam without confidence, I think if you keep studying until you feel confident and work hard enough to think that you’ll be okay because you’ve done this much, you’ll definitely get good results.
For us too, the scariest thing is to go on stage feeling anxious.
It’s not that we’re worried about what to do because we haven’t practiced at all.
So to make sure that doesn’t happen we practice a ton, and of course we get nervous, but we go on stage with the feeling that, “We’ve practiced so much, so come and watch us!” So, although it’s ok to get nervous as much as you want
I think it’s important to make an effort not to get anxious.