I've just finished a full summer camp season, with 4 week-long camps in
just under 8 weeks and some home-town gigs in between. I feel pretty
wrung out. I've also had seasons when I overbooked and had a big
concentration of local gigs (11 gigs and a weekend, plus a pile of
performance rehearsals, in 8 weeks) that left me similarly pooped. I've
carefully booked the upcoming season to leave myself more down time, and
it's helping a lot. No more than one gig a weekend, with occasion
weeknights.
My question is for the other callers who call a lot, especially if you
travel to do it. What sorts of things to you do to take care of
yourself when your schedule is really intense? How do you keep your
calling fresh, and your attitude good? Do you have any personal
routines that help you focus? Aside from the fact that what we're doing
is mountains of fun, it's also a lot of work and takes careful
concentration and preparation. There's a local square dance caller who
does something like 320 gigs a year. I need to ask him sometime how he
does it, but he's always moving too fast to engage in conversation.
Maybe this is one of those questions that falls too far toward the
"advanced" end of the discussion spectrum. I don't know. But it's one
I'd love to hear from other hard-working callers about.
Kalia