Performance and Occasion

How a person performs is greatly effected by the occasion in which they are performing. Someone could be giving the same or similar performance but because of the setting or the audience, they could change or alter their performance to fit the occasion.

This reminds me of the many basketball games I have played in my life and how the occasion usually and hopefully fits the performance. In sport, the saying, "rising to the occasion" is big. This means when players are playing in a really important game or match they play better than usual and rise to the occasion. I feel I have done this is certain games and have stepped up my play in order to win the "big" game. I may not have played so well if the occasion wasn't so important.

Also, speech and discourse has a lot to do with occasion. How someone gives a speech and the content of the speech, in other words the performance, is greatly effected by the occasion. For example, our head women's basketball coach here at Clemson, Coach Coleman, gives a lot of speeches, but depending on the occasion, they differ. When she is talking to us, the team, before a game or practice, she is trying to inspire us and get us pumped up for what we are about to do. However, we had a booster club meeting the other day and she gave a speech to our boosters. In this speech she was not trying to pump them up but rather inform them about this year's team and persuade them to come out to games a support us. Coach's speech's are not my own but I hear them almost every day and therefore I see how performance and occasion effect each other greatly.