The Art of Losing: more insights and advice from three of our biggest winners on how they turn defeat into positives – Part 2

We continue and conclude our conversation with three of the world’s most successful competing pipers about their techniques and mental tricks to turn defeat into a winning proposition.

• Ben Duncan of Edinburgh has featured regularly at the top of solo piping prize lists throughout competitions in Scotland, including the major gatherings. He retired from a distinguished military career last year at the age of only 33, and is now a full-time piping instructor at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh.
• Bruce Gandy is one of the winningest pipers in the world. The top prizes on his resume include both Highland Society of London Gold Medals, the Senior Piobaireachd at Oban (twice), the Bratach Gorm (twice), the Silver Star MSR at Inverness, and just about everything there is to win in North America. His book Performance: Delivering Your Own Awesome delves into, among many other things, coping with losing and converting negatives to positives. He lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
• Jenny Hazzard is one of the world’s top solo pipers with numerous awards to her credit, including the Silver Medal at the Northern Meeting. She’s a member of reigning World Champions Field Marshal Montgomery, and has competed with several other Grade 1 bands during her three-decade career. She lives in Edinburgh.

In Part 1, they tackled the difficult discussion on confronting loss in competition. In Part 2, they see the humourous and serious sides of what we competing pipers and drummers do, often several times in one day, trying and hoping to be first but almost always being . . . not first.

We hope you enjoy Part 2:

Our thanks to Ben Duncan, Bruce Gandy and Jenny Hazzard for taking the time to share their thoughts and advice on how they have managed the challenges of competition to still win so frequently.

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