This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Focal Dystonia, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is written to address the problems of focal dystonia and poor technique in musical performance. What would have to happen for a performing musician with focal dystonia to be free of focal dystonia?
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
I’m writing this ebook from the perspective that focal dystonia is usually not a pathology. I’m not saying that there aren’t cases where there are neurological problems, but what if focal dystonia is a collection of bad postural, tension, and technique habits that cause the fingers to go out of control, and what if there was a way to release the effects of focal dystonia.
A few years ago I was working with a couple of teen age boys who came to me with dysgraphia. Dysgraphia is a loss of your ability to write, to control a pencil. My sense is that dysgraphia and focal dystonia are two very similar things that happen to the hands, that make you feel you have no control over your hands. I discovered with these two boys that they held onto the pencil with incredible tension. When I got them to learn to do the minimum muscularly to hold onto the pencil and sit with balanced posture, both of them very quickly stopped experiencing dysgraphia and were able to write. They were both very intense kids. I have a strong feeling that most of the performing musicians experiencing focal dystonia practice a great deal, are very intense performers, and probably many are perfectionists.
As an Alexander Technique teacher I’ve had success with helping performing musicians become free of focal dystonia, but all of the performers I helped were willing to let go of postural, technical, and attitudinal habits that created intense pressure and pain and strain to their bodies and minds. The whole body contributes to focal dystonia, and it takes the whole body to be free of it. This ebook goes into great detail to solve the problems of focal dystonia.
I bring to this ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Focal Dystonia, my 20 years as a certified Alexander Technique teacher, who solved his own hand problems on the classical guitar, with an Alexander Technique teacher before becoming an Alexander Technique teacher. When I went to an Alexander Technique teacher with carpal tunnel syndrome on the guitar, I wanted to get out of physical trouble as soon as I could. And I did! It is this experience as a hurting guitarist that I never forgot. After I finished my Alexander Technique training, it is this remembered pain and fear of having to stop playing and performing that I bring to my writing and teaching about focal dystonia. It makes it possible for me to write clearly about the physical problems that a performer creates in his or her body.
The ebook is very concise and detailed about how to approach and solve the problem of focal dystonia in a way that makes playing kind to the body. I do not hold back any information that you could only get from an Alexander Technique teacher. This ebook stands alone as a guide to healing your involuntary movements, pain, strain, and injuries, and it also enhances any work you do with an Alexander Technique teacher.
