This ebook, Going for It in Musical Performance: Alexander Technique Guidelines and Other Considerations, is published in a PDF format. It is written to give all performing musicians deep insights into the beliefs and bad habits that performers have that can end careers with pain, strain, tension, and injuries.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
WHEN YOU FINALLY BECOME AWARE OF WHY YOU ARE HAVING SO MUCH HURTING AND PAIN ON YOUR INSTRUMENT OR IN YOUR SPORT, MAKING THE CHANGES CAN BE EASY, RATHER THAN HARD. IT IS THE NOT KNOWING WHY YOU’VE BEEN STRUGGLING, THAT SETS UP THE BELIEF THAT CHANGE IS HARD.
What do I mean?
I’m not talking here about the technique or postural habits that are causing the increasing injury and pain. I’m talking about how unconscious you may be about the fact that your technique and posture in a sport or on an instrument is harming your body.
Again, what do I mean?
There is a very gradual process of injury when practicing an instrument or training for sport with poor technique and body use that is slowly accumulative.
When what you’re doing is harmful to the body in the sport or on the instrument, but your focus is so much on mastery, then you may not feel that you are beginning to hurt.
FROM THE GET GO ON YOUR CHOSEN INSTRUMENT OR CHOSEN SPORT YOU ARE ALREADY NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE PAIN, WHAT IS HAPPENING TO YOUR BODY.
Thank about this! It means you are damaging your body for the sake of mastery, because you are using bad technique and bad posture, and you’ve chosen to live in denial you are paying an accumulating huge price to do what you enjoy.
Here are two reasons here that cause you to continue down the line eventually crippling yourself.
The first is the incredibly accepted belief pain is a given when you master something.
NO PAIN NO GAIN!
This is universally accepted, not because it’s true, but because most people master an instrument or sport with poor technique and body use, so it appears wear and tear unto damaged is inevitable.
The second reason is that the athlete or performing musician is taught poor technique and posture by coaches and teachers who impart unto the student they really know what they’re doing, when they don’t.
It is the music teacher or sports coach who gets the student to believe they know what their doing, that really makes it hard for the hurting musician or athlete to question their pain.
SO, THE IGNORED PAIN GETS DRIVEN EVEN DEEPER INTO THE SUBCONSCIOUS BY THE STUDENT OR ATHLETE.
This is why a performing musician or athlete who comes to me, an Alexander Technique teacher, to get them out of trouble is usually near having to quit the sport of instrument because of intolerable pain.
In closing, I want to circle back to the title of this essay.
WHEN YOU PUSH YOUR PAIN DOWN, AS YOU PARTICIPATE IN A SPORT OR PLAY A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT, OR SING, YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO DENY YOU’RE HURTING.
Pain is not inevitable in a sport or on a musical instrument , but the longer you deny the pain or say it cannot be avoided, or defer to your teacher or coach, the greater your injury and the sooner you won’t be able play your instrument or participate in your sport.
IF YOU ARE HURTING, FIND A CERTIFIED ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE TEACHER.
