Posts Tagged ‘Musician Injuries’

This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Musicians’ Injuries, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is written to give all performing musicians deep insights into the habits and technique that performers have that can end careers with pain, strain, tension, and injuries. I look at all of the instruments from piano, to guitar to clarinet, to singing etc.
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 REALIZE YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CAUSE YOURSELF PHYSICAL PAIN TO RUN OR PLAY GOLF OR PLAY A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT, YOU HAVE A LIFE CHANGING CHOICE TO MAKE OR NOT MAKE.

For most athletes and musicians pain is a given, if you want to excel at what you do, but it is NOT a given. The Alexander Technique teacher gives the athlete and musician a set of principles that allow you to excel without physical sacrifice. How do we do this?

We shift your focus in whatever you’re doing to HOW you’re doing it. Almost everyone in specialized and general activities, focuses on getting it done, getting it mastered, not on the level of tension in the body and whether the technique used is valid.

So, if you put in the practice time to master an activity, and you DON’T learn how to do it without excess tension, you will cause wear and tear to your joints.

I do not know of any movement work that clearly states as part of its teaching, like the Alexander Technique does, that we’re going to find the best posture, best technique, best body use, and use the least amount of tension to do what you want to master.

The Alexander Technique principles of great posture, great technique, best overall body use, least amount of tension, generalize to all activities, from brushing your teeth to running to playing a musical instrument.

The Alexander Technique teacher is very focused on the student, not allowing the student to do the activity in a way that damages his or her body. There is no rush or pressure to make changes to your posture or technique or body use. The Alexander Technique teacher helps you make changes to your way of doing the activity in increments you can handle.

You are asked to go home and practice the activity, integrating the changes at your own pace. Ideally you don’t pressurize the activity in your rush to get out of pain and to do the activity exceptionally well.

The best ways to make changes to an activity in the shortest amount to time is to focus totally on how you’re doing what you’ve been taught to do in the Alexander lesson, and to put in a lot of practice time.

This is what I did when I went to an Alexander Technique teacher to revamp my classical guitar technique. I was practicing to be a concert guitarist. I wanted to stop hurting, and wanted to play better than I had ever played. This required I make the Alexander Technique changes second nature as quickly as possible. I put in the hours I needed, being good to myself in my “rush” to move on from years of poor technique and bad posture.

In my more than 60 ebooks on all of the different activities I write in detail about, I look at the principles of the Alexander Technique, and give specifics on how these principles are applied to the activity in the Alexander Technique.