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It’s a Wild Ride…

July 31, 2011 By 4 Comments

So life has been crazy, lately.  I know, I know, I was on a roll, posting a few new blog posts every week, and believe me, I have more than a few drafts in the works, but I just haven’t been able to get to them.  I could put something out just for the sake of generating content, but I don’t feel that serves much of a purpose.  I like to spend time on my articles; researching the content, searching for the right images and references and working to make it something I can stand behind.  So, I’m afraid you’ll just have to bear with me for awhile as life gets even more hectic for me in the next two weeks.

So What the Heck Have I Been Doing???

Well, let me lay it out in bullet point format…I like bullet points. :)

  • I travelled to Tennessee to spend two weeks with the Army National Guard Band.  We were engaged daily with the TN Arts Academy Conducting Symposium.  While there I got to play woodwind trios, organize the Army Band library (I’m in awe at the amount of music we have) and network.
  • I bought a road bike!  I’d like to introduce you to my new friend, Lexa:
    My new bike!
  • With a new bike comes a lot of work – learning how to ride, acquiring the proper gear, skills and logging miles.  I went on a 40 mile ride yesterday and while it was fun, it was humbling to be with a group of people who rode faster than me – I found out just how far fitness-wise I have to go!
  • I’ve been working like a mad-woman on my NFA  presentations I can’t believe it’s 2 weeks from now!!!  It’s crunch time now – getting all my presentation thoughts, handouts and ideas together.  I’ve also got the great news that I’ve been selected to participate in the NFA Career and Artistic Development Committee Mini-Conference, where I will be presenting Music Strong as my business and being mentored by great people in the flute world: Eva Amsler, Alberto Almaraz, Stephanie Jutt, Laura Barron,  and Jill Felber – so I’ve been getting those materials together, too.  In addition, I will hopefully be assisting Flute Specialists at their booth at NFA.  So it’s going to be a BUSY convention!  Oh, and did I mention my birthday is the 12th?  Right in the middle of the convention – not a bad present. :)
  • I’ve been promoting Music Strong like crazy and have gotten a lot of work done!  We now have T-shirts for sale!! You can order them on the Music Strong website .  I’ve also gotten new business cards, been sending out announcements for my NFA presentations, and I’ve launched the PC Beach Boot camp!  We’re having a great time so far and if you’re interested in coming, we welcome all age and ability levels – you can tailor the class to your needs and what you can do.  We meet every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 5:30 at the PC Beach Pier Public Access.  And speaking of promotion, you might find some “Groupon” type deals for me in the Panama City newspaper, soon – they’re launching something called “Deal of the Day” and I plan to be a part of it!  So be on the lookout for that!

Ok, are you tired reading all this?  I am! So to finish up, I’d just like to let you all know that I WILL be posting soon, and I fully intend to do a NFA recap.

In the meantime, I’d like to wax poetic about my bike for a minute.

Why do I like it?  This thought has come to me more than once while riding and that is, I like it for the challenge. The mental challenge.  More often than not it’s not the physical challenge that is what is a struggle, it’s that it’s a mental challenge.  When you ride on a stationary bike, you can get off any time.  You can cite any excuse you like just to get off and quit.  When you ride a bike in the great out doors, you log a lot of miles and suddenly, you are in the middle of nowhere with no choice but to ride back.  Sure, you can get off and quit, but no one will come pick you up, you’ll have walk back, and who wants to do that when you’ve got a perfectly good bike?

My boot camp class is the same way, in a way: you can “get off” and quit at any point.  But you won’t.  Why? Because you’re there with a lot of other people and THEY aren’t quitting, and you don’t want to be seen as a quitter, right?  So you end up going farther, going harder, pushing yourself beyond where you THOUGHT you could go and that makes you stronger and can boost your confidence in a way you didn’t think was possible.  With every class I get sore and then I get stronger, physically AND mentally, and so do my “campers”.  With every ride, I can go longer, my cardiovascular endurance increases and my mental toughness increases because no matter how far back it is, no matter how hard the wind is blowing in my face and making it a struggle to go forward – I don’t have a choice, I HAVE to keep going.  Besides the fact that the scenery changes, THAT is why I love bike riding (and boot camp class).
So I hope to see you all at my class on Tuesday.  It really is a fun experience and who doesn’t love that feeling of accomplishing more than you thought possible?

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Do What You Suck At

June 20, 2011 By 2 Comments

One of my mottos for awhile now has been “You are only as strong as your weakest link”.  This picture exemplifies the idea perfectly.  When I was in Army Basic Training, that was one of the things they told us almost constantly.  We had to do everything as a team, and if one person was wrong, you were all wrong.  If one person wanted to keep the Kevlar helmet on instead of taking it off, we all had to keep it on.  If one person got punished…well, that didn’t happen, we all got punished.

The point was that you HAD to learn to do everything as a unit, as a team, and that each person was as important as the next.  You are being taught to pay attention to detail and you realize very quickly that even if YOU excel in one area, your Battle Buddy probably doesn’t, and to work together as a team, everyone has to come together to support and encourage and work on their “weakest link” before you can excel as a team.

Your body works as a team as well and if you don’t address your weakest link, you are shortchanging yourself.  As a musician, you know that if you don’t work on your weak spots, you’ll never reach your full potential because being a musician is made of several “links” – scales, intervals, tone, technique, body awareness, attitude, work ethic, etc.

As for my title…

You’ll have to pardon the hanging participle and bad grammar….but it got your attention, didn’t it?

Here’s the point if you do what you’re good at, you’ll never get any better.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  Sure, but what do we do?  We do the things at which we already accel.  Why?  Because we like doing well, we like feeling that good feeling that comes with doing well, and when you do something well, it’s, well…..easy.

Another way to say “do what you suck at” is to say “work on your weaknesses”.  Now, honestly if I had put that as the title, you wouldn’t have stopped by to read, would you?   Not nearly as interesting.  But the truth is there in both statements.  When you take a good look at the areas in which you lack and you go forth and WORK on those weaknesses what happens?

Well, it’s hard.
It’s generally not much fun.
You might fail….a lot.
But in the end, you end up succeeding and ultimately not only gaining a greater sense of achievement due to the feeling of overcoming something at which you used to not do well, but it gets easier from there for you to get better at it.

Two examples: music and fitness, of course :)

Fitness

Take your pick: squat, pushup or pullup.

Sure, there are other hard exercises like deadlifting and benching and rowing but in all honesty, these are tough for me and most women.  Most people do a HORRIBLE job of squatting with good form.  They either

  • don’t go low enough
  • elevate their heels and squat on their toes
  • have their knees cave in
  • point their toes way out

It’s sad really, because what should be easy to do (we did it as 2-year olds without another thought) becomes so much more difficult as we age.

Side note:
This is why I suggest EVERYONE get some training in Alexander Technique.  It’s not just for musicians and you will relearn how to use your body the way God intended and the way you used to, as aforementioned 2-year old but with better motor skills :)

Walk into almost any gym in the country and undoubtedly you will see a lot of the same things: the treadmills, ellipticals and bikes will be mostly full (sadly, mostly with women), lots of people using machines, and in the free weight section, the few people you see will be mostly men, mostly doing chest and bicep exercises.  Occassionally you’ll see a man doing a squat….probably only going half-way down with too much weight (because it’s always better to improve your ego by using too much weight with bad form than to use no weight with good form, right?) and even more rarely, you’ll see a lady in there, doing “toning” exercises with the pink dumbbells.  She’s doing it because she knows she needs to do something but isn’t sure what, so she sticks to what’s safe, what isn’t challenging, and pats herself on the back for venturing into the “guy’s” part of the gym. And year after year the ladies on the treadmills wonder why their bodies haven’t changed the way they “should”.

The guys do their same routines for the same reason: they work the vanity muscles using some outdated routines they found in magazines (that really only work for newbies) because they don’t know any better, it’s safe, it’s what the other guys are doing and hey, what woman looks at a guy’s legs – they look at his GUNS right?   And year after year, he does the same stuff, blindly going forward, his gains decreasing every year and wondering why.

I’ll tell you why.  It’s because they don’t work on their weaknesses.


Music

Where is your weakness when it comes to music?  Ignoring etudes, scales and technique exercises – only focusing on working on pieces?  Not really “wood shedding” the music, but just playing it over and over again?  Putting off memorizing something?  Not practicing much at all?

As a musician, my biggest weakness is 1) not making the time to practice and 2) not giving myself structure during practice time….which leads to feeling like I”m just wasting my time, so I end up not practicing at all!  If you are one of those musicians  who has been out of school for awhile, you know how easy it is to get out of the habit of daily practice, espcially when you aren’t surrounded by other musicians pushing you, endless rehearsals and recitals.  If LACK of practice is your nemesis, ask yourself why?  And chunk it into manageable goals: 1) I will  practice every day or every other day 2) I will work on these pieces and these exercises, etc.  Just write it down and give yourself structure.

If there is something specific you suck at and you’re just avoiding it, it’s time to take the bull by the horns and go after it!  If you are a person who plays by ear and has a difficult time deciphering rythms on the page…..well, you need to start reading more music with difficult rhythms.  If you suck at sightreading, the only way to get better at sightreading is to sightread a LOT.

See how this works?  Identify your weakness, have the courage to put your ego aside and say “ok, what do I really suck at?” and then do THAT.

Take your dreaded evil and look it square in the face and say

“Today , it’s you and me and while I may not conquer you today, maybe not tomorrow, I will not fear you, and I WILL do this”.

 

And from there, you start with Moyse Gamme Arpegge and work your way through :)

 

So Do What You Suck At

If you are a gym “bro” who splits his workouts into “chest days’ and “arm days”: have the courage to do a full body workout,

If you are a lady who does nothing but stay on the elliptical or do curls and crunches in the “guy’s part of the gym”, have the courage to pick up some 20 pounders or hire a personal trainer and learn how to do a real deadlift…I can tell you, there’s nothing more empowering than deadlifting your bodyweight (with excellent form) in a gym full of men who are doing superflous exercises (with bad form).

If you are a musician and you’ve been putting off attacking Berio’s “Sequenza” GO FOR IT!  You just might find that it’s way more fun than you ever realized.

 

In the end, we all have to work on our weaknesses, because there is only so far you can go in the areas you already excel.



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The Flutists’ Pain Points

June 17, 2011 By 6 Comments

 

Ask almost any flutist that has pain brought on by playing, and odds are they will mention one of these sites as giving them trouble: wrist, upper back (between shoulder blades), shoulder area or lower back. Sometimes the problem is that the pain is in ALL of these sites.

Studies have been done, but the results are inconclusive as to the results of what causes pain. A study I read recently studied the “History of Playing-related Pain in 330 University Freshman Music Students”. The interesting point is that MOST of the students had pain brought on by playing. The frustrating point was that the study was inconclusive as to the cause of the pain.

I have my own hypothesis, however, because this study did not cover my area of expertise: strength training. This is what the study found:

  • More students did than did not exercise, but pain occurred in 79% of the exercisers and in only 76% of the sedentary. Data were collected though not analyzed regarding exercise type; jogging appeared to be a favorite, as was the use of a variety of exercise machines
  • Most of the pain problems reported by instrumentalists are associated with the musculoskeletal system
  • Several factors have played into the lack of regular exercise for musicians. First, those who start their instruments early in life…often have been warned of the potential injury that might befall especially their hands and fingers by participation in athletics. This avoidance behavior becomes habit as they grow older.
  • There apppears to be an association between poor conditioning and musculoskeletal complaints, and vice versa; those who do have a regular exercise routine appear more resilient.
  • When asked about “regular exercise” …our definition for inclusion here was exercise of at least two times per week for a minimum of 30 minutes. We did not differentiate between exercise modes, but just from casual scanning of the data, jogging was by far the most frequent activity, followed by some kind of machine and/or light weights and biking. A minority did heavy resistance weight training, swimming, soccer and/or basketball.

It is GLARINGLY obvious to me what could possibly be the cause of so many musician’s pain, here, but this was not covered by the researchers.

  1. The type of stretching done, is probably out-dated, static stretching, which has been shown to be more detrimental than helpful
  2. Jogging is a favorite activity….this does NOTHING to help weak muscles. If you play an instrument held in front of your body (aren’t they all?) then your body is forced to compensate after the primary muscles holding up the instrument fatigue. Thus leading to pain.
  3. The MINORITY did heavy resistance training and soccer, swimming and basketball – sports that require a high degree of movement.

Can you see the pattern here?

So getting back to the flutists’ pain points

What are the points of chief complaint?  From what I have heard (though if you have another spot, please leave a comment below!) these are the most common

  • wrist
  • upper back
  • shoulder
  • lower back

With the exception of the wrist, the other three points are located on what we call the “posterior chain”  This is the back half of the body, responsible for a lot of pulling movements and fighting against the pushing movement of the front of the body, including keeping the body upright.  If your posterior chain muscles are weak, it causes them to stretch.

Example:

You sit all day, in rehearsals, driving, typing, practicing.  You probably slouch, meaning your chest comes forward, your abdomen caves in and your back rounds.  You are not balanced on your sit bones.  Your shoulders round forward.  Your head protrudes.

What does this lead to?

Try taking that posture for awhile and I bet the answer will be:

  • my neck hurts
  • my upper back hurts
  • my hips hurt
  • basically, everything on the back half of my body HURTS!

Can you see how this  posture, practiced day in and day out is compounded with holding a heavy instrument (or maybe your instrument isn’t heavy but after several hours of playing it becomes heavy to you) can wreak havoc on your body?

Solutions!!!!

The part you’ve been waiting for!  You can see where the problem lies, by now, I hope.  Weak posterior chain can equal pain.  What to do?  Strengthen it!  Let’s take this on a spot by spot basis.

 

Wrist

If your wrist hurts, there can be several causes, some of which may not have anything to do with your wrist, but  may actually be a symptom of poor upper body posture, shoulder position, etc.  Assuming you play an instrument that puts your wrist in somewhat of a contorted position (flute, guitar, violin, etc.) there are some stretches you can do.  Hold each for a count of 10, and follow with movement.  It is very important that after you do a static stretch (a stretch you hold without moving) that you follow that with a dynamic stretch (a stretch that involves movement).

                                                                             

These are stretches and of course there are exercises you can do to increase your wrist/grip strength.  However, I’m not sure that that is necessary, as my guess is that the reason the wrists hurt has more to do with being tight and needing to be stretched due to being in an awkward position for long lengths of time, rather than being weak.  However, grip strength is important when it comes to lifting weights.  Diesel Crew has a lot of information on improving grip strength.

 

Upper Back/Shoulder

This area could take all day to address, and I have in two posts and a guest post by Dr. Perry.  For detailed information see Shoulder Pain Part 1, Shoulder Pain Part 2 – What to Do About it, and Dr. Perry’s Post: Shoulder Pain Secret.

The chief culprits of pain are the rhomboids (the muscles in between your shoulder blades that work to pull them together), lower traps (pull shoulder blades back and down) and rotator cuff muscles.  When you lean forward with a rounded posture, or have your arms extended in front of you for a long time, these muscles that do the pulling in your upper back get stretched the opposite way and get kinda angry about it.  They are designed to pull the shoulder blades back, but if you do not strengthen these muscles, if they do not get used the way they were intended.  You get pain.

I think this is the biggest problem area among musicians and the most overlooked!

Strengthen your rhomboids and upper back by doing pulling movements and see if your pain doesn’t improve, not to mention your posture!

My favorite exercises are:

Lat Pulldowns/Pull ups, any type of rows (inverted, seated, barbell or dumbbell) and exercises for the rotator cuff: soup can pours, prone lower trap raises and wall slides.  You can see all three of the rotator cuff exercises in Shoulder Pain Part 2.

Before doing any of these exercises, however, it’s not a bad idea to stretch the muscles that are tight, before strengthening the muscles that are weak. That’s another post for another day. :)

Lat pull downs/Pull ups.

     Good form                       BAD FORM!!!

(Coaching cues – keep spine neutral – curve in lower back, no leaning backwards, and bring shoulder blades down)

The big thing to remember here is to that before and DURING the movement, is to let your shoulder blades go through their full range of motion and lead the motion with pulling them back and down.

Huh?

That means that when your arms are as far away from you as they can be, let your shoulder blades float outward to the side of your body and when you go to pull the bar down think of squeezing the bottom of your shoulder blades together first to bring your blades down, and then your elbows and arms follow to complete the movement.  This may cause you to not use as much weight as you would like, but so what?  If you use more weight than you can with good form, what are you really accomplishing?  THAT’S where you get into more pain and injury.  If you see someone swinging back and forth and flinging the weight up and down (or YOU are that person) then you know you are asking for injury and are performing the movement incorrectly.

Don’t waste your time.  Take your ego out of it (and don’t pay attention to the people around you – most people in the gym perform exercises with incorrect form, so don’t take your cues from them) and discover what weight you can lift correctly.  You will reap benefits much faster!

Inverted Row

Coaching cues: keep body “straight”, brace your abs and squeeze your butt, bring shoulder blades back and down and let your arms follow. Think of leading the motion by squeezing your shoulder blades together first, not that it’s an arm movement.

Coaching cues: sit tall, brace lower abs and pull belly button in towards spine, pull shoulder blades back, down and together, keep neutral arch in back, do NOT round your back when reaching for weight or pulling forward.  Let your shoulder blades “float” to the outside of your body when letting the weight go back.

Lower Back

If your lower back hurts, ask yourself how much you sit.  If the answer is “a lot”, you may have found your problem.  When you sit, your hips “flex”, this means that the knees come towards the body by means of the hip flexors   The hip flexors are pictured here and I know the Alexander Technique teachers will jump all over the psoas, as they should! That’s where I first found out about this very important muscle.  You can see how it attaches to your leg AND your low back. When you sit, this muscle flexes, or shortens, which (especially if your abs are too strong – aka, don’t do situps or crunches!!!!) causes you to bend forward, this muscle pulls on your low back.  The muscles on your low back (Quadratus Lumborum and spinal erectors, etc.) get stretched, just like the upper back muscles.

Solution?

Stretch the tight muscles, strengthen the weak muscles.  In this case, stretch the hip flexors, strengthen the low back muscles  and muscles of the core.  The CORE is actually made up of your entire torso and if you want an EXCELLENT book on strengthening the core in the non-traditional way (there is not a single “ab” exercise in this book!) I HIGHLY recommend getting New Rules of Lifting for Abs. 

I’m just finishing up this book myself and not only has it improved my posture, it has improved my balance, core strength and overall body strength.  I can lift heavier weights than I have in a long time and I have better posterior chain activation as well!

There are WAY too many exercises to list here for strengthening the core and lower back, and in fact, if you want more information on that, I cannot recommend anything here safely, which is why I recommend hiring a personal trainer to help you do these exercises, because done incorrectly you can cause more pain or even injury to yourself.

As for stretching the hip flexors, I have some great ones.

You can do this standing as well.  Make sure when you do this stretch, you lean backwards with your torso until you feel a stretch in the front of your hip and SQUEEZE your put on the stretched side.  When you stretch the hip flexor, you want to activate the opposing posterior chain muscle, in this case, the glutes.

This exercise is one you can do during rehearsals, while typing, or while lying down.  It will stretch your piriformis muscle (the angry little muscle in your butt that gets stretched out when you sit for too long).  I recommend doing this lying down: take the chair out of the picture and put the person on his back.  Grab the vertical leg and pull it towards the chest.  The horizontal leg (the one that is bent across the other) will feel a stretch in that glute and hip.

 

A good stretch for the psoas is this stretch:

Lie on the edge of a bed, bench or table and pull one leg towards your chest.  The other leg should dangle off the edge of the table.  DO NOT do this exercise if your doctor has told you not to or you have major back pain.  Check with your doctor first if you have concerns.  When doing this stretch, you should feel a deep pulling feeling in your abdomen, that is difficult to identify.  This is your psoas.  Hold for a count of 20-30, and switch sides.

You can also do this on the floor to test for hip tightness.  Lie flat on the floor just like in this picture.  If your lower back comes off the floor and rounds, it can be a sign of hip flexor tightness.

What are some exercises I need to NOT do?

As you can see in this post, training the posterior chain is of utmost importance.  Therefore, training the frontal chain, is not as important.  If you have muscular imbalances, you do not want to add any more strength to those muscles.  The opposite of the muscles covered in this post would be: chest, quads, biceps.

Exercises I do not recommend if you are in pain:

Chest presses, bench presses, cable flyes (basically any chest pushing exercise), crunches, situps, any kind of oblique twisting ab exercise,  leg extension machine.

Other GOOD exercises to include would be exercises that train the entire body:

  • Pushups
  • Deadlifts
  • Squats
  • Rows

Make sure you perform these exercises with permission from your doctor and under the supervision of a properly certified personal trainer.  If you have any kind of health condition, check with your doctor first.

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Shoulder Pain Secret

May 31, 2011 By 7 Comments

Today I have a REAL treat in store for you.  Dr. Perry Nickelston, owner of Stop Chasing Pain, has written a guest blog post for me.

I first found Dr. Perry through his podcast: Stop Chasing Pain.  Dr. Perry is a DC who specializes in using laser therapy to treat people.  When I was doing research on my shoulder pain series, I mentioned it to Dr. Perry and he mentioned to me I might want to include the subscapularis in my posts.  I asked him if he had any particular exercises or suggestions for that particular muscle and he said sure!  The resulting blog post is a gift from Dr. Perry.  If you want to know more about him and what he does, you can find his website at The Pain Laser Center, view his blog at Stop Chasing Pain, listen to his podcast (you can also subscribe on iTunes), watch his YouTube channel, and find him on Twitter and Facebook.  Tell him you found out about him from me and this blog!  Enjoy!

Shoulder Pain Secret

The one place that never hurts, but causes so much misery everywhere else!

Perry Nickelston, DC, FMS, SFMA

I see lots of shoulder pain problems in my clinic. In fact it is the #1 condition I treat. By the time clients see me for help they have been everywhere else you can possibly imagine for therapy. They have had physical therapy, steroid injections, acupuncture, even surgery and the pain still exists. They wonder why?

They hear about my Stop Chasing Pain laser and movement therapy program via referral and always say the same thing on the first visit, “I tried everything else Doc, so I might as well give this a shot. I got nothing to lose.” My response is always the same, ‘Your shoulder pain is not the problem; it is a symptom. Pain is where your problem ended up, not where it started. Once we stop chasing pain and begin fixing the real problem, you will lose that pain.’

Without question the shoulder is the most common injury affecting athletes and is very tricky to treat (Halloween reference not intended), like unless you know the right places to look for dysfunction. Angela reached out to me and asked if I would take a look at her article series on shoulder pain. I was very impressed with her content. It is jam-packed with some terrific information that very few people know. You can learn more than most doctors know about the shoulder when you read her articles.

Yes, I am totally serious. Trust me, I see this stuff in the trenches every day and clients have never seen stuff like this before. So, I highly recommend implementing her strategies.

I suggested adding a section on some often neglected culprits of shoulder pain and dysfunction.  Angela asked if I would like to write a brief post about them myself. So here I am. These points are nasty culprits and very deceiving in their contribution to pain because of referred pain and movement compensation patterns.

You never feel pain where these muscles are located, and yet they can cause debilitating pain in other areas. We end up chasing the referred pain instead of the site of pain so relief is temporary at best. When these muscles are so knotted up and in constant spasm they lose the ability to control movement (stability) and your nervous system kicks in a compensation pattern by recruiting other muscles to do more work. This is a basic primal survival mechanism where your body does anything and everything to avoid pain. It may not be the best thing either.

Your body is not concerned about tomorrow and the negative effects of what it is doing to protect you. It is only concerned with RIGHT NOW! It only cares about what is necessary to keep you functioning in the moment. Before you know it, there is a spiraling domino effect of pain, spasm and dysfunction, making one unhappy person.

What are these two muscles? The subscapularis and the scalenes! Oh what fun these two muscles can be. Trigger points (muscle knots that cause severe pain and movement dysfunction) in these two muscles cause lots of misery. I recently published a Special Bonus E-book entitled ‘The Top 10 Trigger Points Every Health and Fitness Professional Should Know!’ for my friend Charlie Weingroff and his amazing new DVD Set ‘Training=Rehab, Rehab=Training’, and here are a few excerpts relating to these points. Also be on the lookout for my newest DVD coming out this summer entitled, ‘The Top 25 Trigger Points for Maximum Pain Relief!

 

Subscapularis

Subscapularis is one muscle that is very elusive and causes all sorts of problems in function and pain. This is the number one trigger point that is overlooked in most shoulder pain problems.

Sitting on the inside part of the scapula lining up against the chest wall he is deep inside the arm pit. Look at the pain pattern above and notice the intense red in the posterior part of the shoulder. That’s right…he is a primary cause of pain in the rear deltoid. Now a really amazing pain referral pattern of this muscle is chronic wrist pain! Imagine that. I have seen countless people complain of wrist pain and nothing seems to help.         That is an alarm signal for me to check the subscapularis and I always find a trigger point.

The subscapularis rotates the head of the humerus medially (internal rotation); when the arm is raised, it draws the arm forward and downward. It is a powerful defense to the front of the shoulder-joint preventing displacement or subluxation of the head of the humerus.

Think logically about what can happen when muscle inhibition (deactivation/tone) occurs from the trigger point. The head of the humerus may drift up and back in the shoulder socket causing an impingement (pinching) at the acromio-clavicular joint and priming up for a rotator cuff tear in the supraspinatus muscle. These are common injuries in athletes and fitness enthusiast, so the subscapularis should always be addressed in any recovery program.

Often the only way to reach this muscle is by hand. Stick your thumb or fingers inside the armpit while slightly distracting (pulling the arm forward) while client is in a supine position. I find that slight internal rotation relaxes the muscle and you can get a better pressure. It can be in such spasm that it feels like a golf ball is pushing back at you.

BE CAREFUL! This trigger point can be excruciatingly painful when pressure is applied. It can feel like your arm is being ripped out of the socket. That is a normal side effect feeling of an intense trigger point. That will subside in time.

Tread easy here and be aware of the subscapular nerve that sits in the area. If you apply direct pressure to the nerve there will be a sharp, numb type feeling shooting into the arm. Simply move off the nerve. You cannot damage anything if you mistakenly press on the nerve; it just feels really freaking weird.

Scalenes

 

Located in the anterior part of the neck and having an intricate connection to the first rib, these muscles are relentless in their contribution to pain. Check out my article on first rib fixation syndrome and the relationship to scalene trigger points here FIRST RIB ARTICLE.

An elevated first rib can cause chronic spasm in the upper trapezius muscle and neck. A first rib manipulation is often indicated to alleviate the condition in conjunction with releasing the trigger points.

The nerves of the neck criss cross in and around these muscles as they contour to the arm, so when they get trigger points nerves can become compressed.

That means tingling, numbness and pain. Many misdiagnosed cases of carpal tunnel syndrome (tingling in the hands) and symptoms of cervical disc herniations can be blamed on these trigger points.

I have found these muscles to be the most common cause of pain in the mid-back! Get all the massages you want and back cracks from your chiropractor and it will not help if these muscles are referring pain. Profound relief from years of chronic pain upper back pain can be helped if you look at these points. The scalene muscles rarely if ever feel pain directly. But when you apply pressure to them and they have trigger points, it can be REALLY painful.

A condition known as Thoracic Outlet Syndrome can arise when these muscles are too overloaded. They pinch on nerves and cause pain in the arm with tingling and numbness.

Scaleni are also accessory muscles of breathing. When they are dysfunctional your endurance level will suffer because your breathing is labored and less oxygen gets into the body. You can often increase the endurance of your athletes simply by working these muscles.

These points need to be worked by hand. Be careful not to apply over pressure on the side of the neck. But don’t be afraid to get in there and massage them out. Consult with a healthcare specialist as needed for more hands on intensive therapy. Just by the very nature of you discovering these points for you will go a long way towards getting pain-free.

Now part of the secret to alleviating these issues is to massage and do soft tissue work BEFORE you stretch them out. Stretching knotted muscles only tightens them further (think of stretching a rope with a knot). You feel temporary relief at best and it returns later. So massage first, then stretch, and then you can use the muscle.

Combine these points with the other information already covered in Angela’s post and you will notice improvement. Be patient and diligent. It can take several weeks for symptoms to completely resolve. I suggest consulting a skilled manual therapist is symptoms persist. There is only so much we can do ourselves.

Five suggestions to help:

  1. If subscapularis is very tight check the wrist flexors for weakness. They are actually synergist. And vice versa….if the wrist flexors are always tight test the subscapularis for weakness…remember it can be TIGHT AND WEAK at the same time!
  2. If the neck scalene are tight check the iliopsoas, wrist extensors, and thumb extensors for weakness. These are also synergists of movement.
  3. Start training the neck extensors if your anterior neck is very tight. May have weakness there too.
  4. Train your grip. Strengthening your hand grip will help your rotator cuff.
  5. Check your opposite side hip and glute muscles for tightness or trigger points. The fascial connection can pull on the shoulder and alter mechanics. You will be surprised at how tender this area can be.

The one take away is that lots of things contribute to the shoulder. And the first rule of thumb is that if your shoulder hurts, lots of other things happened prior. Sure, check the shoulder, but also check the hips, and the thoracolumbar fascia. They are big players in the shoulder game. Have fun now! Also feel free to email me with questions. I love this stuff. Thanks Angela for the chance to play on your blog. So much fun!

Perry Nickelston, DC, FMS, SFMA

stopchasingpain@gmail.com

 

My Thoughts

Dr. Perry brings up some great points about these lesser known muscles, and I know that he hits on several conditions common to flutists (Carpal Tunnel and Thoracic Outlet Syndrome).  I especially enjoyed the part about the Scalenes and how not only can they cause pain in the arms/hands, they can interfere with breathing, something very important for musicians and athletes alike.

I know that this post may be a bit over the heads of some of my readers in regards to anatomy, but I hope you will go back and re-read it, understanding how YOUR muscles work and just what may be going on to cause that tingling in your hands, or numbness, or pain in the shoulder.

Dr. Perry gives several alternatives to what traditional doctors may say is causing you pain.  This is why I suggest seeing the several different types of medical professionals if you are dealing with any kind of pain or injury.    I HIGHLY recommend listening to Dr. Perry’s podcast, checking out his blog and website and look him up on Facebook!  He has some great things there.  While I know he is not posting things to deal with musicians specifically, it never ceases to amaze me how so much of what he sees and deals with are common problems in not just musicians, but athletes and office workers.

If you have experienced these types of pains, please leave a comment to help others know what worked for you!

Thank you so much for your post Dr. Perry!

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Identfying Shoulder Pain Part 2 – What to Do About It

May 21, 2011 By 7 Comments

Additional Disclaimer

Before I continue this post, I would once again like to state that I am not a licensed medical professional and this post is not intended to treat, diagnose or cure any medical injury, disease, cause, condition or ailment.  If you suffer from any type of pain you should seek the cousel of a qualified medical professional.  A partial list of these professionals is located in the second half of the first post.  The information in this blog is given with the intent to educate but not diagnose and I am not liable and do not claim responsibility for any emotional or physical problems that may occur directly or indirectly from the content of this blog.

Now that you know what your own anatomy looks like and how it functions (if you don’t, make sure you read Part 1 first!):

What are some things I can do on my own to address my shoulder pain?

Allowing that you do not have an injury and we are dealing with muscular issues, there are several things you can do.  Again, before attempting any type of self-diagnosis or treatment, if you have pain you should seek out the advice of a qualified medical professional.

Stretches

To even start to begin to correct this, we first have to stretch out the antagonists (chest and front delts) before we can begin to strengthen the posterior chain (rhomboids, etc.).  You can see all these stretches in a previous post here: Stretching Adequately Before/During/After Playing

  1. Doorway or Wall Chest Stretch – will stretch your chest
  2. Scapular Wall Slides – these will activate your lower traps and rhomboids
  3. Arm Circles – be gentle on these
  4. Upper Trap/Levator Scapulae Stretch

    With this exercise you can perform it standing and your non-moving arm can be extended straight down with thumb pointing towards the ceiling for a greater stretch

 Foam Rolling/Self-Myofascial Release

A foam roller cannot take the place of a massage therapist, but if you cannot afford to go, this is your best option. You can cover a wider area with the foam roller, and get more specific with a tennis ball, hitting your own trigger points.  Remember, pain is not necessarily at the point of discomfort, it can be “referred”  from another part of the body.  When you press on a trigger point, you may feel that  pain shoot through the body to where you felt discomfort.  Dr. Perry gives more examples of this in his guest blog post Shoulder Pain Secrets.

Guidelines for foam rolling: roll over the muscle to find the most tender spot.  Once you find it, lay on it for 20-30 seconds until the muscle begins to relax.  Then, roll the entire area.  Repeat if necessary.


Tennis Ball Work

This video from Synergy Athletics tells some of the do’s and don’ts of using a tennis ball. Actual usage is towards the end.

This is a really good description of how to use the tennis ball on trigger points in not only the shoulder but the neck.  As I have just recently found out from Stop Chasing Pain’s Dr. Perry, if you have shoulder pain, there is a good chance your scalences or SCM (or other deep neck flexors) could be too tight, as well.

In any case, this next description of how to use a tennis ball, I actually found on a message board.  I’m sorry that I don’t know to whom I need to give credit for this!
Use the following diagram for an idea of what muscles are being treated.

Image courtesy of http://www.sports-injury-info.com/im…er-muscles.jpg

So here we go.

This is how you treat your (upper) trapezoid muscles.

This is how you treat your rhomboids (down the trapezoids and between the shoulder blades) as well as your infraspinatus. You must squat down to apply pressure. You won’t get enough pressure on the ball if your legs are straight.

This is how you treat your side deltoids (you can do the same with the anterior and posterior deltoids). Put your bodyweight behind it.

This is how you treat the clavicular head of your pectoralis (the upper part of your chest):

Now, this is the tricky part, the side of your neck, the sternocleidomastoid muscle (the one that usually pulls to one side screwing things up.)

For this to work, you need to use the corner of a wall. Furthermore, you need to really drive your bodyweight. This is one of the strongest muscles. Don’t kill it but work on it.


Wanna Free E-Book?

You can’t get much better than this: Mike Robertson put out a  free e-book on Self-Myofascial Release using foam rollers, The Stick AND tennis balls.  It starts with lower body and the upper body tutorials are towards the end, but if you have a foam roller and a tennis ball, you can really work yourself all over with the help of this book. There is even a section on helping the wrist flexors!

Self-Myofascial Release Manual

Strengthening Exercises

As we have just learned, muscles of the upper back tend to become weak and stretched, due to hours of doing things with our arms in front of us, which leads to tight pectorals

Serratus anterior muscle

Image via Wikipedia

(and Serratus Anterior, I forgot to mention).  This means these muscles need to be strengthened and one of the absolute best ways of doing this is resistance training.

Any kind of motion that counter acts the pushing motion (which is what your tight chest muscles are already doing) will help.

These motions are primarily any type of rowing or pulling motion.  If you think of these exercises in planes of motion, you have two choices: horizontal pulling and vertical pulling.

Horizontal pulling would be things like seated cable rows, 1-arm dumbbell rows, barbell rows, T-bar rows, X-cable crossovers, Face Pulls, etc.
Vertical pulling motions would be things like Pullups, lat pull downs, althernating pulldowns, chin ups, etc.

All of these exercises will be helpful to strengthening the back muscles.  The biggest thing to remember when performing these exercises is to get the form right.  What do you need to remember?  Retract and depress your shoulder blades and keep them that way THROUGHOUT the movement.  This means that when you are doing any kind of pulling motion, when you let your arms extend back, they should not be able to full extend because you still have the bottom of your shoulder blades pinched together.  This activates your rhomboids and lower traps and allows them to do their proper job of stabilizing your shoulder girdle.

For these movements you will have to have equipment of some kind, be it a pullup bar, bands or dumbbells, and that is really the only limiting factors of these exercises.  I have some great links to the kinds of bands I use on my website at http://fluteangel.net/links.htm  if you want to go pick up some.  They are very inexpensive and portable and can come in varying strengths.

Prone Lower Trap Raises

These have to be one of my absolute favorite exercises I had never heard of.  They  look deceptively easy until you try to do them and realize that just lifting your arms without any weight is heavy enough!  In fact, this is such a good idea, I might just do a blog post all about activating the lower traps…

Here is a version you can do at home if you don’t have a bench:

From Neanderthal No More By Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson

Ideally, this exercise is performed face-down with your chest-supported on an elevated flat bench (i.e. longer legs, so that you’re higher off the ground). However, if you don’t have access to such a bench, you can do it bent-over; just make sure that your upper body remains parallel to the floor at all times (no cheating!)

Hold a dumbbell in one hand with a supinated group (the thumb points up at the top of the movement). Begin with the arm dangling below you on the bench. Horizontally adduct (think reverse fly) your arm while maintaining the thumb-up position. At the top, your arm should be at the 9 (left) or 3 (right) positions, and the upper arm and torso should form a 90-degree angle. Throughout the movement, concentrate on retracting the scapulae while keeping it tight to the rib cage (no winging).

Rotator Cuff Exercises

There are an awful lot of these exercises, however, one thing to make sure you realize when performing these exercises is that it’s not about how much weight you can lift.  The SITS muscles are small and if they are causing you pain, they may not only be weak, they areprobably tight and stretched which means you need to be even MORE careful.  1-3 lb. dumbbells will be PLENTLY for these exercises.

The two you probably recognize are internal and external rotation exercises.  Stand perpendicular to a pole with a band attached.  While keeping your elbow tucked in closely to your side rotate your arm inward, pulling the band and then slowly back.  Turn the other way and now you are pulling the band across your body.

Soup Can Pours

In a standing position, start with your right arm halfway between the front and side of your body, thumb down. (You may need to raise your left arm for balance.) Raise your right arm until almost level (about a 45° angle). (Hint: This is like emptying a can.) Don’t lift beyond the point of pain. Slowly lower your arm. Repeat the exercise until your arm is tired. Then do the exercise with your left arm.

Exercise 4

Preventative Measures

Gerald Klickstein’s book The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance and Wellness is an excellent book on just those subjects.  In Chapters 12 and 13 (and reposted on the blog) he mentions 12 Habits of Healthy Musicians:

The Twelve Habits of Healthy Musicians by Gerald Klickstein
1.  Increase playing or singing time gradually
2.  Limit repetition
3.  Regulate hand- or voice-intensive tasks
4.  Manage your workload
5.  Warm up and cool down
6.  Minimize tension
7.  Take breaks
8.  Heed warning signs
9.  Take charge of anxiety
10. Keep fit and strong
11. Conserve your hearing
12. Care for your voice

The Musician’s Way specifies ways in which you can incorporate these twelve habits into your lifestyle. Here are a few highlights:

  • #1: To avert overuse injuries, restrict any increase in your total playing or singing time to a maximum of 10-20% per week (p. 12).
  • #4: Respect your physical limits and ask a mentor for advice before you take on an overload of duties (p. 243).
  • #5: Pages 37-39 present a six-step process for warming up thoroughly and efficiently.
  • #6: Two sections in Chapter 13 – “Balanced Sitting and Standing” & “Meeting Your Instrument” – depict how musicians can form easeful habits. Forty-one photos are included.
  • #7: In solo practice, play or sing no more than 25 minutes before pausing for a 5-minute respite. The Musician’s Way itemizes six restorative movements that help to invigorate breaks (p. 75-82).
  • #8: Injury symptoms can be subtle, as are the social issues that come into play when unwell musicians who are expected to perform need to rest instead. Pages 237-241 untangle these topics.
  • #9: Anxiety doesn’t just scuttle musicians on stage but also impels some to overpractice to the point of injury. Strategies to neutralize anxiety interweave throughout The Musician’s Way and come to the fore in Chapter 7, “Unmasking Performance Anxiety.”
  • #10: Music making requires mental, physical, and emotional vigor. Healthy musicians, therefore, mind their nurtrition, rest, exercise, and other self-care needs much like top athletes (p. 245-246).
  • #11: Strategies that thwart music-induced hearing loss are summarized in my post “Hear today. Hear tomorrow” and fleshed out on pages 277-291.
  • #12: A section titled “Voice Care” encapsulates vocal hygiene under seven headings, the first of which is ‘Drink plenty of water’ (p. 268-277).

Postural Considerations

As flutists, a good many of us suffer from poor posture, made worse by long hours of playing without being in tune with our bodies.  If you are “stuck in your head” and not paying much attention to your body by being so focused on the music, you may notice that when you finally stop playing, you are sore, tight, hurting, and in terrible posture – slouched to the side, front, or otherwise not upright.

Besides understanding your individual body map and taking the time to be aware of your posture WHILE playing, let me propose a postural alteration.  Many of you may do this, but many of you may not:

When playing, take note of your arm position.  Do your elbows “fly” away from your body?  If so, this puts tremendous stress on the little muscles of the rotator cuff, which are not well equipped to deal with this type of endurance activity.  Let your arms hang from the flute, keeping the elbows closer to the body and also making sure the left arm is really under the flute.  When you sit, make sure you are BALANCED on your sit-bones with your feet FLAT on the floor.   This should help keep you in the proper position while leaving your deltoids and biceps to do the hard work of fighting gravity instead of your little rotator cuff muscles.

Dr. Susan Fain has some great information in her dissertation, and I highly recommend you check it out!  You can also hear the both of us at the National Flute Association Convention in Charlotte this August speaking with Lea Pearson and Karen Lonsdale about pain prevention.

Additional Resources and Articles

By the way, there is an EXCELLENT 5 – article series called Neanderthal No More: Fixing Your Caveman Posture by Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson over at T-Nation.   It can be a bit advanced for some, but if you are looking for a lot of information by people who know what they are doing and you wouldn’t mind a full week’s workout laid out for you, I’d check it out.  Not only does it have a full description of anatomy, it delves into body awareness by asking you to check out your own posture in different ways and then testing it to examine your own posture and movement patterns.  In part 3 they give client analysis – see if you can determine what’s “wrong” with these guys. :)

Please, tell me if this addresses your shoulder pain and if you found this helpful, leave a comment below.  Let us know what pain you are dealing with, what has worked for you and if you have anything to add to the post, let’s hear it!  Look for some guest blog posts dealing more with these issues, soon!

And feel free to link your own articles to this blog, down in the comments section!

 

About the Author

Angela McCuiston is a classically trained flutist with a Masters in Music Performance from FSU.  She has studied Body Mapping at Barbara Conable’s “What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body” workshop, studied Alexander Technique with Janeke Resnick, Alexander Murray and at Appalachian State University and is a Certified Personal Trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine.  Angela has been involved in weight training since the 1990′s and has been a personal trainer since 2009. You can find out more information about Angela through the “About Me” tab at top or via her websites: http://fluteangel.net and http://www.MusicStrong.com

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Shoulder Pain Part 1

May 14, 2011 By 12 Comments

One of the most common ailments among musicians, especially flutists, is shoulder pain.  I myself suffer from it due to a myriad of reasons.  Sometimes it can be helped, sometimes not, but most of the time there is hope for us that we do not have to play in pain.  Before we can attempt to fix the problem, we have to correctly identify the source of the pain and just what might be going on.  Let’s do a little body mapping. :)

Most of the pain that flutists complain about (and myself personally experience) comes from what we call the left shoulder.  If we’re to get specific about it, most of the pain usually originates from the rear of the shoulder in the muscles of the rotator cuff and the rhomboid, specifically.

The Culprits

If you look to the left you will see the muscles that lie on top.  If you look to the right, these are the muscles that lie underneath.  Look at this picture, can you identify exactly where your pain is?

The Victims:

Where you probably experience pain the most


Rhomboids


These lovely little muscles can be the source of a LOT of pain for people.  As you can see, the connect the inside of your shoulder blade to your spine, and their job is to cause the blades to retract, or come together.  Pinch your shoulder blades together and that’s the rhomboids doing their job.

When your chest muscles are too tight, these guys can get stretched and weak.  When this happens, you might get a sharp pain that can travel through your shoulder and even down your arm.  You might even have a knot here.

Teres Major/Minor/Infraspinatus/Supraspinatus


With the exception of the Teres Major, these muscles make up the rotator cuff.  I’m sure you’ve heard of it before, but had no idea what it does.  It does a lot of things, but for our purposes here what you need to know is how it works so you can play your instrument.  The rotator cuff muscles main job is to lift and rotate your arm and keep your shoulder stable within its socket.

For flutists, this is why the left shoulder tends to hurt more than the right shoulder, because we bring our left shoulder up and rotate it in front of us to be able to play.  This is the job of the rotator cuff muscles.  As you can see, they are very tiny muscles, and holding up an instrument for a long time, especially when their assisting muscles such as the lower traps and rhomboids are already stretched out and weak puts a great strain on them.  Compound that with overactive traps and chest muscles and you have a recipe for disaster just waiting to happen.

Actually, this will show you exactly how the shoulder blades.  As this video is playing, put your hands on the muscles that are moving and do the movement yourself.  Do you see how your own body works?

The Antagonists:  The ones partially causing the pain!

Pectoralis Major/Minor

These muscles may be less thought-of as contributing to the problem of shoulder pain but may in fact be the main cause.  Most Americans now spend a large part of their day in front of their computers, sitting and driving.  What do all these have in common?  The arms are in front of the body.  What main muscles bring the arms forward?  The pectorals.  Of course we have assistance muscles such as the front deltoids, so do this with me:

  • Put one hand on your chest, near your shoulder.
  • Bring your other arm in front of your body and feel which muscles move

You probably notice that the front of your shoulder tightens and so do your chest muscles near the shoulder joint.

Now, exaggerate that motion.

  • Put both arms in front of you like you are typing
  • Squeeze your arms in towards your body
  • hunch your shoulders and slouch your upper body

Does this resemble how you might look after spending too long at the computer, or driving?  If you hold this exaggerated position for long, things will start to hurt.  You’ll notice pulling in your rear delts, and your chest will get sore.

What’s going on here is a chronic muslce imbalance between the front of our bodies and the back of our bodies, called the frontal plane (or frontal chain and posterior chain). What happens is that the muscles bringing the arms forward cause the muscles in your rear shoulders/back to get stretched.  Over time, these rear muscles become weakened due to being in a stretched position for so long and not being contracted.  The frontal chain muscles of the chest/front delt get tight because they are contracted for TOO long.

See how this works?

More antagonists:


The “Shrug” Muscles: Trapezius and Levator Scapulae



As you watch these videos, can you see the motions you use to play your instrument, drive, type, eat, fold laundry, etc. and how doing so much of one movement, and not enough of the opposite can cause you pain?

The jobs of the traps and levator scapulae are to shrug the shoulders upward and the job of the lower traps is to bring the shoulder blades downward.  The traps are actually divided into 3 sections of fibers: upper, middle and lower.  Most people have overactive and/or overdeveloped upper traps.  Please don’t do shrugs, there’s no need.  What you NEED to do are get your lower traps firing, because not only are most people not aware that they are there and have a separate job to do, most people’s lower traps do NOT do their job, which is to bring the shoulder blades downward.

Try this:

  • Roll your shoulder blades backwards
  • Right before they roll forward again, squeeze the bottom of your shoulders together
  • if your shoulders come up towards your ears, you’re doing it incorrectly.
  • Done correctly, you are performing shoulder blade depression and retraction and activating the lower trap fibers and rhomboids.
  • Your chest should stick out and there should be space between your shoulders in front.

Does that feel weird?  If so, good!  You’re probably doing it right!  This position is the first position of good form for all weightlifting exercises.  I’ll cover that in another post, but knowing about it now can save you a world of hurt, just by understanding how these muscles are designed to function.

Now that we know where and why, how do I stop the pain?

There are a couple of things to note.  You have to know is your pain a muscle pain or an actual injury?  If this is something that has been bothering you for awhile, I highly recommend going to see a doctor of some sort first before self-diagnosing.

Who to see

You have a lot of choices, I’m going to name a few for you from which to pick:

General Practitioner

This type of doctor can, of course, tell you if anything else is wrong with you.  Your source of pain could not be what you think it is and it could actually be a nutritional deficiency or other abnormality.  This doctor can also tell you if what you have is an actual injury.  If you have an injury, you may or may not want to take medicines prescribed to you by this type of doctor (such as muscle relaxers) and you may also get prescriptions for further testing such as an MRI or a script for therapy from a Physical Therapist.

Physical Therapist

These people will treat your injury by strengthening the surrounding muscles and rehabbing the injury itself.  (PT’s out there, feel free to chime in here on what else you do!)  They may treat you with various modalities including stretching, light weights, heat, ice, massage or electrical stimulation.  If you have a real injury, this may help.

Massage Therapist/Active Release Technique Therapist

These two are NOT the same, do not get them confused.  A massage therapist also does more than “feel good massage” or Swedish Massage.  Most of the massages I have had in my lifetime were anything but “feel good”!  A massage therapist may provide techniques such as deep tissue massage and trigger point therapy.  They can manipulate the fascia around muscles if it has become stuck, trigger point will release knotted muscles and besides freeing up an injured area of knots, massage will also increase blood flow to the area and increase lymph flow, which takes away waste materials from the muscle.  Trigger points are sometimes thought to be areas of waste materials that have gotten blocked.

ART is different in that you may remain fully clothed and there is a lot more movement.  The practitioner will stretch you and press on different areas while moving your muscles and/or limbs to break down scar tissue. It is particularly helpful in treating overuse injuries.  You can find out more information at http://www.activerelease.com

Personal Trainer

Now, if you have an injury, you must get that rehabbed first, or get a doctor’s note to provide to your personal trainer letting them know exactly what is wrong and what you can and cannot do.  If you are not injured, you may be suffering from either Overuse Syndrome or Muscular Imbalances, either of which can be helped by a personal trainer.

A good trainer will not only educate you in stretches that will help you release the antagonists that may be causing your problems, they will also show you corrective resistance training exercises that will strengthen your weak muscles.  When your rhomboids and rotator cuff muscles (among others) are stronger, not only will you be able to play for a longer time without pain, you can become and stay injury-free!  Add to this the benefits of better body awareness and you have a body that is better prepared to deal with the demands of being an instrumentalist.

As a shameless plug – I have availabilities for in-person and online training so you can get one-on-one training programs designed specifically for you.

See the next post: Shoulder Pain Part 2   for stretches and exercises you can do on your own to alleviate shoulder pain.

(This post was just getting too long! :)

This post is made with the knowledge that I am not a medical practitioner of any sort, and therefore cannot prescribe anything.

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What Interests You?

May 12, 2011 By 12 Comments

So as you all know, I have two main passions when it comes to career: Music and Fitness.  I’ve gone into mostly uncharted territory with promoting myself as a Musician Health Coach, or a personal trainer for musicians.  What does that mean to you, though?  What does that mean and what do I do and how does that actually benefit you?

  • I am a NASM certified personal trainer.  This is one of the top rated personal training certifications in the country and, along with the NSCA, is considered the gold standard.  In addition to this, this particular certification agency focuses on addressing the different muscle imbalances that everyone tends to develop – especially those who do repetitive motions like driving, sitting at a desk or computer, practicing an instrument, etc.
  • I am a classically trainer professional flutist.  I have studied music performance for a long time, ending (so far) with getting my Masters in Music Performance from FSU.  What does this mean?  It means that I LOVE to play my flute and perform for people.  It means that I am one of those people in the above categories, practicing my instrument for hours, sitting in front of a computer (typing this), and I understand the demands that are placed on a musician’s body.  We are unique in what our discipline requires from us.  I get it, because I’m just like you.

So what the heck is a Musician Health Coach?

Besides  my anatomy/kinesiology knowledge that came along with the personal training certification, I also have studied the Alexander Technique (taking classes/lessons at Interlochen Arts Camp, Appalachian State University and Alexander Murray), Body Mapping (taking the “What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body” class from Barbara Conable, and several other classes and presentations) and taking 2 years of Dynamic Integration with Eva Amsler at FSU.  All three of these different modalities focus on the body; learning about the actual layout and how the body works, understanding how we move, remapping our idea of what we look like on the inside, learning to move with only the amount of tension that is necessary, UNLEARNING how to move in some ways, and most of all becoming hyper AWARE of my body and how it functions/moves.

As a musician health coach, what I do is to help musicians make that connection between their brains and their bodies.  Huh?  Playing the flute involves more than just your lips, arms, fingers and lungs.  You use your entire body to play the flute, trombone, drums, etc.  Do you ever think about these things while playing?

  • When I breathe in my spine compresses and when I breathe out, my spine lengthens
  • I am conscious of the space in-between my shoulder blades, and there is no tension there
  • I feel my feet while playing
  • When a difficult passage comes up, I consciously shift my weight to my right foot to make it easier
  • While breathing, I notice whether it is my chest or abdomen moving
  • During times of nervousness (either playing or about to play) I notice what my different symptoms are in all areas of my body, I can feel them, and I accept them instead of ignoring them.
  • Most times while playing, my attention is on my big toe, the back of my knees or noticing if my shoulders are holding excess tension rather than notes and phrases
  • I’m playing, but I’m feeling my feet
  • While playing, I check in with my body and notice where I have pain and am able to connect that pain (or not) to how I play my instrument
  • I can get up and down out of a chair without tensing my neck
  • When I sit to play I’m aware of how my body is balanced between my sit-bones
  • I feel strong/weak in certain areas of my body when I play

Ever thought any of those thoughts?  I think of that stuff ALL THE TIME.  Whether playing, practicing, preparing to play, weightlifting, driving, etc.  As a musician health coach I see it as my job to help other musicians get out of their heads and into their bodies.  Meaning that I use several methods to “coach” other  musicians into being the best musicians they can be.  I teach flute lessons but in these lessons the focus isn’t just on notes and phrases.  A lot of the time we focus on body awareness, feeling your feet while playing, understanding how to sit in a chair and get in and out of it, noticing our emotions; how it feels to play with the different emotions and learning how to accept them instead of hide from them (including nervousness!).

If a musician or student complains about playing in pain, I begin to cross into the strength training aspect of my career.  After learning how to “check in” with our bodies, I ask them to pinpoint the pain.  I might show them some stretches to do before, during and after playing to combat the tightness that might be there.

Among musicians, especially those who have not been taught body awareness, there can be some pretty severe cases of muscle imbalances, and most often these imbalances lead to pain when playing.  Most flutists I’ve surveyed complain of pain in and around the shoulder and neck area.   A lot of this has to do with not being strong enough to hold our instruments in their proper positions for long amounts of time without compensation.  Compensation is what happens when a muscle or body part is too tired or weak to be able to perform its intended function so other assistant muscles start taking over.  We call this “synergistic dominance”.  For example, if your shoulder and rotator cuff muscles are weak and other muscles are tight (especially your chest muscles), after awhile of playing you might start noticing pain under, around or between your shoulder blades (left, for flutists).  The muscles you were asking to hold up your flute are not strong enough to continue, so other muscles like your chest and trapezius muscles have started to take over the job.  This pulls on your already weak rhomboids and shoulder girdle which causes you to lean over to take the weight off the shoulder. 

Now you are slouching to the right, your spine is out of alignment and your core muscles are not engaged to keep you upright.  Most likely they were weak too, or else you would be able to hold up your flute.  Now that the core is weak, other muscles of the hips have to take over which can cause your hamstrings to be weak, your hips to hurt, calves to be tight and possibly knees to hurt.

Now you’re a mess.  Do you see how the body works together to play the instrument?  We didn’t even talk about breathing!!! :)

So, here is my question to you.  In the still relatively uncharted waters of musician health and strength training, what interests you?  As a musician, what would you like to read about?  What are you specific health concerns?  What kinds of articles do you want to read about that you think might help you?  Go outside the box here.  Do you want to read about stretches?  Weight training?  Body Awareness? Travel tips? Overall health and well-being relating to the body and playing?  There are a ton of topics, but I want to write about what interests YOU because I want to help YOU.

What interests you?

Feel free to post a comment on my Facebook page, hit me up on Follow fluteanjel on Twitter, leave a message below or take the poll below.  Love to hear from you!

Click here to take survey

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You need Skills!

April 27, 2011 By 2 Comments
All-Union meeting of heads of departments of s...

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How many of us musicians have gone to school for 4, 6 or even 10 years to get those advanced degrees only to graduate into the real world and not be prepared?  Today’s institutions of higher education for musicians are sadly lacking in preparing students for a life outside either performing or teaching.  There’s more to it, folks…

I have gained two degrees, a Bachelor’s and a Master’s, both in music performance.  I was told several times to not do this because I “won’t get a job”.  I beg to differ…and I agree.    I said no way, I will get this degree because this is what I want to do, I want to perform!  I was told over and over again “get your Bachelor’s degree in Music Education so you have something to fall back on.”

Get a degree you can fall back on…

How many of you have heard this?  I think it’s pathetic.  Why offer a degree that the faculty don’t even have faith in it to do the students any good?  If I want to go to school to learn how to play my instrument better than others and be the best flutist and performer I can possibly be, why is that not enough?  I have ZERO desire to be a band director or choral conductor.  If I did, I would have majored in those disciplines and that is EXACTLY what I told the faculty.  I have also told my students interested in going into a performance based degree “do not go to school for music performance unless you can see yourself doing nothing else.”  No offense to band directors and choral conductors (of which I have many friends), I applaud you and support what you do, but God designed us all with different talents and desires and those were not mine.  And I feel it is a HUGE disservice to those who love the teaching profession that others are being told that their profession is a “fall back” which, when they realize they will not be an international solo performing artist, find themselves teaching band to a bunch of kids.  They hate their job, hate what they’re doing, but hey,at least they have a job to fall back on now, right?

I think it is incredibly sad that we relegate a performance degree to a piece of paper that says “I CAN PLAY GOOD!”  I mean, really? There’s more to it than that, and as I am finding out as an entrepreneur, carving my own path through the career jungle, most of what I learned in school did not teach me how to establish my own career.

What graduate schools teach performance majors today  does not prepare you for much outside of performing or professorship

Most of what I learned in graduate school, when it came to preparing me to “get a job” was not how to become an international performing soloist star, it was on how to apply and land a college professorship.  I would be THRILLED to have this job *sadly, since I do not have a Dr. in front of my name, I have been passed over for those who do at every job I have thus applied for*, but there are only so many professorships to go around.  Most of my fellow musicians who get performing or even professorship/teaching jobs have to have “day jobs” on the side because their musical jobs do not support them.

What musicians are desperately in need of today is entrepreneurship training.  Most musicians who go to grad school have a burning desire to play for others, but almost no idea how to market themselves as individuals beyond writing a resume.  In fact, there are many graduate students who just “continue to go to school” earning a doctorate because they haven’t landed any gigs, jobs, had any interviews and don’t know what to do once they get out, so really it’s just a way of procrastinating getting into the real world.

Knowing how to build a great resume, c.v., interview well and of course, play your instrument outstandingly are all great qualities, but if you don’t get an interview and you don’t have a regular performing gig and you’re NOT that international superstar performer, they will only take you so far.

You need SKILLS – the things business majors learn.

Skill 1: Present yourself well:

You have to be more than just a pretty face and a shiny instrument, you have to present yourself well.  That means smiling, being personable, dressing well, shaking every hand you can and learning names.  Treat everyone as your most important prospect, a future friend and a future employer – show them respect and leave your own ego at the door.  No one likes to talk to a person with a sour face and an attitude that says “you should pay me because I play well, but don’t expect me to like you”.  No.  YOU are the one needing the job and therefore, YOU have to be the one they want to hire.  In fact, the best advice I got when I was young was “Be someone YOU would want to hire”.  Be friendly, look professional, speak professionally and start as many relationships as you can with people.  By the way, presenting yourself well applies to social media as well.  Don’t post drinking photos all over your Facebook page and swear on twitter and in general, give anyone the opportunity to have a bad impression of you.  Having a personal Facebook page is fine, but make sure your professional “fan” page stays just that, professional.

Skill 2: Create a niche

Ok, we know you can play, but what else?  There is usually some aspect of your playing or your life about which you are equally fascinated and you hold the key to sharing that with other people.  Maybe you have a knack with kids and see a hole in the market for beginning flute books (hint hint…..there is a hole there).  Well, your niche might be marketing yourself as a pedagogue who focuses on beginners.  My niche is marrying my careers as a personal trainer and a musician into one  – training musicians and teaching musicians the benefits of strength training.  Whatever it is, you have something else you are interested in and an area in which you can contribute to the musical world at large.

Skill 3: Make friends with those in your niche area

This is HUGELY important.  Right now, you are probably a nobody.  No one knows your name and you’re just another one of the 10,000 flutists who graduate every year.  There’s truth to the saying “It’s who you know”.  When you find out what your niche is, go find others who are in a similar pursuit with you and make friends with them.  Start conversations, ask questions, pick their brains.  These are the people you want to know your name because when they mention your name to someone else,  what THEY say carries weight.

Skill 4: Market yourself via social media and the internet

If you don’t have a webpage, get a webpage.  This is the first and most basic rule of promoting yourself.  How do you ever expect people to hire you if they can’t find you?  And don’t just write a bunch of stuff down on a page.  Spend the money to get a nice template somewhere and just plug in the information.  Better yet, if you can afford it, have someone else design your webpage for you.  You want something that catches the eye and makes people want to look around to find out more about you.   On that webpage make sure you put down ways people can contact you – make it easy for them to find.  Remember, people are lazy.  They won’t look for things so don’t make them search for it.  

Get a Facebook FAN page and put up RELEVANT content.  See below.  Also, don’t just put up links you think are interesting.  Make comments, socialize, put up pictures, videos, music clips of yourself – look around at people you admire and look at their fan pages.  Model yours after theirs.

Get a blog and start writing about the things that interest you and write it in such a way that other people will be interested.  The blog puts out good content so that when people want the information you have, they find you first.  Remember, you are writing blogs about stuff that interests you – but it shouldn’t necessarily be about you.  Go find other blogs about stuff that interests you and make comments down below (again, relevent comments).  While on the subject of blogs, I highly recommend you get an RSS reader like Google Reader.  Why?  Well, you really want to read a lot of content and it’s more difficult to read content from lots of blogs taking all day to surf around and find them.  With a reader you just drop the address in the reader (or click on the little orange RSS image on the blog – see mine at the top?) and subscribe.  This way, all you have to do is open the reader and you can check out blogs from all over, see what other people are writing about, get ideas, leave comments, etc.

Follow fluteanjel on TwitterGet a twitter account and learn how to use it.  No one wants to read about “it’s been a long day and now I’m watching Scrubs in my PJ’s.”  No one cares.  Find something relevant to your niche on the web?  Tweet about it – link it. TALK to people on Twitter who have the same interests you do.  It’s amazing how relationships can spring up that way.

Get a LinkedIN account – not entirely necessary, but why not? There are groups there that you can join and contribute to – these groups are full of other people who share your interests.  Contribute to the groups with relevant content – don’t spam them and just throw links to your stuff around.  No one likes that person.  Link your blog to LinkedIN and everytime you blog, people can see it on your account.

Link EVERYTHING!  Seriously.  Link your twitter account to Facebook and your blog to Twitter and Facebook and put links to your website everywhere you are.  Everything should lead back to your website.  You want to make yourself as visible as possible and when you link things, it shows up multiple places at once – this prevents you from having to copy/paste it 100 times.

Skill 5: Market yourself in real life

Presentation

Presentation I did this year


Again, this goes back to that niche area, but start giving presentations anywhere and everywhere you can.  Draw up a presentation about something that interests you and then adapt it to fit different age groups.  Give your presentations in every school in the county and then start talking to college professors near you and see if they would let you give it at their school.  More often than not, if you offer a free presentation, they will say yes and you will have made an invaluable contact. Give presentations and recitals in your town, county, at conventions, anywhere you can.  The more people see your name and recognize you for something, the more they’ll remember you when they need your particular service or product.

Skill 6: Put out a newsletter

This is a great way to get people more information about you and what you do.  Every time you go to a presentation, pass around a sign up sheet and have people put down their email address if they would like to receive your newsletter.  On your website and/or blog you should have something that allows people to sign up for your newsletter fairly easily.  Now – you’ve got subscribers, what to write about?  Write about YOU, what you do in the music/business world.  Give them information they want.  For example, in my newsletter, I put out playing/practicing tips, workout tips, answer questions, give links to where they can find me, put up information about what’s going on in my world – where they can find me performing and what performances are coming up in the area (if you have a local newsletter).  Basically, the sky is the limit.  If you need ideas, subscribe to other people’s newsletters and see what content they have that you would like and model after them.  I suggest MailChimp for an easy, free newsletter service.

Hope!  Where to Look!  What to Do!

My friends, I am here to give you hope and show you that there are so many other places from where you can gain knowledge on how to carve out your OWN career!

First of all, if you are going to be an entrepreneur (and this is more geared to those of you who are NOT born with that gene) you are going to have to put in a lot of work on your own and be prepared for nothing to happen for awhile.  It will take a good bit of trial and error before you figure out what works for you, but be patient.  You aren’t just putting your resume out there and hoping for the best.  You have to be proactive and go FIND things, go DO things, contribute.  It’s hard work, but it’s very much so worth it.

Happily, there ARE some schools hoping on the entrepreneurial bandwagon.

The University of Colorado has an Entrepreneurship Center for Music!

Berklee College of Music has a Music Industury Entrepreneurship class

Other schools also offer degrees in Arts Administration – this could be a really good degree to get while also getting your primary degree.

My friend Jonathan Nation has been a wealth of help to me.  His job is to help small businesses and entrepreneurs learn how to navigate the waters of success.  You can visit his webpages at http://www.allynation.com and his business site at http://www.startingcube.com which is also a podcast.  Some of the sites he’s hooked me onto are:

Smart Passive Income.com

Savvy Musician

Angela Beeching - a career consultant for musicians

- 4 Tips to Jumpstart Your Career

The National Flute Association  has put out a great list of sites with their new group: the Career and Artistic Development Committee

Got links to share?  Share below!  Come tell me what you thought of this on my Facebook page, via twitter or make a comment below!

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The Courage to Succeed

April 27, 2011 By 2 Comments

Part 3 ( you can see Part 2 and Part 1 here)

It sounds a little strange, doesn’t it?  The courage to SUCCEED?  Who would ever be afraid of success?  Well, maybe you.  I know I have been at times.

Take a weakness and turn it into a strength.  If you are dedicated to overcoming failure and achieving lasting success, then you need to be willing to do the same.  Work on the weakness that weakens you, and there’s no telling how far you will go.    – John C Maxwell

I think it takes real courage (on top of talent) to be able to do this:

How many people put down Project Trio and beat boxing before they made it?

But this post is not just about having the courage to persevere in the face of failure to ultimately succeed, this post is more so about having the courage to ALLOW yourself to succeed.  That, can take just as much courage as it takes to fail.

Why would people be afraid to do well?  Honestly, for lots of reasons, and it is more common than you think and I am finding that this is the most difficult blog post I have written, to date.  I found this post to define it better than I:

Fear of success is the following:

* Fear that you will accomplish all that you set out to accomplish, but that you still won’t be happy, content or satisfied once you reach your goal.

* Belief that you are undeserving of all the good things and recognition that come your way as a result of your accomplishments and successes

* Opposite of fear of failure, in that fear of failure is the fear of making mistakes and losing approval–Fear of success is the fear of accomplishment and being recognized and honored.

* Lack of belief in your own ability to sustain your progress, and the accomplishments you have achieved in your life

* Fear that your accomplishments can self-destruct at anytime

* Belief that no matter how much you are able to achieve or accomplish, it will never be enough to sustain success

* Belief that there are others out there who are better than you, who will replace or displace you if you do not maintain your performance record

* Belief that success is an end in itself; yet that end is not enough to sustain your interest and/or commitment

* Fear that once you have achieved the goals you have worked diligently for, the motivation to continue will fade

* Fear that you will find no happiness in your accomplishments–that you will be perpetually dissatisfied with life.

These fears ring true for me in many areas of life -though they were most brought to life as I was finishing grad school.  It had never occured to me that I was afraid of success, I thought I was merely afraid to fail.  It was during a time of intense preparation and I was feeling overwhelmed in life and began to have feelings of not being able to live up to other’s expectations.  I had actually begun putting my validation into what others said of me instead of what I knew of me.  I was becoming a “human doing” instead of a “human being” and it was tearing me apart.

One part of me desperately wanted to succeed, and go into the fear of conquering the unknown, doing well in the future without guidance from a teacher, and one part was deathly terrified.

Please excuse the swear word

What are the negative consequences of the fear of success?

 Fear of success can result in:

* A lack of effort to achieve goals you have set for yourself in school, on the job, at home, in relationships, or in your personal growth

* Self-destructive behavior, such as tripping yourself up to make sure that you do not sustain a certain level of success or achievement you once had in school, on the job, at home, in relationships or in your personal growth.

* Problems making decisions, being unable to solve problems

* Losing the motivation or the desire to grow, achieve and succeed

* Chronic underachievement

* Feeling guilt, confusion and anxiety when you do achieve success–this leads you to falter, waver and eventually lose your momentum.

* Sabotaging any gains that you have made in your personal growth and mental health, because once you become healthier, a better problem solver, and more “together,” you fear that no one will pay attention to you. You are habituated to receiving help, sympathy and compassionate support.

* Your choosing to do just the opposite of what you need to do to be happy, healthy and successful

* Reinforcing your chronic negativity, chronic pessimism and chronic lack of achievement since you cannot, visualize yourself in a contented, successful life

* Denouncing your achievements and accomplishments, or seeking ways in which you can denigrate yourself enough to lose what you’ve gained

Do you do any of these things or have any of these beliefs?  Do you find yourself being very negative towards yourself and putting yourself down regularly – unable to accept compliments?  It could be that truly you are not afraid to fail, you are actually afraid of success and using the mask of considering yourself a failure to prevent yourself from actually succeeding.

What do those who fear success believe?

* I have worked so hard to get this far, yet I need to keep on working hard; I’m not sure the effort is worth it.

* I know people care about me when I am down and out, but will they like me when I am on top and successful?

* I’ve never been happy before, so how can I be sure I’ll be happy once I achieve my goals?

* I am nothing, and I deserve nothing.

* How can people like me if I succeed in reaching my goals in life?

* I can’t sustain the momentum I would need to achieve my goals.

* How can I be sure that my good fortunes won’t go sour and be destroyed?

* There are always more demands and more needs that have to be met in order for me to be successful, no matter what I do it will never be enough.

* They are all better, brighter, smarter, and more talented than I am. I really don’t deserve to be successful.

* It’s hard to be at the top.

* Everyone is out to shoot down the head man.

* No one really likes a winner.

* Everyone goes for the underdog.

* I am happiest when I am under pressure and challenged.

* Hard work, no play and constant effort make me happy. What would I do if it were different?

* I feel so guilty when I realize how much I have been given in my life.

* I’m always afraid I’m going to lose it all.

* Starting over again gives me meaning and a sense of mission and purpose.

* I’m so bored with what I’ve accomplished. What’s left to do?

* Everyone has the right to fail in life, and I have the right to choose to fail if I want to.

I find this happens in a lot of different areas in life: we can be all gung-ho about losing weight, learning our instrument, doing well at our jobs, etc. that when we suddenly realize either how much work it will take and we get discouraged or realize that we are actually good at what we do and if we do allow ourselves to be as good as we can be…

we can end up going a lot further than we’ve ever gone, and not only is that scary, it will grow and change us as a person and you might not be ready for that.  The people around you might not be ready for that.  THAT can give you a fear of success.  If you have a desire to stay in your comfort bubble, be honest with yourself and ask WHY?  Are you afraid to fail, afraid to let others down and fear judgement?  Or are you afraid to succeed, afraid to really fly and let yourself grow, and let the people around you either grow with you or leave?

What new behavior patterns can help in overcoming your fear of success?

* Learning to reinforce yourself for the hard work, effort and sacrifices you have made to achieve success

* Being able to honestly appraise your level of achievement, success and accomplishment

* Accepting yourself as being healthy, “together,” happy, successful, prosperous and accomplished

* Not giving yourself any excuses for being unsuccessful

* Giving others in your life permission to give you honest, open, candid feedback when they see you self-destructing or backsliding

* Monitoring your level of commitment and motivation to reach your goals

* Visualizing your life when you are successful

* Giving others credit, recognition, and support for their personal achievements, successes and accomplishments

* Honest, open, realistic self-talk that encourages you to work your hardest to achieve the goals that you have set for yourself

* Accepting the compliments and recognition of others with an open heart and mind

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/14659-handling-fear-of-success/#ixzz1KfrAnJwj

There is a wonderful book called “The Success Principles:  Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be” by Jack Canfield 

If you are struggling with either allowing yourself to succeed OR fail, I highly recommend this book.  He breaks it down into manageable sections that you can tackle one at a time and these principles will translate to all areas of your life.  If you are struggling with allowing yourself to be the best musician you can be, the best father/mother you can be, the best architect/manager/plumber/writer/etc. you can be, struggling with allowing yourself to believe enough in yourself that you CAN lose weight and it’s really not the impossible obstacle you thought it was, etc. this book will help you learn to accept and achieve success in whatever area of life.

Trust – maybe the reason behind it all

You can see that a lot of these fears of success stem from a fear of trusting yourself.  You could lack trust in yourself to make decisions, follow through, know what’s best for you, whatever.  We all deal with a lack of trust in ourselves at some point, but in order to live life to the fullest, we must learn not only why we distrust ourselves, but learn to overcome it.

Did you dress yourself this morning?  You demonstrated that you know how to take care of yourself.

Did you eat today? You demonstrated taking care of your basic needs – you trusted your hunger signals.

Let me leave you with a quote that I posted on my bathroom door while I was dealing with my own fear of success.  I read it every day and let it sink in.  I hope it gives you the empowerment you need to empower yourself to allow success into your life!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

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Developing Body Awareness and Self-Trust

April 26, 2011 By 11 Comments

Once upon a time…

Like most people who learn an instrument in the USA, I learned to play the flute in 6th grade.  I had wanted to start playing much earlier than this as I knew my mother had a flutehidden away under the stairs.  Sometimes I would take it down off the shelf, carefully (like it had magic and I didn’t want to disturb it) and I would open the box to reveal the

the shiny buttons...

gleaming, silver tube inside.  Seeing that shiny instrument, nestled in dark, navy velvet, I would reach out with wonder and touch the keys, thinking to myself “one day, I am going to get to learn to play this!  One day, it will be mine to play and I won’t have to stare at it from a box”.  After a few minutes of staring I’d put it away back on the dusty shelf and sigh with longing that I had to wait till 6th grade to learn.

When the day came to sign up for band, I was first in line, waving my arms and proclaiming to everyone who would listen “I have a flute!  I already have an instrument!  Please, I want to play the flute!”  I would rush down the halls every day at 2nd period with a giddy excitement that I, yes I was going to play that beautiful, shiny instrument and because of ME it was going to make sound!!!

I was one of the first in the band room, when it was time to wait for the bus, I would sneak down there to practice (once actually missing the bus and causing my mother to come get me….something she made known was NOT acceptable) and I always made sure that when I put my flute in the storage room with the other flutes that it was upright and protected.  It wasn’t just that it was my mother’s instrument  and I felt the pull of responsibility to take care of something that I undoubtedly cost a fortune, but I felt it somehow fragile, and extremely special because with it came the ability to express myself and communicate in a new way.

On lesson days I was uber-excited because I knew that I got to stay after school and play to my heart’s content…well, for an hour and a half at least.  Some of my friends were taking lessons that day too and we’d play duets which was thrilling, and then when I was last, I’d have the huge empty room all to myself.  I’d love to listen to my sound bounce off the walls.

As I grew up through high school and even into college, that same excitement followed me – sneaking down to the band room, getting special permission to not have to sit in study halls so I could go practice, playing every chance I got and going to every honor band I possibly could.  I had an in-exhaustible curiosity to learn new things, new music, and lessons were always something I looked forward to because it wasn’t about not being prepared and playing for the teacher it was the thought of “what will she say that’s new to me today?  What will I learn today?  When I leave here, I’ll be better than when I came in!”   

The beginnings of body awareness

In all those years of teaching, very seldom was any emphasis placed on being aware of my body, save hand position being correct and an awful lot of talk about my embouchure.  In fact, it was the teacher in 7th grade who taught me my current (more or less) embouchure and thinking back on it, she put a great deal of emphasis on awareness of my lips.  She had me play in front of a mirror to see what the embouchure looked like, and then step away, play and see if I could feel it without looking.  I would go down the hall to the bathroom and stand on my tippy toes to see in the mirror, enjoying not only the sound of my playing bouncing off the walls of the deserted bathroom and down the hall, but enjoying the thrill of discovery with how my body worked.

Interlochen Center for the Arts

Image via Wikipedia

From there, I started to notice that I was becoming increasingly interested in the body, especially mine, with how it worked in regards to playing my special instrument.  I heard about Alexander Technique and took classes in it at Interlochen Arts Camp.

Then, I was told that there was a woman named Barbara Conable giving a workshop at a nearby university and her workshop was an all-day event titled “Everything The Musician Needs to Know About the Body“.  My friend, a music therapy major, and I packed up and spent the day learning things that to this day, I have not forgotten.

Photograph of right posterior human distal rad...

Image via Wikipedia

At the time, I was still recovering from tendonitis acquired from my practicing at  Interlochen.  She asked for volunteers who had present or previous health issues. Of course, I volunteered, and she began to give me a body mapping lesson in front of the class. She told me to take my finger and run it all the way down one finger until I felt a mass of bones together: that was my wrist!  Where the finger bone joined the wrist was actually the first joint of the finger!  She told me: move your fingers and feel how they move….not move them from the first joint.  It felt soooo much freer!

The grad school experience

I went on to graduate school where I took a class in Alexander Technique at Appalachian State for a whole year.  It was wonderful to learn how to move and to learn how the body is supposed to move.  But it wasn’t until I got to FSU that I REALLY began to be aware of my body.

Now, all through these years I had had an interest in exercise and weight training.  I had been going to the gym since 7th grade when I was on the tennis team, but I really got into training regularly when I got to college.  I read EVERYTHING I could get my hands on, and while I didn’t really know what I was doing, I was determined to learn and in the process of lifting, I began to develop mind-body awareness.  My programming skills might have been seriously lacking, but I knew that when I did a one-arm row I supposed to feel it in my back, and I tinkered around with it till I did.  I have no doubt this set me up for great body awareness come grad school.

At FSU I began to take Dynamic Integration (Feldenkrais) classes with Eva Amsler.  This class began with all students lying on the floor for an hour every Thursday morning while Prof. Amsler walked around the room, asking us the strangest, easiest, and yet most difficult questions, in her Swiss accent.

“Do you feel your left leg lying on the floor?  Which way are your toes pointing?”

“How much space is there between your ankle and the floor?”

“Do you feel your shoulder blades lying on the floor?  Could you draw your little wings?”

“Think about how to get up, what would you move first?”

The class was incredibly eye-opening and between that class and her lessons I found myself questioning how I played this instrument that was almost a part of me, and questioning was there a better way?  A different way?

While I was at FSU I continued my workouts, getting up about 6 every morning to walk to the gym, do my workout and walk home before preparing for class.  I found  myself asking the same questions in my workouts:

“Is there a better way to do this? ”

Am I moving most efficiently/effectively?”

“Should I feel this here or there?”

“If I increase the weight, does my form change?”

Looking back through my notebook of those two years of grad school, the practice notes in the beginning are peppered with questions to myself.  The lessons revealed all kinds of new thoughts on how to think about my body, how to re-learn playing my instrument in the way that was best suited to me.

Actual Questions from my Notebook

Practice Notes:

I found that when slurring octaves my throat moves.  I am attempting to only use my lips, mainly my upper lip.  I find I can do this but it’s not clean at all. *How do I change octaves?

….the next day I answered this question:

I can change octaves by changing my support which creates faster air – blowing harder?  But it sounds better when just my top lip moves down.

Warm up: long tones while singing – focus only on throat.  Notice that air crept into cheeks. As I go lower, pitch wants to jump up, if I focus on only my aperture, I can feel it barely move to sculpt the air! Can only play very softly.

Played one note feeling upper lip move up and down and upper lip only while upper lip stays relaxed!

Long tones ascending concentrating on 1) Keeping an uninvolved throat 2) smallest possible movement in aperture 3) relaxed corners and/or air in cheeks.

The higher I go the louder I get!  Why am I gripping the keys so tightly???

Flutter tonguing work: If I sing with the vowel “ih” in my mouth while I flutter tongue, the back of the tongue goes down. However, something changes when I take the voice away…I’m getting it but this is going to take WORK!

Pentatonic scales – focusing on feeling in whole body, am I creating unnecessary tension anywhere? Tension -front of shoulders, left rear deltoid.  While I am just observing what’s happening in my body, tension-wise I am noticing more inflation in my cheeks only concentrating on that, not thinking about support and keeping fingers close to the keys.

When I sit on the ball and play, I notice I collapse into myself.

Lesson Notes/Questions:

The tongue is a muscle so we can relax it. When double tonguing, let the air move the tongue.  Tongue is only interrupting the air.

Figure out which way I learn – hearing, visual or muscle memory.  Sing it, write it down, or play it without blowing.

(about support) Just feel that you hold the tension – how it feels to play with and without.

Teaching principle: go where you haven’t been before – unexplored.  You don’t have to say “I change you”

Observe, don’t control.  Allow yourself to make mistakes.  If you make a mistake, don’t stop, it punishes yourself.  Just be aware when you do something wrong or right – was that easy?  Hard?  Instead  of”when I do….then…” that’s controlling.

Trust = risk.  To trust myself: 1) Observe when you control 2) risk 3) start to observe when you DON’T trust

For 3 weeks, every day, do finger work: practicing slowly, fingers slow close to the keys, observing – can also practice slowly pressing/lots of tension and then easy to feel the difference – but be really patient for 3 weeks before working other way.

Work on holding the body open.


There are lots and lots more of those in my notebook, but do you see the theme?  The questions I was asking myself actually took a lot of guts.  That excitement to discover, to learn, to play that I had in 6th grade that followed me all the way till now served me well; it gave me the courage I didn’t know I had to not put so much stock in what old teachers had told me was the “right” way, but it gave me the courage to discover and learn my own way.  Not only did this make me a better player, it made me a much better teacher, I feel.

Exercises in developing self-trust and body awareness

As you can see by now, developing body awareness can go hand in hand with developing a trust of yourself.  Look at te questions I wrote down as I practiced; have you ever asked yourself those questions?  Has your practice session looked something like that?

1) this week, each time you practice, write down your own observations of your practice session.  Notice what you are doing – can you do it without judging?

Look at the questions my professor asked of me and the way she guided me.

2) Take one of these each week and apply it to yourself and your practice session.  Write down your observations

Are you afraid to observe?  Do you find judgements coming up as you observe things? Do you have the courage to change if you observe yourself doing something less effectively than you would like?

3) sometime during the day take time to lie on the floor and make observations of yourself.  Notice every part of your body and where it touches the floor.  If judgements come up about how you are lying on the floor, just let them pass.  Start on one side of your body and work your way up from your feet to your head – then compare each side to the other, and do the other side.  When you get up after this, how do you feel?  When you play after this, how do you feel?

4) while playing, start to feel other parts of your body than your fingers.  You might be surprised to find you don’t even feel your fingers when you play. Take a day and focus on how your lips feel, what do they do?  How do they change notes?  Feel your feet when you play.  Where do they touch the floor?  All these thoughts think WHILE playing – how does it change your playing to concentrate on feeling your body and putting the “doing” on auto-pilot?

Be kind to yourself.  Body awareness takes time and is constantly developing.  Try some of these techniques and tell me below how you feel.  Do you already have good body awareness?  How did you develop it?  If you have taken Alexander, Feldenkrais, Dynamic Integration, or body mapping  lessons, share with others how it helped you.

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