What follows is that moment when a child begins to attend school and the first of many teachers commands, “Sit still!”… The worst habit of all is not moving, not breathing, compounding that already misaligned spine, pelvis, those hips, ribs, and so on. His child will inevitably take on these traits. For example, a father walks, mainly, with his weight on the inside of his right foot and raises his left shoulder as he walks.
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They passively learn how to be (or not be) in their body. Unfortunately, most of us don’t do any such exercise, leaving us in differing stages of physical dismantlement.Īn unfortunate thing happens to young children as they transition into mobile independence-they take on the good and bad physical habits of the adults they see around them. The exercises needed would involve movements that are opposite to the ones violinists perform daily. Assuming that any player had optimal posture and a clear knowledge of the biomechanics of the body, they would need hours of physical conditioning and stretching to balance the tonus in the body produced by hours of playing.
When doing this, we repeatedly place our arms in a forward position, creating a static position in the left shoulder and repetitive movements in the right arm and left hand.
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Playing the violin is equivalent to being a professional athlete, except we violinists don’t acknowledge this, and therefore, as a rule, spend far too little time looking after our bodies. Many times, violinists prefer to sight accidents and burn-out as the cause of an enforced “time-out”, rather than admit to needing to reevaluate and review the very essence of what they do, which is move. It appears that showing vulnerability when it comes to sustaining injuries as a violinist is seen as a sign of incompetence, something that diminishes the player. The assumed position required to perform is far away from the body’s natural stance, and the strain placed on a player’s muscles is immense. In violin circles, it continues to be taboo to speak freely about how unhealthy the act of violin playing really is. Students from other classes were opening the door and peeking into our lesson, their mouths widening in surprise. I vividly remember one particular time when I was teaching a student how to use a yoga ball to self-massage – thereby simultaneously “teaching” the motor cortex to let go of muscles that are, seemingly, in a perpetual state of heightened tonus. My approach to teaching “intelligent” muscle performance is sometimes seen as a novelty.
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The ability to perform well and for great lengths of time is almost entirely dependent on “intelligent” muscle performance and a calm mind, free from physical anxiety and stress. I know this all too well, having experienced it firsthand, as well as having close friends who, like me, learned their lesson the hard way. We have all heard stories of established musicians who have had their careers come to a halt due to issues of physicality – from muscle strain and burn-out to chronic pain and focal dystonia. Perhaps they might feel that it is too intrusive to have such a holistic approach to playing. I imagine that a lot of violin teachers who are aware of the importance of posture feel that it’s not their place to help students in this way. One could argue (and many do – given all that I’ve seen and the countless conversations I’ve had with colleagues when it comes to raised shoulders, twisted necks and ribcages, stiff thumbs, fingers and aching backs) that overall, posture is not the main priority when teaching, that sound can be beautiful and healthy even if that means fostering unhealthy movement habits, thereby allowing muscles to bear so much strain that a player is in pain. So, it strikes me that so many violinists have been trained or exposed to teaching that either doesn’t confront posture, or indeed, teaches stance and motions that are not in harmony with natural body movements. When I see people, I see posture, and I feel their presence as transmitted through their body. Call it an obsession, but I notice how people walk, how they stand, how they sit.
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