Coming from and returning to wholeness

Specializing. Identifying. Isolating. Correcting. It’s how we’ve learned to grow, to heal, and to improve. Find what’s wrong, and fix it. Solve what’s broken, and you’re good to go.

But what if we approached issues not as problems but with curiosity? Such imbalances simply would require a realignment within your entire being and not be treated as imperfections separate from the embodied system. It shifts the mindset-approach paradigm that we use every time we play an instrument as coming from and returning to a state of wholeness. That radically changes how we practice, and it opens up freedom in how we perform. It transforms your state of being in the world.

As a musician I have walked the walk and talked the talk. I went to a fine music school, studied with the best teachers, and earned a decent living on my instrument. It wasn’t until I began having physical issues—spinal/hip misalignment, carpal tunnel, dramatic weight loss as a by-product of thyroid disease—that I had to take stock of my normal way of doing things. As a former dancer and choreographer, I knew all too well how the body manifested the mental-emotional health of its occupant, but all the reading, study and research left me with questions unanswered. I left my twenties distrusting my mind and feeling betrayed by my body with little or no idea how to turn it around. It was then that I can say my search for truth began: honesty in self and with my approach to the violin.

A decade later my daughter was born six weeks early. It is the time a mother’s body prepares for birth: joints were loosening and separating, and I was losing small motor control, as a result. That was twenty years ago, and my body has never reverted back to its pre-pregnancy state. Being double-jointed with progressive arthritis doesn’t help the matter. An intermittent practicer, my return to the violin after any hiatus is always fraught with wondering what else has come up in my body’s functioning that will present itself as the latest challenge. It’s not a good trajectory. It made me question my early training not as a criticism or complaint, but as an academic inquiry. I remember being strictly (and lovingly) taught to stand with the left foot in front carrying a majority of my weight, to hold the violin entirely with the chin at a 90 degree angle to my torso, and to bow using a “box” hold—a grip that may have worked well for a little hand, but had no flexibility built into it. It was in high school that I learned how to practice by identifying a problem, isolating it, using the barest minimal effort necessary to correct it, and then layering on loads of repetition to get it precise, consistent and reliable with the metronome. Being a “fixer” by nature, I did well with this, and my practice habits pulled me through successful auditions and recitals throughout my early career. It wasn’t until I hit my twenties in my first symphony job and then later in my early thirties that my body began to show signs of wear: lumps developed on my knuckles, hip malalignment, carpal tunnel syndrome, and my hands ached. I knew it wasn’t overuse, yet my hand doctor was astonished at how poorly my hands functioned for my age. His prognosis was grim, my hands were those of a ninety-year-old, and the physical reality was just the least of it. I felt ashamed (what had I done wrong?) and scared (what now?) He had no answers, and I sure didn’t either.

Years after my physical challenges began I sought out Alexander Technique. I had some idea what it was; I had worked with traditional, hands-on, Alexander practitioners before, but I rarely agreed with their assessment. They were all over me to use a higher shoulder rest, change my stance, and “ease” my muscles. But they didn’t play the violin! They knew nothing of the mechanics, and it made me distrust them. I then discovered Mio Morales’ approach online. The mind-work in Primal Alexander—this is the “no-touch” approach—opened my eyes for the first time to “possibility.” Just the thought that I may be able to change my thinking or my relationship with the instrument to promote greater functioning was not only encouraging but inspiring to me. I intellectually knew it, but I was ready to go deeper into what that looked like for me. I sought out other practices from tai chi to NLP to somatic experiencing, and landed with a combination of all of the above plus some, drawing on the collective wisdom each practice offered and integrating it into my playing and into my being which, I learned, is one and the same. I determined that, although my mindset and inner work undoubtably had plenty of room for growth, it was grappling with my body’s ever-changing decline that was the issue I most wanted to address. It affected my racing mind, my self esteem, and of course, my ability to function. Alexander Technique opened the door to the possibility of another way; Feldenkrais and Somatic Experiencing showed me how to go about defining what that way might look like for me.

Somatic (body) approaches such as Feldenkrais, Body-Mind Centering, Sensorimotor Therapy, and Somatic Experiencing are revolutionary to me, and I will tell you why. Their premise is that we come from a place of wholeness toward whatever we endeavor to do. This is done through awareness. Our awareness of what we can most easily access, such as thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensation, and movement, is the portal through which we can delve more deeply, understand our brain-body’s connections and how they relate to meaningful movement (like playing an instrument,) and acquire the ability to have some agency and choice over them within the resilience of change. Once the mind is aware of what the body already knows, we can begin the process we choose to initiate, whether that be healing an emotional wound, improving physical functioning, taming an unwanted triggered response, or seeking overall well being. My history had me approaching all problems from a place of brokenness, incorrectness, and “not right-ness.” Somatic mind-body work shifts that to something far more optimistic: you are whole as you are. Issues like my finger joints are not seen as isolated, naughty little problems but as an unnatural separation from a greater whole. It’s my body’s way of saying, “I need some help here.” The healing comes in the bringing them back into the body’s strength through mind work and movement exploration. 

Here is a metaphor.

Imagine a starfish with its arms reaching out from its center. Early child development specialists sometimes use the starfish shape as a way of understanding human development. We evolve from inside the womb and in early infancy from our core or torso. The limbs extend out from our trunk as they are being supported it. The arms, legs, and head aren’t separate from the core; they emerge from its stability and reach out creating mobility and agency in the world. My fingers are no different. They are extensions of the hand and arm, distant from but not independent of the core of my body. As my joints deteriorate, my physical wholeness plays a vital role in supporting and maintaining integrity in my functioning. Simply manipulating the joint is not going to improve it. I need to find ways to enlist the whole of myself in order to stabilize what is distant.

How? Through movement awareness and exploration. I experiment with my shoulders—how they move in concert with each other or not, the posture I hold when I play—do I prefer a “reaching” position or an “receiving” position when I play, and the movement that is easily possible, that doesn’t strain or compromise my body’s functioning (like breathing and blood flow.) I was trained to “not move” certain parts of my body that “interfered” with my technique. I’m revisiting that, and finding that oppositional movements, core flexibility, natural movement response, and where I place my eyes when I move impact stability and mobility in fascinating and profound ways. No longer am I coming from a place of “what’s wrong.” I am coming from a place of wholeness, bringing the prodigal digits back to their rightful place. 

This is how I now teach, coach, practice and perform. It enlists a mindset, approach and mechanics to the instrument that serves the whole self. How can you fully transmit yourself through your music in any other way?