Tag: injury

Alexander Technique – My Progress So Far

Nicole Neal3 Comments
Alexander technique
Semi-supine position in Alexander technique (Photo credit: alanpfitch)

At the start of last month you’ll remember that I blogged about my first experience with Alexander Technique – a technique that teaches you to be more aware of tensions in the body and to release those tensions to allow the body to move and work more freely, easily and with greater efficiency. Check out that post here: https://classicalguitarnstuff.com/2012/12/05/alexander-technique-my-first-lesson/

Following my first week or two taking Alexander Technique (AT) lessons and practicing the semi-supine position on a daily basis, I began to become lot more aware of where I was holding tension in my body. I noticed I was holding tension in my jaw – and what a lot of tension there was there! After realising I was holding this tension, learning to notice it more (both in semi-supine position and in normal everyday situations) the feeling of release in the jaw and lower head was a revelation!! I likened it to that post-workout or post-run kind of feeling – like you’ve been working hard, putting your muscles through stress and strain and now you’ve stopped……Ahhhh!

I also noticed a similar tension through my shoulders, and noticed that they have a tendency to creep up around my ears when I’m in an uncomfortable or challenging situation (mentally rather than physically that is), or when I get excited, nervous or agitated. And knowing where this tension exists and when it may occur, or what may make it occur can help then to begin the process of reducing it. The act itself of noticing it begins to change  the habit.

So why is releasing tension in the body important for a guitarist?

Well, if your hand, arm, neck, shoulder or back muscles (even other muscles in other parts of the body, but these in particular) are unnecessarily tense and tight it’s:

  1. taking energy away from the actions you do want to make and the activity muscles you do want working for you
  2. puts pressure on various parts of the body, including the joints and spine which may lead to longer term issues
  3. does not allow you to give you your full self to playing the music as you are literally holding yourself back.

In terms of my playing, I’m noticing some really positive benefits of the AT. First up, I’ll lie in the semi-supine position before settling into some serious practice as it tunes me into my body, where tensions may lie, and relaxes me ready for practice. Then during practice I’m feeling a lot more relaxed through the head, neck, shoulders and arm, which makes practicing and playing much more enjoyable and means I can practice for longer periods of time. When I’m done practicing I also get down into the semi-supine position to help release any tensions that might have crept in and give the spine a rest from the pulling, pushing, tensions and pressures put on it through the rigours of practice.

I’ve done a couple of performances too since starting with AT and I’ve noticed it’s helped significantly with relaxation prior to and during the performance, which makes things a heck of a lot easier!

I have some more AT sessions coming up in January and I’ll keep you posted on my journey into relaxation!

 

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Fingers and thumbs, or getting your digits sorted for playing

Nicole NealLeave a comment

I thought an appropriate subject to follow on from a very recent post on posture, and ensuring the body and arms are positioned well for playing, would be a post on your dexterous digits.

Muscles and other structures of wrist and palm
Muscles and other structures of wrist and palm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I stated in a very recent post, the foundation of your movements in playing the guitar should really come from the bigger muscle groups. Once you’ve identified the leverage-type shoulder movements in the left arm (or right arm, if you’re left-handed) and you’ve got a grasp on, well, grasping the guitar comfortably with the right hand, then we can move on to looking at the movements of the hands, fingers and thumbs.

Right then. Right hand.

Make a loose fist with your right hand as if you were going to punch something, curling your fingers under. Unleash your fingers in a relatively rapid reflex-kind of action.

Be aware of the finger movements here – the fingers should be moving from the big hand knuckle. This knuckle is the primary driving force behind both your free stroke and rest stroke. Of course, there will be some movement of the other two knuckles in the fingers, but the primary “stroke engine” should be your big ol’ hand knuckles.

Similarly with the right hand thumb. Unless you have some issues that prevent it, all of the right hand thumb movement should originate from the base of the hand. Check out that relatively long bone you’ve got there coming from the wrist and that big ball of muscle forming the base of the thumb – that’s what you really want to use to drive a bit fat juicy bass!

And the other hand. Don’t want it to feel “left” out….

Sorry. Bad pun. Love them.

Anyway, swiftly moving on.

You should aim to keep your lower left arm, wrist and hand in alignment. Obviously this is not going to be possible all of them time, but this is a key aim to prevent things getting all squished and smooshed together and rubbing and constricted and all things nasty going on in that very small conduit for all manner of tendons, muscles, nerves, veins, arteries and who knows what else that is the carpal tunnel.

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(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My most important piece of advice here is to avoid unnecessary tension in the left hand. You need much less pressure than you probably realise to fret a note. A wee experiment: try just touching the string with a super, super light touch with the left hand, just grazing it and try playing the note. It will sound not like a nice note, but buzzy or thunking probably.

Gradually, ever so gradually, whilst playing the string with the right hand apply a little more pressure until the note starts to sound. I’ll bet you $50 that there’s really hardly any pressure at all there and you’re still pressing quite lightly.

Occasionally, we might need an extra bit of pressure,for an awkward stretch or squeezy barre for example. In this instance, use that leverage principal and take the pressure and tension our of your fingers, out of your hand, even out of your arm and shoulder, and lean in with the body. Lean your body in to the guitar to meet the required finger pressure – the greater the pressure required the greater the lean.

Have a think about these things next time you’re practicing – am I squeezing too hard? Do I need that amount of tension and pressure? Is that pressure and tension really helping?!