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as much as we pianist give attention to
00:00:03
our fingers when problem arises giving
00:00:05
more attention to our fingers rarely
00:00:07
solve problems
00:00:09
I've initially tried not to point out my
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finger collapse the joints or curl the
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fingers but just trying to undo the
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problem that we see in our fingers by
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putting attention to the fingers didn't
00:00:24
work out so much our fingers and
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especially our fingertips have the most
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heightened amount of senses so it is
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natural that we it draws a lot of
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attention there but I've learned that
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the finger movements are results of
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activities of different placement
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structural changes of the bone tendons
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and muscles of the hand and the forearm
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and get this there are no muscles in our
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fingers so when we try to fix the
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problem that we see in our fingers by
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only trying to undo the problem within
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the concept of fixing our fingers we are
00:01:05
not addressing the core problem of the
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movement which originates in how we use
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our hand forearm and possibly the rest
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of the body
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obviously when our fingertip junk
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collapses or the thumb tightened towards
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the palm and the fingers curl and point
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out in all different sorts of weird ways
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it is counterintuitive to seek what we
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are doing in the hands and maybe
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possibly the rest of the body but when
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we start to understand that the finger
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movements our results of how we are
00:01:46
using or not sufficiently using the
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hands and the forearm it changes our
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perception a bit on what we are actually
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doing to move our fingers so let's shift
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our attention at least from our fingers
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tips to our hands for a moment
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we intuitively know how to use our hands
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we are equipped with grabbing reflex at
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birth and soon enough we know how to let
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things go
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we learn how to spread and adjust our
00:02:19
fingers to different tasks at early
00:02:22
stages of our lives now when we start
00:02:26
learning how to play the instrument we
00:02:29
tend to start injecting concepts outside
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of our natural and intuitive movement of
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our body we listen to instructions given
00:02:39
by well intended teachers such as keep
00:02:42
your hands and fingers around don't let
00:02:45
in your fingers keep your fingers close
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to the keyboard don't tense your wrist
00:02:50
don't move your wrist don't raise your
00:02:53
shoulders don't stick your elbows out
00:02:56
don't move your elbows out too much your
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thumb is too heavy
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align your fingers to the keyboard don't
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tense up and relax and so on and so
00:03:09
forth these types of instructions from
00:03:13
again well intended teachers often time
00:03:16
gets lost in translation somewhere
00:03:19
between the line read by the student who
00:03:21
is trying really hard to capture the
00:03:25
essence of fluent instrument playing and
00:03:28
what I mean teachers we ourselves could
00:03:32
be the teachers trying to police
00:03:34
everything in our heads as well you know
00:03:37
as a result instead of being aligned to
00:03:42
where the body naturally and intuitively
00:03:45
wants to be we start conceptualizing a
00:03:48
very specialized way of using our body
00:03:52
only specific to the activity around
00:03:55
playing an instrument that is somewhat
00:03:58
misaligned from the natural body
00:04:00
function then habits get routed very
00:04:05
strong and before we know it it becomes
00:04:07
our second nature second nature as in
00:04:11
it's not our first nature which is
00:04:14
aligned to our natural body functions
00:04:17
structure and it's something that we
00:04:19
know and can do so naturally without
00:04:22
anybody teaching us how to do it but
00:04:26
something that is acquired as a habit as
00:04:29
a result of learning regardless of
00:04:32
whether that is an option that makes us
00:04:35
function in the most optimal way let me
00:04:39
give you an example when I reach out for
00:04:46
this glass I just extend my body and my
00:04:50
arm and open up my hand and grab it
00:04:53
without thinking much about it I don't
00:04:57
try to relax my hand and my arms and my
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wrist and try to round my fingers I just
00:05:03
go at it now our movement on the
00:05:11
instruments shouldn't be so much
00:05:13
different from what I just did
00:05:15
but we just had to see variations of
00:05:19
extra movement topped over this very
00:05:23
simple act the big one that I encounter
00:05:27
a lot among pianists it's a phenomenal
00:05:31
that I call the broken wrist a broken
00:05:36
wrist is a misalignment of the hand in
00:05:38
relation to the forearm if I put my mug
00:05:42
grabbing hand onto the keyboard we are
00:05:46
an optimal place to function really well
00:05:49
but I often see variations of this wrist
00:05:55
misalignment and high-risk positioning
00:05:58
like this and hand twisted away towards
00:06:01
the pinky or the thumb are just a couple
00:06:04
of them unlike my glass grabbing hand
00:06:08
and having a good support of my wrist
00:06:12
when my hand is angled away from the
00:06:15
forearm and the wrist support is broken
00:06:20
so if I'm playing with slightly
00:06:23
heightened risk position like this you
00:06:26
can see that this is already environment
00:06:29
of the line now
00:06:31
my fingers still move and I could play
00:06:35
seemingly alright like this but I'm not
00:06:43
feeling the same amount of action in my
00:06:47
hand movement and even my arms and
00:06:50
shoulders as if I were playing in
00:06:53
somewhat more unnatural positioning as
00:06:56
as he's as seeing with the glass
00:07:00
grabbing hand now let's consider the
00:07:09
angle of the movement of my fingers when
00:07:13
my whole hand is angled away from the
00:07:15
natural positioning as seeing in this
00:07:17
high wrist my balance is much more
00:07:20
grabbing dominant than releasing and so
00:07:24
let me elaborate if you could try to
00:07:29
feel with me the sensation when you go
00:07:32
grab that glass I'm not feeling the same
00:07:36
sensation as if I'm playing with a
00:07:40
high-risk position I feel the grabbing
00:07:44
force it's a lot stronger than what it
00:07:47
takes to release now you can experiment
00:07:52
by putting your hand wrist and forearm
00:07:54
aligned to a more natural position an
00:07:58
angle that you might see yourself taking
00:08:02
when your hand is just hung from your
00:08:05
arm when you're walking or when you're
00:08:07
doing something without thinking oh so
00:08:10
much or having your whole hand and arm
00:08:12
on a flat surface like this as you can
00:08:17
see both my palm and that side of my
00:08:20
hand is actively moving to lift and drop
00:08:24
my fingers I'm actually using a lot more
00:08:27
of my back hand and you could heal and
00:08:30
you could probably see that my bones
00:08:33
that are extended from my knuckles to
00:08:35
the wrist there are moving on surface of
00:08:40
my skin and the knuckle joints don't
00:08:44
move someone
00:08:45
place in the air when I open and close
00:08:48
my hand here I am more or less in a
00:08:52
place where I have a balanced usage of
00:08:55
my hand muscles that control my fingers
00:09:01
so we talked about the broken wrist or
00:09:04
the misalignment of the hand to the
00:09:06
forearm seeing in the high-risk
00:09:09
positioning but the broken wrist can
00:09:11
also be seen when changing possession
00:09:14
from one place to the other on the
00:09:16
keyboard so instead of just putting the
00:09:20
glass grabbing hand from one point to
00:09:23
the other like this a broken wrist might
00:09:29
happen in between the changing of the
00:09:31
position like this often see many
00:09:37
variations of this I think
00:09:41
Otto Rubinstein is a master of movement
00:09:43
we could all learn so much from his
00:09:46
playing he is doing absolutely nothing
00:09:48
extra his hand is doing all the work
00:09:51
while he has a very good support of his
00:09:54
wrist and he is doing absolutely nothing
00:09:56
beyond his natural body structure is
00:10:00
extremely expressive and technically
00:10:02
versatile all while his movement is
00:10:07
minimal but at the same time very
00:10:10
movable let me try to tell you when I
00:10:15
think this broken wrist starts becoming
00:10:17
a problem our hand is naturally equipped
00:10:21
with a balance of flexing or grabbing or
00:10:24
extending and releasing we also have
00:10:27
muscles that makes our fingers spread
00:10:29
and come back together and I believe
00:10:34
that our body's default is perfect
00:10:37
balance so when we are tuned to the
00:10:39
balance we are very functional being
00:10:42
this is where maintenance is important
00:10:46
as our body keeps on repainting our body
00:10:49
image or in other words understanding of
00:10:52
our own body in our head every day
00:10:56
according to how we use them as I
00:11:00
explained when I am aligned with the
00:11:03
natural positioning of the body my hand
00:11:08
uses muscles from both sides in more
00:11:11
more or less balanced fashion
00:11:13
I feel the grabbing and or the flexing
00:11:16
and the dynamic of releasing and
00:11:18
extending but when I'm off the natural
00:11:23
positioning like this or like this I
00:11:26
don't feel as much of that balanced
00:11:30
feeling now even from a pedagogical
00:11:34
standpoint oftentimes the curling and
00:11:38
pointing of the fingers and even the
00:11:40
collapse of the finger to joint it's a
00:11:44
result of an imbalance to use of the
00:11:46
hand
00:11:47
souls that might come from the
00:11:51
misalignment of the hand to the forearm
00:11:55
among beginner students so when we work
00:11:59
with symptoms of focal dystonia we need
00:12:03
to think how we could unblock the
00:12:06
movement that is blocked I think the
00:12:10
first step is to align the body in a
00:12:14
natural position so we could set
00:12:16
ourselves up to start using those
00:12:19
muscles in the first place that are
00:12:22
necessary to balance the movement or
00:12:28
more specifically unblock the currently
00:12:32
underused places so we are in a place
00:12:35
where we could start repainting our body
00:12:37
image the ingredients that I can suggest
00:12:42
for successful retraining is fairly
00:12:44
simple break the barrier be able to
00:12:49
touch your instrument without the sonic
00:12:51
reaction as I explained in the other
00:12:54
video and then be aligned to your
00:12:57
natural body structure and function and
00:13:00
start using both side of those muscles
00:13:04
objectively look at the dystonic
00:13:06
symptoms and feeling without giving in
00:13:10
to the default urge which is to tense
00:13:15
tune in to the sensations beyond the
00:13:19
uncomfortable feeling and start putting
00:13:22
attention to where you haven't before
00:13:25
since those sensations might be the
00:13:29
missing sensory data in your memory to
00:13:32
make sense out of movement now the idea
00:13:36
might be simple but I know this
00:13:38
firsthand that it is extremely difficult
00:13:40
to do because of the acquired habit that
00:13:44
we have plus the sensations that are
00:13:47
throwing us off and plus the distance
00:13:49
that we are experiencing but as much as
00:13:53
you can I'll urge you to always set
00:13:56
priority to setting yourself
00:13:57
be aligned to the natural body structure
00:14:01
and function you might experience more
00:14:05
uncomfortable sensations and dystonic
00:14:07
reactions even when you do
00:14:09
and so you are naturally accustomed to
00:14:12
be navigating away from it but setting
00:14:16
yourself up at the natural place I think
00:14:19
should always be our number one priority
00:14:23
and of course I only talked about the
00:14:26
wrist problem today but this kind of
00:14:28
fine-tuning should be applied all over
00:14:31
your body and mind you this is something
00:14:35
that we all innately know how to do
00:14:38
because we are born with it but
00:14:41
experienced and injected concepts miss
00:14:44
align us from that natural state what I
00:14:48
think what helps for some people is when
00:14:51
we give in and let go of our worries and
00:14:54
not address the problem and ignore the
00:14:58
bad sensation and just focus on what we
00:15:00
enjoy which of course is the music
00:15:03
itself we tend to be aligned to our
00:15:07
natural state and this is because again
00:15:11
we are this is our where we want to beat
00:15:14
this is our natural place so a question
00:15:19
I have for all of you is where in your
00:15:23
case you think you have injected
00:15:26
concepts outside of your natural state
00:15:29
that might have derailed you from where
00:15:32
you actually intuitively want to be
