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Finding INTENTIONAL tension. Why relaxing might not be the solution to Focal Dystonia

Failing to Relax After the onset of my focal dystonia more than a decade ago, one of the first ideas I had for solution was just trying to keep my hand and my body from tensing up. This tension inhibited me from performing many tasks and dragged me down emotionally. I was just simply experimenting ways to just not tense up my hand. So naturally, my thought process was to get my mind , body and hand to relax. I thought if I could just learn how to relax again, I would not be

Finding INTENTIONAL tension. Why relaxing might not be the solution to Focal Dystonia

Finger Problems are Rarely Problems of the Fingers

In this video, I talk about the importance of aligning the body to a natural position when retraining. The misalignment of the hand to the forearm among pianists (or any instrumentalists ) can end up being quite a big problem. As much as we pianists give attention to our fingers when problem arises, giving more attention to the fingers rarely solve problems. Our fingers and especially our fingertips have the most heightened amount of senses so we are naturally more aware of t

Finger Problems are Rarely Problems of the Fingers

Focal Dystonia, a Body Image Problem?

In this video, I talk about approaching focal dystonia as vague or exaggerated body image problem. When we approach the uncomfortable sensation and even the scary feeling that a musician with focal dystonia experiences when he or she is using specific part of the body as a body’s defensive reaction to not knowing and not owning parts of the body, and start re-constructing a body image that it might be lacking to make sense of what is going on, the excessive tension or the un-

Focal Dystonia, a Body Image Problem?

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