- Staying healthy is such an important part
of our profession and of any profession
and it always amazes me how little students know
about staying healthy.
When they come here and they're away from home,
some of them for the first time,
no one is cooking them breakfast the way mom did
or lunch or dinner and reminding them to eat
and reminding them to sleep
and my students, when they come here as freshmen,
forget to do these things.
It's amazing.
They'll come and they'll come to a lesson
and I'll notice their hand is shaking
and I'll say, did you eat this morning?
Well, just a cup of coffee.
Do you wanna know why your hand is shaking?
There's nothing in your system.
So the first thing I tell my students
is that they have to eat properly and regularly.
That's so important and have the amount of sleep
just like any normal human being.
There is time.
So there has to be a schedule made
so that you have time to do these things
then they don't realize that music is an athletic endeavor.
Sure, we think about Mozart and we think about Bach
and we think about Beethoven but when it comes down to it,
we're producing here and those students are playing six,
seven hours a day on an instrument.
I remind them first of all
not to play more than 30 minutes at a time
without putting the instrument down, relaxing the shoulders
but I insist on a regimen of exercises for all of them
that address violin and stick problems,
shoulders, arms, hands, back because that's what we have.
I have to tell them how to sit in an orchestra
'cause many of them have been taught
to sit on the edge of the chair like this.
That's what they do and this,
there are people that walk around here
with one shoulder higher than the other.
This is the way they've learned all of these years.
So to get the body aligned, to feel comfortable,
to feel that everything is supported by the spine,
you have to work at that
because when you're concentrating in an orchestra
and the conductor is saying, you have to produce
and you don't have time to think about these things.
So I develop a series of exercises for each student.
Some have various propensities, some lift,
some lift this shoulder, some lift this shoulder,
some have funny things in their neck,
some make funny motions with their mouth.
Students do these things.
I remember driving my mother crazy when I did this
and when I got rid of it, it went over to the other side.
It just drove her nuts.
Well, I see this all the time
and they become self-conscious about it
and it all is relaxation
and being in control of what the body can do.
So one of the elements that I make sure that they know about
is something called the Bodyblade
and I was taught the Bodyblade by my massage therapist.
When I told him what kinds of exercises I do,
I've been very fortunate.
I've never had any physical problems
with my shoulders or hands or no tendonitis, nothing
but I've always worked at it
and he asked me about it and I told him what I did.
He said, I think the Bodyblade would be great for that
and he showed me what the Bodyblade is.
You can find out on the internet, bodyblade.com
but it is a marvelous device used by the armed forces
and it is a carbon fiber bar about that big
with little tiny rubber weights on the end
and a grip in the middle
and the most wonderful thing about the Bodyblade
is that with a very small motion here,
you get a great big motion here.
So when you do this and I'm serious,
it's not any more than that, these two wings do this
and all of these muscles are moved and exercised.
So it's a passive exercise rather than an active exercise
and I use it every day.
Norman Fischer uses it also.
I find that it is very rewarding, very quick
and very relaxing to use.
So I think exercises that will enhance
your body's motions that you need for the instrument
are really important.
Eating correctly, sleeping
and staying in a good frame of mind.
Be healthy all over.