- Well what are some of the things you can do
to address the mind body connection?
I must say this is something that in medicine,
we generally don't do very well,
but it's still really important.
I'll refer patients to Alexander, for example.
Alexander technique has a wonderful way
of helping you integrate your spine and head,
which is so often involved in musicians,
into the rest of your body,
and allow you to work without so much tension,
particularly, if you're trying to correct
some technical fault in the way you play.
Feldenkrais is a wonderful way to work with the whole body,
in particular ways that involve movement
and movement patterns, so that the whole body
can kind of calm down and get integrated.
I often refer to Pilates.
Pilates was developed primarily for dancers,
but it's great for musicians,
as we've established, you've got two instruments.
Pilates is done laying down for the most part
and involves a lot of core strengthening and stabilizing.
The Feldenkrais and Alexander often are more useful
for neural control patterns,
that is helping you get rid of unhelpful patterns.
There's yoga.
Yoga is very excellent,
has a meditation come apart to it as well.
My advice in general is to find something,
that number one you like and number two
has really good, careful and individual instruction.
If you're in a class with 30 people
and nobody comes around to talk
with you about your particular problem,
I'm gonna have a problem with that.
It needs to be something very small,
preferably 10 or 15 people tops in the class,
so the teacher has the time to come around
to you individually and they should ask you ahead of time,
are you having any problems et cetera?
Often your arts medicine doctor will give you a list
and say, here, take this to this yoga teacher
or to the Alexander practitioner and work in this area.