It was a good way to start the school year with a reminder of why posture and health is so important to being a musician.
The things I particularly took away from the session were the examples for proving that your body tricks you based on your habits such as trying to fold your arms the opposite way or putting your feet parallel and noticing how they can feel that they are turning in (depending on how wide an angle your feet are used to standing!).
Unless you are very lucky, most musicians end up with some form of bad habits that they end up battling with to change at some point. It could be a practice habit, posture, muscle tension etc. Habits are hard to change because they feel correct and comfortable. Changing a habit feels unfamiliar, uncomfortable and even wrong. It is important to remember that your body is not always giving you correct information and can confuse the familiar with the correct.
As a teacher you only see a pupil for a short time. In order to create good habits and change ones that could cause problems in the future, they need to understand why it is important and why it can be difficult so they can continue noticing the signs or triggers to good habits when they are playing outside lesson time.
Another idea I took away from the session was describing the musician as an athlete. Good healthy habits to do with warming up and looking after youself are easily associated with athletes and less so with musicians. If musicians can think more like athletes it is much easier to avoid injury!
It all comes down to awareness of the whole body, not just the fingers.
The things I particularly took away from the session were the examples for proving that your body tricks you based on your habits such as trying to fold your arms the opposite way or putting your feet parallel and noticing how they can feel that they are turning in (depending on how wide an angle your feet are used to standing!).
Unless you are very lucky, most musicians end up with some form of bad habits that they end up battling with to change at some point. It could be a practice habit, posture, muscle tension etc. Habits are hard to change because they feel correct and comfortable. Changing a habit feels unfamiliar, uncomfortable and even wrong. It is important to remember that your body is not always giving you correct information and can confuse the familiar with the correct.
As a teacher you only see a pupil for a short time. In order to create good habits and change ones that could cause problems in the future, they need to understand why it is important and why it can be difficult so they can continue noticing the signs or triggers to good habits when they are playing outside lesson time.
Another idea I took away from the session was describing the musician as an athlete. Good healthy habits to do with warming up and looking after youself are easily associated with athletes and less so with musicians. If musicians can think more like athletes it is much easier to avoid injury!
It all comes down to awareness of the whole body, not just the fingers.
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