Will all last week’s philosophising about the psychological effects of an old playing injury, I forgot something deeply, blindingly obvious.
It was never all in my head.
And so three days ago I pulled the muscle in my right shoulder again.
Although it is necessary to work through the psychosomatic reasons behind physical tension, it is also important not to dismiss the less metaphysical elements. When a muscle has suffered a trauma such as a pull or tear, it develops scar tissue as it heals. This new tissue will never be quite as flexible as the muscle around it. It is also likely that any muscles which have been tense for a long time will have been starved of oxygen causing trigger points to develop where, if the muscle is then put under strain, the original symptoms will recur. This will keep happening until the area which is triggering the pain is properly treated.
So basically, once you have had an injury you need to be a little bit nice to the place you injured for a very long time. Which means that I need to acknowledge that my right side may never be able to do quite the same bendy, twisty yoga poses that my left side can slip into with supercilious ease.
So far this week has not been easy. The constant pain from my shoulder which referred down into my right arm, giving a remarkable impression of tendonitis, has been tiring and depressing. The fact is, I’ve been so determined to get fit and strong so as to create a sound basis for a healthy, happy career as a violinist, it had not even crossed my mind that there might be scar tissue in my shoulder muscle. For a few hours after I pulled the muscle again, I felt dreadful; as though the whole sorry saga was going to begin again. The pain was quite amazing. My whole shoulder and arm was actually screaming at me, and I wanted to scream back.
Then I remembered that I know what to do now.
It’s no longer a playing injury, so the first thing to do is to stop freaking out.
The second thing to do is to keep it moving gently. This is not easy if the first thing you do in the morning is stuff yourself onto a rush-hour tube train where you are contorted into a space the size of a packet of crisps by a crushing medley of foul-tempered, coffee-starved armpits, so I walked most of the way to work.
I had a massage.
Then came the information that what I’d pulled was actually scar tissue. My muscles have emotional baggage. So maybe insisting on improving the flexibility of my right shoulder by, say, April, isn’t such a great idea. Maybe I need to be a lot more patient. I can do that.
I can also reduce the amount of practice I do back to 20 minutes at a time. This is the most positive outcome so far. I’m suddenly achieving much more concentrated bursts of practice and wasting much less time. An hour goes by easily in 20 minute slots. I can be aware of my physical state and practice focussing my attention in a much deeper way. To save time I record myself and listen back a few days later. None of these ideas are new, but I just wasn’t using them before. Also, the effect of having a 20 minute time limit is that it’s easy to practice picking up the violin and playing. A longer practice always involves elaborate warm-ups which there is never time for in the real world. This way my practice can be truly integrated, physically and mentally.
So the lesson I learned this week was just to be a little kinder to myself. I was so busy giving myself a hard time for the negative thought patterns which caused the injury, I forgot to acknowledge the way my body had reacted. My muscles, it seems, have a better memory than I do. Not everything needs to be analysed. Sometimes we just need to listen to our bodies. There is a school of thought that says every injury and illness has a psychosomatic element. But it also has a physical manifestation.
Perhaps everything is simpler if we just take time to notice the bleeding obvious.
Violin Practice - Little and Often
