{"id":10399,"date":"2019-02-22T22:24:09","date_gmt":"2019-02-23T03:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=10399"},"modified":"2019-02-22T22:24:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-23T03:24:09","slug":"fighting-the-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2019\/02\/22\/fighting-the-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting the Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"

My junior recital is coming up in about a month. <\/span><\/p>\n

In this recital I am going to play three solo works for unaccompanied viola and a string quartet with my current chamber group. That\u2019s about an hour and ten minutes of playing in total which is what I can easily do in an orchestra concert, but solo playing is much different than ensemble playing. It takes way more focus because the music is more challenging. It\u2019s a lot more physically challenging because you don\u2019t get any chances to rest. Endurance, physical and mental, is one of the most important parts of being a musician, just like it\u2019s important for an athlete. Both require practice in preparation for a performance. You can\u2019t expect to do your best in the performance if you didn\u2019t prepare yourself well enough. And since adrenaline is only present during a performance and not practice, it takes even more energy to keep the mind\u2019s attention and the body in peak performing condition. <\/span><\/p>\n

At this point, I definitely don\u2019t have the endurance to play an hour and ten minutes of solo music. I am slowly trying to up my practice time every day, but my body is fighting back. I have dealt with overuse injuries since before my senior year of high school and I know that I am prone to getting injured. Every time I finish a run-through of a piece I have an aching feeling in my right wrist that doesn\u2019t go away, and I can feel that my body is too exhausted to continue.<\/span><\/p>\n

What am I supposed to do in this situation?<\/span><\/p>\n

Because of my past experience with instrument-related pain, I know the basics of self-care when it comes to practicing. Warming up the body before playing, icing the muscles after, and doing arm and wrist strengthening exercises should be a part of one\u2019s daily routine. Trips to the physical therapist include KT tape, finger splints, and ultrasounds to break up muscle tension. I know the drill, but after awhile when I start to feel better, I stop doing the exercises because I don\u2019t see them as necessary anymore. I basically just get lazy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Fresh from a trip to the physical therapist today, I am determined to get through the next month of recital preparation with a clean bill of health. I am going to incorporate exercise into my everyday life as well as practice finger strengthening exercises. I am going to work up my practice time until I am able to do 2 full run-throughs of my recital program in 1 practice session. I am going to ice my arms after I practice and wear KT tape every day. I am going to remind myself that I am an athlete and need to take care of my body as such.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My junior recital is coming up in about a month. In this recital I am going to play three solo works for unaccompanied viola and a string quartet with my current chamber group. That\u2019s about an hour and ten minutes of playing in total which is what I can easily do in an orchestra concert, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[815,1263,1264],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10400,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10399\/revisions\/10400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}