Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Practice makes perfect...
While playing my violin yesterday evening, there was a passage in this Handel sonata that I just couldn't get my fingers around. The rest of the piece is becoming familiar enough having just started learning it a week or so ago, but this short passage required a switching of fingers and crossing of strings that was continuously flummoxing me.
Every time I came to this passage, I got tangled up and made the same mistakes. I slowed it down to half the speed but every attempt brought the same error. I may not be very good at playing this piece accurately, but I realised that with all the practice I was giving to this situation and the repeated error, I was becoming an absolute master and virtuoso at my own mistake. I could do it perfectly.
The situation served to remind me how easily we get into ruts and ways of doing things become instinctive. Every time I played the wrong fingering, I was reinforcing this into my system. By practicing it, I wasn't getting better in the way I wanted, but worse.
The answer was to not 'try' and play the piece at all, but to work on the process of selecting the right notes so my fingers (and muscles) gained the experience of the accurate and correct dexterous movements. To this end I slowed the piece right down so that it didn't resemble music at all. I read the music and placed each finger carefully in the correct sequence, irrespective of rhythm or tempo. I needed my fingers to get used to the muscle adjustments required for this particular sequence of switching from string to string and selecting the correct note. Once I got the sequence smoother, without errors of wrong fingering, then I was able to think of the actual note durations all at an extremely slow pace. Then when that was becoming easier, I was able to increase the speed a little at a time. If I made an error of wrong fingering, I slowed it right down to long individual notes again to reinforce the correct muscle activity. This pattern had to become the new and more familiar way rather than the wrong fingering that had become established and habitual. When this improved i could increase the speed gradually, always repeating the correct pattern of notes, without error.
If we make a mistake in anything, and repeat it, this becomes ingrained and it's harder to get out of it. This shows itself up in any other activity you care to mention, from swinging a golf club where the eye is taken off the ball to throwing a dart. Whatever we repeat becomes a habit. It's therefore important that we are careful of how we do it.
The same could be said of what we think about and positive thinking. If we are prone to thinking negatively, then this becomes a habit that's hard to break. If we can catch ourselves thinking this way, we can (if we choose) change so that we're more positive in outlook. As we know, what we think is what we get. So be careful of what think as this energises the situation of your thoughts. We don't want to attract what we do not want!
Practice makes perfect. Whatever you repeat makes you better at it. In my violin situation I was becoming a master of my own mistakes. I could do them perfectly. It's the same with posture. We practice our habits and sure enough we become expert at stooping, slouching, sitting in a twist or holding our breath. If we can identify the problem and give some thought to 'how' we are doing it, then we'll have a chance of changing.
We can be in control of so much, and this is such a wonderful thing. Decide you want to change something and we can. It may take a little discipline, but the opportunity is there to be taken. It's so Great!
:-)
