Klarinet Archive - Posting 000093.txt from 1993/12

From: sabinson%ccvax.hepnet@-----.GOV
Subj: Re: shoulder pain
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 10:14:35 -0500

> Does anyone have some good exercises or stretches to allieviate shoulder
> pain? Just wondering....
> Anne

Hi, Anne.

Here are some exercises for relieving tension. Note that they require no
physical activity. They represent a kind of meditation. They do not work
for everyone. (If you are in pain, you should not do anything for a few
days except very gentle movements. You might ask as friend to give you a
backrub. No pressure should be used whatsoever.)

1. Lying on the floor, as relaxed as possible, one lifts an arm without
lifting the arm. If one is doing this right, there will be a rush of
energy through the arm. It may be overwhelming, so one must precede slowly
and gently. One continues with the other arm, then the legs, the head, the
trunk, and eventually the whole body. This exercise is an exacerbated form
of the intention one brings to an articulation in Tai Chi Chuan. When I
lift my arm, the intention can be in the shoulder, the elbow, the wrist or
the fingers. It is an interesting exercise shifting the intention in a
movement from one joint to another.

2. Saying that the previous exercise has not worked, one can actually lift
each member one at a time off the floor, but no more than one a quarter of
an inch, again using the minimal energy necessary.

3. The student, after going through his (or her) body and centering his
breathing, closes his eyes and senses the space between himself and the
wall of the room. He imagines his body expanding to the walls and then
back. He repeats the exercise and then fills in the spaces between the
floor and the ceiling. He leaves air spaces around any other beings in the
room so that they do not smother. :-) Nota Bene: It takes a great deal
of time and concentration to fill in the three dimensional corners of the
room. None of this stuff can be done quickly.

4. One counts the vertebrae in one's spinal column, one by one, from
within. One counts bones in one's feet, one by one. Then do the same for
one's hands. One counts the muscles in one's hand, one attempts to
describe the muscles that underlie the lips, but which are not the lips.
This counting is done from the inside out, not outside in. It is a
sensing. One senses the chambers of one's nostrils, or one's sinuses. One
paints shoulders purple, with a brush so light that it is ineffable.

Although I have posted here, I have never really introduced myself
properly. My name is Eric. I am an amateur clarinetist who lives in
Brazil. I work in the area of translation. (One of my students is
translating the Thurston book as part of a Master's project.) I had
studied clarinet as from age 8 to 14. On finishing my Doctoral
Dissertation, I was farmed out to the Music Department by the Instituto de
Estudos da Linguagem to teach Semiotica. Unlike the other critics and
linguists who taught the material, I perceived that if I expected to
accomplish anything, I would have to be able not only to read a score, but
to audiate it. In order to "learn" how to do so -- for I once knew -- I
went back to studying the clarinet. (I had carried with me all of these
years my student clarinet that H.F Freeman had imported from Buffet into
the US of A in the fifties. This instrument was not particularly good
technically. The dimensions are weird and the key mechanism only fair.) I
found that twenty years of vacation had not made much of a difference to my
playing. All the fingerings were in place, my intonation was surprisingly
good, given the instrument. Rhythmic and "speed" problems still continued
to plague me, as they had in childhood. Nowadays I play a B-Flat R-13
Prestige, serial number 293371. I had purchased a normal R-13, but the
wood could not handle the heat and humidity fluctuations in Brazil and
cracked. It is no surprise the major difference between a Prestige and
other models is that there is a three year guarantee on the wood of a
Prestige, and only one year on the R-13.

ERIC
sabinson@-----.br
sabinson%ccvax.hepnet@-----.gov
sabinson%ccvax.unicamp.br