Strength Training for Musicians?? With Dr Amy Likar

Clark Lovell: When I was 23, had my first abdominal surgery in Africa, in Pretoria, South Africa, where I had part of my large intestine removed and part of my appendix removed. That left me with about a four and a half incision, four and a half inch incision in my abdominal wall. That was the beginning of where I started to develop compensation patterns in my neck. harpoonally numbness issues in my right hand. Honestly, it's been combining strength training. I do Pilates every day. I plank every day. I do some sort of strength training every day where I apply body mapping and Alexander technique to my exercise process. But the older I get, the more that physical activity and strength training becomes important to me. And so as I'm, you you're combining physical awareness, mental awareness, emotional awareness, spiritual awareness, and how all of it works in your practice process and your music making. There's probably nothing that anyone could say to me that I haven't already said to myself. So I know where my strengths and my weaknesses are. And that gives me a sense of calmness as I go to play for other people because I've already been a member of my audience. Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. One of the things I've been most curious about since I started recording these episodes over two years ago is this concept of body mapping. And this was introduced to me by Dr. Lee Pearson, one of our first guests on the show. Just the concept of how our bodies interact with our instruments and how to improve our conceptualization of that as musicians to be able to not only play healthily, but also to play more efficiently and things like that, which definitely go hand in hand. And in my research and getting resources together for musicians who are going through injury and injury prevention for musicians. I came across this name, Dr. Amy Lykar, who is actually the Director of Training for the Association of Body Mapping Education. She's a flautist as well and has had wonderful experiences working with musicians and also working in Alexander Technique. And so we're just gonna get right into it. Dr. Amy Lykar, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me today. It's my pleasure. Well, thank you. With the way I like to start these episodes, I talk to ⁓ many people who have not only experienced like working with musicians going through and you've actually experienced playing difficulties themselves. And so I just like to give them the floor to share, you know, elements of their story of how you got into this. this world of injury prevention education for musicians, but especially like any personal experiences you've had with performance injuries. So I'll just kind of give you the floor and let you take off. Yes. So I guess my injuries related to performance would have likely started in high school with marching band and shin splits. Ouch. ⁓ And I didn't really think anything of that at the time. And then for my undergraduate degree, I did have pretty, pretty severe performance anxiety. ⁓ But I just kind of pushed through that and just kept practicing harder and harder and harder and more and more and more and more. ⁓ would perform as often as I could to just sort of like that exposure therapy, the more you perform, the less ⁓ debilitating it becomes. And it was also that same time where I was so in love with the flute repertoire and the orchestral repertoire that my want to play the repertoire was stronger than my anxiety over playing the repertoire. And then I did, when I was 23, had my first abdominal surgery in Africa, in Pretoria, South Africa, where I had part of my large intestine removed and part of my appendix removed. And so that left me with about a four and a half incision, four and a half inch incision in my abdominal wall. And I can now look back on all of this in hindsight, but I think that was the beginning of where I started to develop compensation patterns in my neck. carpal tunnel-y ⁓ numbness issues in my right hand. My incision was on my right side. And at the time, I was a student at Ohio State University, and I should say the Ohio State University. And I, you know, my flu professor, Katherine Bourse-Jones, at the time said, hey, take the Alexander Technique class. I took that Alexander Technique class, I think nine quarters through my master's in doctorate. And I also participated in a class that was team taught by my flute professor, Katherine Bourse Jones and the sports psychologist, Neil Newman called performance enhancement. And my Alexander Technique class with William Conable, who started the concept of body mapping with his ex-wife Barbara Conable. Between studying with Barbara Conable privately and taking Bill's class, plus taking the performance enhancement class with the sports psychologist Neil Newman, I would say that was the seeds for everything that has followed in the past. 25, 30 years for myself in combining thinking about how I'm using my whole body, the relationships of my whole body, how I'm thinking about how I approach everything from a mental, emotional, ⁓ and when I say spiritual, mean sort of spirit of energy, not necessarily a religious spirit. but sort of the energy that I bring to something. And so as I'm, you you're combining physical awareness, mental awareness, emotional awareness, spiritual awareness, and how all of it works in your practice process and your music making. And so I think it was that initial neck pain upper back pain, tingling, jaw tension. in my want to be perfect as a student that led me to Alexander Technique, body mapping, and reading as many resources as I could on the psychology of performance. know, the Don Green, the ⁓ James Lair, the Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Books on Flow. ⁓ All of it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually doing a master's right now in performance psychology. So I'm up to my neck and all that stuff, is honestly, it's just like, it's so much fun. Right. ⁓ You had mentioned, I really like how you put it with the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. That's definitely something I learned post injury or maybe like during recovery, like that aspect of it. ⁓ What were the things that helped you to In addition to the Alexander body mapping, those performance psych resources that helped you to get through that time of your life and your recovery from maybe even a musical standpoint and emotionally, what were those resources that you depended Well, for sure, my lessons with Barbara Conable helped me tremendously. I should add, The other injuries that I've had, ⁓ when my son was born, I had bacterial meningitis and had to have an emergency C-section. And actually, and then four years ago, I broke my shoulder blade. And honestly, it's been combining strength training. I'm a huge Pilates. I do Pilates every day. I plank every day. I do some sort of strength training every day. where I apply body mapping and Alexander technique to my exercise process. But the older I get, the more that physical activity and strength training becomes important to me, just so that I stay healthy as I age. And I've been in this realm of musician's wellness now for close to 32 years. I probably started my work in it when I was 24, 25 years old, so... To me, it's part of the big puzzle is you do need to do the mental work, but you also need to do the physical work. Hey, real quick, sorry to interrupt the episode, but if you are a musician who's going through an injury right now and you feel like you could use some extra help or some extra coping strategies to help you get through this really sucky, difficult experience, head to musicianonchain.com backslash let's hang to see if a coaching relationship would be right for you at this time in your recovery. Okay. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Right. Especially the strength training part. That's another part that I didn't ⁓ realize was a factor in musicianship. ⁓ When I, when I first started this kind of thing I've been on and ⁓ especially since, I mean, you know, the saying goes, musicians are athletes too. And we have to be very, very, very intentional about the types of things that we, you know, put our bodies through with that, you know. Agreed. And I think when I was in graduate school, I had a bad experience with a personal trainer where I don't think that person was very well trained. And what they wanted me to do strength training wise didn't help me and made me worse. But looking back on it all, see now there's like myself, there's a lot of musicians who do have sort of a tendency towards hypermobility. And that's where the body mapping and Alexander technique component of understanding the relationships between your bony structure and your muscular structure. And if you end up working with the right person who has the eagle eyes for understanding the relationships of your bony structure and your body map, then the strength training can actually help you. And so I feel very fortunate to be at a place in my life and my career where I can work out with someone who can watch me and be my witness when I'm working out like I do for other people when they come to work with me. so It is important because I think I know for myself personally, I think because of my two abdominal surgeries, I compensated with neck tension and upper body tension for years to make up for the fact that my abdomen had been sliced through twice. Yeah, that would do that. Yeah, the whole concept of... of physical compensation. When I go to the gym and I'm trying to target a certain muscle group and I feel a different muscle group getting more tired than that one, that's kind of like my indication that maybe, yeah, something's not right. And maybe like I'm not like pushing to injury, it's just not reaching those goals, right? And yeah, it's just interesting how, ⁓ like the reason why I know that is because of my experiences with. playing injury and just body mapping as a musician. But that aside, ⁓ when it comes to like noticing that compensation, I'm curious if... It may sound oversimplistic, but like, what are the telltale signs that like, if let's say you have a flout is, I'm just like, okay, how do I know if I'm compensating in places where I shouldn't be? And where should I be more stable in the play? Like, let's talk flute for a second. ⁓ So with flute players, one of the most common things that happens is the flute comes up, the ribs splay a little bit forward and the pelvis ends up tipping. ⁓ Tipping backwards or? Well, I'll move my camera in. Yeah, everybody should be watching on YouTube anyways. So ⁓ what happens is the flute comes up and they kind of do this. Okay. They lean back almost. The kind of upper back goes back, which then causes a lot of pain and discomfort between the shoulder blades. Like flute players notoriously get pain, right? between the shoulder blade and the spine. it's usually due to a lack of a relationship between the circumference of their ribs and the circumference of their pelvis. And so really understanding the relationship of the curve of the thoracic spine and the response that the thoracic spine has to rib mobility in the breath. And then that relationship of the ribs to the pelvis and that the 360 of the ribs should really be related to the 360 of the pelvis. that you solve that rib, pelvis, leg and floor relationship. And then it's super easy to free your skull to have the mobility. if it needs to make all the flute sounds that one might need to make. And so like, guess that along with that, the things to focus on ⁓ with your, with I guess the muscles that should be getting engaged, ⁓ would you say that's mostly just like the core and the trunk area that needs to be. most actively like for stability, you know what I mean? Well, I would say the appropriate amount. I know with a lot of players, they've been taught to support, support with their abdominal muscles and then they're over engaging their abdominal muscles. ⁓ And so there, there is a continuum ⁓ where, you know, some people become too lax and like, don't, don't, you know, Don't overuse your abdominals or then there's the other end of the spectrum like, you know, tensing your abdominals. so basically, I mean, the way I solve it is by my favorite exercise is doing planks. So, you know, I wake up in the morning and I plank for a minute and then I do side planks and then other side planks and then, you know, do some like. happy baby yoga type moves. And then I also do that before I go to bed. But that's me where I am now at age 58. So that said, I should have been doing that in my twenties with, I mean, I'm, I'm obsessive about my form. I do it in front of a mirror. I'm looking to make sure that my form is good. And then if I do, if I do that planking, then My abdominals will pretty much do what they need to do when I'm flute playing. And then when I practice, do, I'm pretty obsessive. I record pretty much everything and watch it back. Number one, that gives me a break. So I'll record. I'll see what I'm doing. And it's like, ⁓ you're starting to splay your ribs and tip your pelvis. You don't need to do that. And so. I'm a huge advocate of teaching people to become their own best teacher and their own self advocate. if you are listening, you know, it's humbling when you're learning a new piece of music to record everything. And that's okay. I think it's okay to understand that it's, it, we want to be curious and If we record and listen back and watch back, can catch movement habits sooner. We can also notice if we're being emotionally compelling or how we're developing a character for the music that we're playing if we record early and often. And you know what I always say to myself if I'm starting a new piece and I don't want to record. I always say, you know, it's okay, you don't know this yet and you're figuring it out. And it's the figuring out process that, I don't know, I just get such a joy out of learning new music and seeing it go from being pretty awful to then by the time we're ready to perform it, feeling like I really, really know it because I've evolved listening every bit of the way and by recording and listening back and recording and listening back, that gives my body time to recover. It gives my mind to think about, okay, am I using rhythm? Am I using meter? Am I hearing harmony to drive the character and the shape of the phrase? And so to me, it makes the process fun, interesting and curious because instead of trying to be perfect from the beginning, I just want to be curious from the beginning. Yeah. that's, that's the learning. mean, that's how we learn as four year olds, right? That's by incessant curiosity, right? I have a mentor who his mentor told him, is John Mc, legendary trumpet player, John McNeil who just recently passed away, but he always said, listen to that four-year-old in your head, right? Or something to that effect. ⁓ And I think that's just brilliant. ⁓ I have a quick story that I wanna kind of dub tail into a couple of questions based on something you mentioned. You know, I'm in a sports psychology master's program right now. And ⁓ one of the guys I like to listen to, his name is Allen Stein Jr. And he actually had the opportunity to watch the great Kobe Bryant practice in his. So Kobe was legendary for like doing early, early, early morning fundamental sessions, like just training all the time. And that's an episode for another day, but he had, this guy, Alan, had the opportunity to. company, Kobe at one of his three 30 a.m. training sessions, I think. And he was just he got in there. The lights were already on and because he was trying to like beat Kobe to the gym. But Kobe had already been there for like 20 minutes or something. And ⁓ and he was just practicing dribbling drills, what he could have been doing at, you know, as a 10 year old basketball player, like the same drills. And Alan asked him, he's like, why were you doing those drills? I mean, you're you're Kobe Bryant, you've, you know, you've kind of got that down, I'm pretty sure. And, and Koey just said, I never get bored with the basics. And, and, and yeah, I mean, it's just like, that's something that, ⁓ and I think he, he coupled that by saying, and that's what makes me who I am today, right? And yeah, do you have any thoughts about that real quick? Well, yeah, I actually record my warmup too. ⁓ cool. So if I'm doing long tones, Or if I'm doing technical practice, you know, I won't spend, I might do 10 minutes of tone, 10 minutes of technical, 10 minutes of articulation, usually with a metronome, usually listening for, you know, different things. But how do I know what I'm doing if I don't record and listen back? mean, we think we're hearing, but. It's like if anybody's ever recorded their voice and then they listen back and they're like, wait, is that how I sound? You know, or they hear the playback. Well, the other part of it for me is if I do that, then my performance anxiety goes way, way, way, way, way, way, way down because I've already listened. to a ton of different versions of what I can do. And there's probably nothing that anyone could say to me that I haven't already said to myself. So I know where my strengths and my weaknesses are. And that gives me a sense of calmness as I go to play for other people because I've already been a member of my audience. Wow. That's the sound bite right there. Thank you for sharing that. Because the question I had, ⁓ one thing that I am particularly interested in my research in this program is the concept of what's called obsessive passion versus something called harmonious passion. And I don't have time to necessarily get into the difference, but obsessive passion just tends to have those more obsessive anxious habits that to like less positive wellbeing, less. adaptive performance outcomes and things like that. speaking as an obsessive musician myself, one thing that I feel like could be a result of recording all those different things is kind of that obsessiveness to the point where it's no longer helpful, kind of like a paralysis analysis thing. And so I'm curious here to your perspective of what is a healthy balance of like recording for the purposes that you need to record for and because that is very needed and very helpful, but where does it become less helpful? So it becomes less helpful if I'm only focused on being note perfect. Okay. So ⁓ what becomes helpful is understanding that We do our best work when we have a musical intention. Doesn't have to be the right musical intention yet, but some sort of character, some sort of emotion, some sort of color, some sort of what I want to feel and experience as a listener when I'm hearing myself play. and what I want my audience to feel or experience when I'm playing. And this is where we're working on the artistry, the authenticity and the artistry and not what I would call perfection. I accept myself as being very fallible and not perfect. And so for me, it's like, ⁓ the peak of that phrase needs to be there and not where I put it. ⁓ I played a concert this past Thursday that was a premiere. when I was recording myself earlier on Thursday, I was like, you know, I don't like the way I'm playing my pick-up notes. They're too heavy. I need to lift the pickup so that the phrase moves forward. And so when I tell my students to listen to themselves, I say, listen for what you think you can do better. But then listen again as if someone who loves you is listening to this. Awesome. And so if you approach it with, should love yourself, or, know, if you want to pretend your dog is listening or your cat is listening, or a beloved grandparent is listening, someone that supports you fully, but we all should be supporting ourselves fully in this process, knowing that we do the work and then it will be what it will be and we move on. And I think that's the other thing I like about music is it's ephemeral, particularly live music. It's gone once you've done it. I mean, that's where I am now. Sorry to interrupt the episode yet again, but I wanted to tell you that if you are also a music educator of any kind and you feel like this is a conversation that needs to be had for your program, please reach out to me at clark at musicianonchain.com and we can talk about how we can collaborate together to bring these topics, to bring these strategies to your program to help your students stay as healthy and as happy as they can while pursuing their passion. Keep on keeping on and continue watching the episode. Yeah, I mean, I think those are great strategies to help someone who, because that's something I felt like I ran into when I would record myself. I felt like I was a little too, like it just wasn't serving its purpose anymore because I was worried about the wrong thing. I'm grateful, ⁓ Siri's wanting to talk to me right now, sorry. ⁓ It's just one of those things where it's... there's a line between what's helpful and what's not. And it's just what we focus on, right? It really is. It really is. And I do know that when I'm starting new pieces and I know they're not going to be so hot, I might record myself playing something that I love dearly that I've played forever that I know I can listen to and be like, that sounds pretty good. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like watching film for an athlete of like, oh, like a highlight reel almost. Right. Right. So yeah, you don't want to let it get you down, but you do want it to, you do end up understanding, like I think recording lessons with teachers is super, super important, super important. And then listening back. and journaling responses to it. But you always want to do it in a constructive, ⁓ positive way where you're learning. from the process. We all need feedback. And I prefer to call it feedback, not criticism. It's just information. And we can choose to take it or we can choose to leave it. I mean, that's our choice as an individual. So we can listen and say, ⁓ I really did, like, I really did leave out a beat. Like if you play back and you conduct to yourself and you're like, ⁓ I really did leave out a beat there. I need to fix that. And so hopefully it can become a nurturing fostering process. ⁓ Rather than something debilitating. Right. And I think it's just that dance between being an objective observer of your own performance or of your own playing, but a subjective experiencer of your own performance, right? Because we wanna have that ⁓ subjective, very, very internal, expressive experience, self-expressive experience when we perform, but then we also wanna be objective about our own flaws and the things that we need to work on. it's just, mean, there's no... The more I learn about these things, it's not necessarily dividing lines, it's just an understanding that it's always gonna be a dance between the two, you know? Right. Yeah. It's always gonna be a dance and... Fundamentally, we have to accept our humanity and just approach the, I approach my work with a great, great deal of humility and that it's more about being in love with the process and the learning process and the outcome is just going to be what the outcome is going to be. I mean, stuff's gonna, you might prepare and prepare and prepare and prepare. And I think that's actually one of the things that's problematic in the university setting is so many of the performances are one-offs. ⁓ yes. And once you become a professional musician and you make it to that professional realm, you're no longer Most often, you're no longer in a one-off situation. You know, I've been playing the Nutcracker for 25 years and I've played all of the parts now. And I still have, you know, performance energy around it and excitement around it because it's really, really hard and challenging. it's one of my favorite things to play because I know that there's always another opportunity to, to raise that level of it. And so I think that's one of the things there's a musician, a trombonist that teaches at Troy University in Alabama, Jason Suleman, who I watched a class that he taught for Noe Kagayama where he talked about, you in survival mode? Are you in competent mode? Are you in proficient mode? Are you in mastery mode? And I think what happens to students a lot on the university level is they think they need to be in mastery mode when they're actually in survival mode. if you realize that you're in survival mode, then you can actually free up your body to know that your only job is to survive that first orchestra rehearsal or that first wind ensemble rehearsal or that first choral rehearsal. And you're reading. You don't necessarily know what it is and you think you should. So you, you end up being physically tense. And, and instead, you know, you're just trying to survive. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things I'm so glad you mentioned the university setting because, um, that's where I try to gear a lot of my content because it's. You know, it's been my experience and all that, you know, so many other reasons, but ⁓ you mentioned the concept of one-off performances. And I wanted to ask you, as I was preparing for this interview, ⁓ think, correct me if I'm wrong, but did you say you took the Alexander class ⁓ nine times or nine quarters or something like that? well, see, I was there, I don't know. I know I took performance enhancement nine times. But I'm thinking I at least took the Alexander Technique class six to nine quarters. I was there for... a total of six or seven years for my master's in doctorate. you could, those were courses you could repeat. So I would have to go look at my transcript for sure. I took it lot. And then I, you know, and then I did take private, a lot of private lessons with Barbara Cotable while I was in Columbus. So yeah. Well, that I'm, it's so, it's so interesting to me because I think, especially in the musician wellness space as it currently stands right now. where I mean you have wonderful university programs like what's going on at Colorado University, at University of Colorado Boulder, where they actually have a tenure track faculty for musician wellness. And then you have other programs that may not have necessarily those types of resources, but they have people teaching a one semester course or it's an elective class and things like that. ⁓ Those tend to be one-off experiences, right? ⁓ But I'm curious about your experience with taking these classes so many times because so many times when people do these one-offs, they are like, this is amazing. Like I am playing better, I feel better, yada, yada, yada. But because, I mean, they're college students, they've been playing their instruments for so long and then they get this little glimmer of what it could be, but it's not reinforced. You know I mean? What's the balance? how can they really get the benefits, you know? It's really interesting. The Alexander Technique course, when it was taught at the Ohio State University was limited to eight people. ⁓ interesting. And it met twice a week. And there was a journaling component to it. And then in class, we would play in class and then get the hands-on work. So for me, it was being able to take the repertoire that I was working on, play in class and like get that hands-on guidance to make sure that my skull, spine, limb relationship was as good as it could be while playing my instrument. Now that said, I think most of my work while I was in Columbus, Ohio with both Barbara Conable and Bill Conable was at my instrument. And so then when I actually entered an Alexander Technique training program, my use of myself away from my instrument wasn't as good as my use of myself with my instrument. Interesting. Which was curious. Yeah. And the other distinction, would say, you mentioned something curious about a one-off class. that was the distinction at Ohio State was you could repeat that class. It only ever had eight people in it and it was always the same class over and over again. And it was on the fundamentals of body mapping and the Alexander technique. It was student driven in that the problems that the students were having in their repertoire were brought to the class. And yes, the topics of the basics of body mapping were covered, the basics of sitting and standing and walking were covered, but primarily people came to the class to play and get that hands-on Alexander Technique guidance while playing. It's where I kind of want to see this space go because one of the things that was honestly pretty frustrating for me was getting these glimmers of hope in my lessons, right? When I was rehabilitating my injury and then going back to my practice room and I would record myself and do all these things and it felt like it was just like, ⁓ it was very hard to replicate by myself. And I think, I mean, it's just, it's just the nature of the beast at first, but also like, you know, the lessons were finite, ⁓ different circumstances made for different results. But it's just something I'm curious about is like where our field can go with musicians wellness of like, how do we keep reinforcing these things? Because at the end of the day, these habits that we've developed for playing, a lot of them were started when we were in middle school or even younger. And they can be very hard to reverse, right? So it takes a little bit of time. Right. So this is where I think, and this is sort of where I'm pretty passionate in my own teaching and my teaching process has evolved over the years. My colleague, Rina Erso and I released a book in 2025 called Mindful Flute Atoots. And it was, and basically it's taking applying mindfulness and body mapping to the practice process. Because I think, you know, I've been, I've been through physical therapy. I am an Alexander technique teacher. I am a body mapping teacher. ⁓ I work with, you know, a Pilates instructor and a personal trainer. So I've kind of. you know, and have in varying times of my life gone through therapy. So it's like, have done all of it. However, if we don't think about what we want musically and how we bring all of this into the practice process and how we learn music and sort of rein in our expectations of what we want musically? There is always going to be some aspect of what Barbara Conable, when I was a young student with her, would call the grip inducing emotions, which are fear, anger, and loneliness. Interesting. And the fear part is the fear of being wrong, the fear of being judged, the fear of making mistakes. ⁓ that aspect. And then because of that fear, we often get angry in the practice process. Yep. And then after we have the fear and we have the anger, we're always in a room by ourselves. So we're lonely. And so you take fear, anger and loneliness and you kind of have the trifecta of three emotional states that put us in grip. Do mean physically gripping or? Physically gripping, physically bracing, physically tensing. Physical tension, yeah. Just, you know, stressed out tension. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And we can take that, you know, you can take that fear, anger and loneliness and apply it on a more global scale if you want, but I'm just talking about screwing up your etudes or your pieces or your orchestral excerpts or whatever. And so... Learning to accept, ⁓ the fear, the anger and the loneliness. And knowing that the only way through them is to think about, okay, what tone color do I want to play my tone exercises with today? What palette am I going to experiment with? ⁓ Often when I get... pretty high end musicians taking lessons with me, the first thing I have them do is get rid of their tone and just work with the movement of breath and find how good their breath can feel. then depending on what their instrument is, having them do some sort of tone work that doesn't necessarily need a good like the sound that they're gonna wanna eventually have. If it's a singer, I might have them do raspberries or something. If it's a flutist, I often go to whistle tones. So it's just something where they're finding their mobility of breath, they're finding the least amount of air to produce a sound, and that they're becoming embodied. with how good the breath can feel and how good... having a relationship with the instrument can feel, whether that instrument's the voice, whether that instrument is the flute, whether that instrument is the timpani, you know, whatever instrument it is, it's getting to know yourself first and then developing that collegial relationship with, you know, I always joke the longest relationship of my life. is my relationship with the flute. ⁓ no, I lie. It's the relationship with the piano. I started the piano when I was five, the flute when I was 10. But I intend to have those relationships with the flute and the piano until I'm... no longer in this body. that's the longest relationship of my life with something. So I want it to be an advantageous one. ⁓ I hope that makes sense. does. And I would even say you have an even longer relationship with your body. So you might as well make that last as long as it can possibly last. Right. True. And especially for college students. you know, you get so much into survival mode, right? That you forget that, ⁓ hey, I have a whole career after this and I'm preparing for like, this is the prep for the career. This isn't the career itself. It's the start of it maybe, but ⁓ yeah, that's kind of the shift that I think a lot of college music students and even, you know, younger than that, but that they need to make when thinking about these types of things. Cause there tends to be a lot of reticence to these types of, ⁓ wellness strategies or just even developing a routine or things like that because, you know, they feel like they don't have time to do to take the time to do those things. don't have time to not do them. Exactly. the thing is, is with something like, so I discussed my plank practice, my alarm goes off. I, you know, get up, use the bathroom, and then I come back and I plank. Takes a minute. two minutes, because then I do side planks for 30 seconds each side. ⁓ Then I have a hang bar between the upstairs and my office that I'm in right now. So then I might hang for 30 seconds and then I record myself practicing and I might lie down in constructive rest and listen to what I just did. So it's, you know, and then If I'm going to be, if I know I need to be playing alto flute or bass flute, will make absolute sure that I do some side lying, you know, external rotation with a two pound weight or some, you know, Y's or W's or some sort of strength training. Because if I go from playing a lot of piccolo and flute, and then suddenly I'm playing alto or bass, I better be ready for the weight differential between my little piccolo and a bass flute that's gonna have my arms out to the sides. Yeah. So- I'm so glad you said that. Well, it's one of the things I wanted to ask you. Yeah. Yeah. So it's always making sure that, oh, and then making sure I take the stairs every opportunity. Like don't take an elevator, take the stairs or- If you have time to integrate more walking into your life, walk more. So I do think, and when you're walking and when you're taking the stairs, put the phone away. Be aware of your surroundings. Take in the space behind you, above you, around you. Take in your space that will calm you down faster than anything. If you're in your phone and reading news you don't want to read, that's going to take you out of being in the moment. so continually renewing your relationship to yourself and the space you are in and what you want rather than all the distractions. Okay, last interruption. I promise you. Before we get to the rest of the episode, I just wanted to let you know that if you're a musician going through an injury and you need a community to help you get through it, if you need a sense of support, some people you can ask questions to, just gain, pick me up whenever you need it. The Musician Unchained support group formerly known as the Trust the Process Podcast Injured Musician Support Group on Facebook. The link is in the description below for you to join. You don't have to go through this alone. Keep on keeping on and enjoy the rest of the episode. Absolutely, yeah, it definitely takes less time. then I think people give it credit, but it's those aggregation of marginal gains, you know, that's talked about in the book, Atomic Habits, right? I love that book. I've read it probably more times than I've read a lot of other books. Same. yeah, I mean, it's, but the point is, it's gonna have very effective, very impactful impacts, I guess. to your playing and it just, doesn't take very long, but it's an investment. You know, I have this app where I literally just invest my spare change. I don't make a lot of money, but I, you know, the spare change is like just rounding up to the dollar when I go to the grocery store. It's just putting in a little bit and I don't really check it, you know, but it's just putting in money so that I can have something later on, right? And that later on for a musician could be a career. when otherwise you may not have had as long and as fulfilling of a career, emotionally, musically and physically and all that stuff. One of the things I wanted to ask you, you'd said this in another interview you had done. I don't know if you remember saying this, but you had said that if you lose awareness of yourself while you're practicing, just stop. And I wanted to ask you why you said that and why that's so important. So that was one of the first exercises Barbara Conable I was learning the Lowell Lieberman sonata for flute and piano for one of my doctoral recitals. And she said, how long do you play this piece before you lose self-awareness? And my guess was 15, 20 minutes. And then I went home and I set a timer or no, I set a stopwatch and I started playing it. And I actually lost self-awareness after about six seconds. Wow. And by self-awareness, what do you mean? ⁓ I wanted to be right. I wanted to make sure I was playing the right notes. I had awareness of my fingers and they were tight. I had awareness of my tongue and it was tight. I had awareness of my embouchure and my jaw and they were tight. after six seconds of starting the second movement of that piece. Wow. Over time, if I made my focus of staying aware of the whole, I was actually able to be more technically, have more technical facility, have, be able to articulate and switch registers more quickly. And all of the things that I wanted started happening once I kept full self-awareness. as well as the awareness of my piece and, you know, playing it. And so, and that's hard to do because, you know, we start a new piece and we want to get it right. at the expense of losing ourselves. And so that's a lesson, you know, that we, that's actually a fundamental. That goes back to your, why Kobe Bryant practices the fundamentals is because otherwise he probably lost his sense of self without that fundamental practice. And so making sure that we have, You know, we take in our space, we have our awareness of self and we know what we want to do. And then it's just doing the work and, you know, improving incrementally over time. Building the layers so that you can get to where you want to be, but accepting where you are in the moment. And I think that's hard for like self-acceptance is really. really challenging. ⁓ However, once we can learn to accept ourselves and where we are, then it becomes easier, I think, to take action to become who we eventually want to be. I think we're all growing up forever and we're all evolving forever. And we take the experiences that we have and the people that come into our lives and It offers us the opportunity just to accept the reality that we're in for better and sometimes for worse. Well, that's kind of what musical performance ends up being anyways, right? For better or for worse. ⁓ then we just figure out how to deal with it as we go. It's so interesting that this, ⁓ so I'm actually, this is the fourth season of doing this show over the course of two years. And it's just been interesting to me to see how ⁓ as I've interviewed the guests and as I've researched for the different episodes that I've done, that the process of musical performance is really like, if we do it right, it's. or let me rephrase that. The process of self-discovery facilitates musical performance, right? And it's taking that time of things that may not necessarily be instrument specific ⁓ things that affect our whole, who we are as people that free us up to be able to then perform on stage better. And it's just, this paradigm shift that I've been trying to encourage through this show that it's not more time in the practice room necessarily. And when I say that, people kind of ding me because they think like I'm trying to encourage people to practice a whole lot less than they should. It's not that I'm saying like, don't dedicate, don't put in the time for your craft. It's just saying that the answer to... ⁓ the performance problems you may be having or the performance problems that may be leading down to unhealthy habits. The solution is not just practice more, right? No, no. It's like, yeah, it's like what you said at the beginning with exposure therapy. That's not always the only solution, No, and you know, I think it's important. So I have a definition of art that I developed with a colleague of mine, Michelle Kuhns Banister. We did a series of workshops, or I guess we did one, and then we were working on doing another series on the idea of a self-map as a performing artist and all the different aspects we bring into who we are as people. And we developed a definition of art that we said that which brings community together. And so, We bring community together to hear a performance. know, community will go to an art gallery to look at someone's art. ⁓ People will go to a ballet or people will go to musical theater to see a production, whether it's a production at an elementary school of a kid's version of a musical. or whether it's going to the West End of London or Broadway or a touring production to see a professional troupe do a musical theater production. And then when people put concerts together, that again, they want audience to come so that they can share. And so where we are in the globe, in the world right now, I think those of us that want to perform in whatever way it is, whether it's painting a painting and having people look at it, that is a performance. People are looking at your art. I think artists have never been more important than they are right now ⁓ because the act of bringing people together. to create something that allows people to feel and experience and be together when it's happening, I think is really, really, really important, particularly in the post pandemic era of when we were all so isolated. I just think it's really important for people to come together and experience art. for the sake of art. And so I'm gonna stand by my definition of wanting to bring community together, whether it's no matter what level of performance it is, I think it's just about being in community. Absolutely, 100%. And I would just add to that that that's the reason why we can't leave things like musician wellness to chance or to. You know, not be intentional about it, you know, because of that aim. Because, I mean, what's really important to me is longevity of career. And I think it's the concepts that students learn when they're in middle school, high school, college, and the habits that they build on how to practice and how to create are the ones that will serve them. through a career. And whether it's protecting hearing health, whether it's protecting mental health, whether it's protecting physical health, we need to help people develop the strategies that will give them the longevity of career. Absolutely. Well, Dr. Lycra, Amy, this has been So fun for me. I've really looked forward to this interview and ⁓ for our conversation today. I'm so grateful that you were willing to do this and share your experiences and expertise. Of course, it was my pleasure. Thank you for having your podcast and thank you for continually advocating for musicians wellness. And I wish you the best in your master's program. I appreciate that. I'm not going to let you go quite yet. have two last questions to ask all my guests. ⁓ But podcasts, talking about post pandemic stuff, think podcasts were one of the childs of the pandemic. mean, they existed before, but definitely exploded during the pandemic. And my injury happened at the tail end of the pandemic. And I ended up getting in contact with some people that helped me through my injury recovery because of a podcast. And so I like to ask my guests, if somebody were to say, hey, I listened to your conversation with Clark on trust the process. and I'm a trumpet player or a drummer or whatever going through an injury, what's one piece of advice you would give them that's kind of not instrument specific? Well, number one, to offer themselves some grace and some time. And that I do believe most injuries can be recovered from if you put the right team of people together that help you in the ways that you need to be helped. And so it's making sure that you've got the right support and the right mindset in how you want to go about your healing process. Awesome, awesome. The last question I ask, ⁓ know, injuries and the things that come that bring us to this world, sometimes they're a little bit more, not as pleasant, know, ⁓ not super pleasant experiences. But I do like to ask that if you had a time machine and a magic wand and I sent you back to the time where you were introduced to these types of concepts through the adversity that you you experience with your playing, but you could take that magic wand and take that experiences away, take those experiences away, or you can leave them there. What would you choose and why? interesting. Interesting. ⁓ The most debilitating injury I had, I think, was four years ago when I broke my shoulder blade. And I now wouldn't trade that for anything in the world because I've learned more than I ever would have had I not broken my shoulder blade. And because of where and when I was in my life, I was more resourced than I was when I was younger. And so, you know, I traveled to work with PTs and I, you know, started working with a private Flottie's instructor one-on-one on a regular basis and had amazing physical therapy and also took lessons with my mentors in Alexander Technique and Because of that experience, I now can serve younger musicians better. because of what I learned through breaking that bone. So I actually wouldn't trade that. That sounds terrible to say. And I can say that because I recovered and I, you know, have full mobility and range of motion. ⁓ and was it a time in my life and career where I could afford to spend the money to make sure that I had the right rehabilitation and that And I will say that is a problem. I find that having the money to pay for the right people to help is sometimes out of reach for young musicians. And ⁓ that's a huge, huge, huge, huge problem and one that needs to be solved. And I know there are nonprofits that are trying to solve it. ⁓ that goes down another rabbit hole, but I do believe now that because of my injuries, I ask better questions and I can offer better resources to people than I could before that injury. So I actually wouldn't trade that injury. Some of my younger injuries, I would trade those. Yeah. Yeah. would trade those. I don't want to repeat some of those. But the one where I actually broke my bone that I learned a tremendous amount from. Wonderful. Well, thank you for sharing that experience. I asked that question because honestly, these journeys can get pretty dark for musicians. It's so tied to our identity what we do and I just love to end. the conversation with that note because ⁓ everything is figureoutable, right? Everything you can get through. It's not gonna be easy, but you can do it. Actually, that just gave me another thought because ⁓ in September, I thought I was gonna have to have, I thought I had broken my thumb and was going to need to have hand surgery and thought that could have been actually career ending. And I got a second opinion. ⁓ And the second opinion was like, your thumb isn't broken, you have arthritis. ⁓ Which is definitely mitigatable. difference. I was like trying to figure out when I had time between performances to take eight weeks off, which was going to turn into 12 weeks to have the surgery and then start the PT and then hope that I might be able to play my instruments again. Sure. And so. I'm a big advocate of get a second opinion. Talk to a lot of people. spreadsheet it, see where it agrees, see where it doesn't agree, see who offers, you know, I often get people, I won't say what the diagnosis is, but I often get people who come to me with a specific diagnosis. And when we work through the thought process, They end up realizing, ooh. I was told the problem is this, but that problem is actually a symptom of something else. And so I'm a huge advocate of get a second opinion, hear what people are saying, but journal it, journal on it, talk to a lot of different people. And the other, the other thought is, Is the person you're talking to trying to make you a victim? Are you trying to make yourself a victim? And how do you get back your own self agency of yourself? And that's a big one because we can get dark and I've gone dark and I've been grateful to have the people pull me out of the darkness and help me to recognize what I actually can control. And so I think that's a really, really. important piece of it. Yeah, absolutely. That's a whole nother podcast episode that I actually want to do coming up because ⁓ like kind of giving a talking about the medical community with people who are in it ⁓ because it's a big piece, a huge, huge piece of it that we're only really starting to talk about ⁓ in the last year, couple of years. anyway. All right. Something for another day. thank you for your time and to everybody out there in Podcastland. I'm going to put Amy's information in the show notes ⁓ and all of her wonderful resources. some great interviews she's done as well with other people. To everybody out there in Podcastland, sign up for the newsletter. Keep up with everything happening at Trust the Process. And until next time, keep on keeping on. Thank you, Clark. Hey, thanks for tuning into this episode of Trust the Process, the official podcast of Musician Unchained, the newest coaching program dedicated to helping musicians navigate and overcome injury. 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