Elements of physical health: Relaxation, Breathing and body awareness.

Hello dear readers, we met once again in this space to continue with this series of posts where I have been talking a little about avoiding injuries. I myself have gone through this process more than two times, and I know very well all the happenings, both from my own experience and from people very close to me, so I felt that there would be no better way to help others than to go on breaking down little. to little the information that the experience in the musical world and my academic formation has provided me.

In this post I'm going to talk about relaxation and breathing, something that although it seems very obvious, it is not so much nor is it as easy as saying it.

For the violinists I feel that it is a little talked about topic, since we do not emit sound with air, but with the movement of our arms, but it is necessary to begin to give more prominence to achieve those changes we want but stuck in repeating and repeating, not we realize.

At the time of studying and touching, our head is awaiting many details, and sometimes because they are concentrated, we completely forget to breathe, to give them that oxygen necessary for our muscles to rest and remain free of tension. How can we tell if we are not breathing properly? Your very body will tell you. If after a short time of touching you feel tired, your breathing is failing. I know it may sound silly for someone not to breathe or not to do it correctly but if it happens.

Many times because of nerves or having many thoughts, we begin to hold our breath. It has happened to me more than once that I find myself with a passage of some work that I consider to be difficult, and in the middle of being touching it I find that I am not breathing. this not only affects the muscles, but your emotional health; You will feel more insecure and that will make you more tense and the result will be a vicious circle.

One way to introduce the breath as a habit in our violin studio is to write down in the scores the places where we feel there must be breaths. So we can go little by little making it a constant practice that becomes unthinkable to hold our breath.

When you begin to include this aspect in your daily study, even if you are making a scale and being aware of breathing you will be able to feel its magical effects. Your muscles will oxygenate, which will give you the feeling of relaxation.

Now, relaxation is a fact that occurs from the body consciousness, which is what will allow you to modify some position if necessary if you notice tension, or simply to do that check of your body to maintain a postural hygiene.