Parallels

Written by Dottie Case
Published: January 6, 2014 at 5:33 AM [UTC]

So, tonight I carefully placed my Ipod Nano into the $3 armband, slid it up my forearm then dragged myself down to the basement where my dinosaur used treadmill resides, and slogged through the C25K Week 1 Day 1 trek. For the uninitiated, C25K is short for "Couch to 5 K", a program which is supposed to prepare any average couch potato to run a 5K after some weeks (6? 9?) of gradual training. In my case, the plan (dare I say goal?) is to be able to shuffle (as opposed to jog or run) MOST of a 5K by say, late July.

Now I know what you're thinking....those are heady goals I've set for myself. Still, as I was gasping and praying for the 60-second 'running' intervals to hurry and end, I was struck by how completely this C@%K (oops...think I'll leave that uncorrected ;) journey mirrors what it is for an adult to decide to begin learning the violin.

While shuffling along, I was listening to a Podcast on my Ipod, where I would be given directions about when to speed up, and for how long. The man's voice kept encouraging me to 'stay loose, keeping my arms low'. As I would begin the ever-so-slight increase in speed between my 90 second 'brisk' walk (ahem) and the 'run' (ha!) I would focus on 'staying loose' and trying to keep my arms low. Only, I realize I don't really know what that means. So, while trying to not fall off the treadmill, I would try to first visualize what 'loose' might look like, and compare it to how I felt. Then, I'd think about keeping my arms low (well, except for when I was clutching the arm supports), experimenting with dangling elbows, unclenching fists, etc. I'm sure that at times I resembled nothing more than a Neanderthal shuffling home after an unsuccessful hunt, only wearing some really cute and colorful shoes.

When I began taking lessons with my first serious teacher, I'd been playing for a year and a half, and had learned both hands completely wrong. This new teacher, who has some serious cred in terms of HIS teachers (Galamian, Gingold, and Fenyves) worked to re-do my entire set-up. I can remember struggling with the bow hold, while he would describe this and that 'thing' that I was to do. I finally asked him exactly which muscles were supposed to be involved. I don't think he understood my question...in fact I vividly remember him moving my hand into what should have been the correct position, and him exclaiming in some confusion, "I don't understand...why is this so hard? This shouldn't be this hard!" I almost had myself convinced that my hand was deformed or something. Still, I angled and moved and tried, but there were 2 things that finally made it go 'click' for me. One was that I watched him carefully, and then would watch myself in the mirror at home. I still remember drawing the bow and seeing my hand make the same shape as his. Secondly, I realized that he was showing me how the hand would support the bow, but I was attempting it with the bow out in front of me, What I finally realized was that once the fingers were all placed, then I needed to sort of 'pivot' the wrist downward, so that the wrist was below the level of the bow, not above it.

It felt so frustrating and stressful when I didn't understand what he was asking me to do, but once it went 'click', it was there and it was solid and really never needed another correction. 6 months later, his administrative duties caused him to hand off his students to a hand-picked teacher that he hired to replace himself, and by that time, my new teacher (with a similar pedigree) was very complimentary about what a great set-up I had.

I wish that I had someone here watching me on the treadmill, who could help me to figure out what 'loose' legs and 'low' arms look and feel like. There are physical things that, once learned, make the task immeasurably easier. Adult students bring very different sorts of analytical tools to the tasks we are learning---we evaluate and experiment and think things through. This can make for some early confusion (especially when one is trying not to fall off the treadmill while evaluating) but once a thing is learned, it is there, because it is 'understood', not just learned.

As I was torturing myself for 30 minutes (with very little pay-off visible in the near future), I realize that, particularly in the earliest stages of playing, that experience is the same in many ways as my treadmill time. Even when one 'LOVES' the violin, virtually no one 'loves' the early lessons when it seems that every time you correct one physical things, 3 others go wrong. The sounds we are making are not always lovely, and the ability to really make the instrument sing (ahem, my 5K) seems to be so distant in time as to be almost unbelievable.

Still, I am told by my betters, that it will get better. In fact, one of my cheerleaders today reminded me that, though my 'run' was slow and ugly, I at least "lapped the people on the couch". I liked that thought...because, the truth is this....July is going to come whether I am ready to participate in a 5K or not. But, if I persevere, I'll be able to enjoy the fruits of my labors. Next year is going to come, whether I improve as a player or not. So, I may as well take steps, even if slow ones, to progress as I can, because I can't get this time back. I can tell myself that I'm 55 and 40 lbs. overweight, thus maybe not 'runner' material... but if I give up now, the only thing that will be true is that next year I'll be 56 and 45 lbs. overweight.

Now, If I could just find someone to help me analyze what 'loose' and 'low' are supposed to be...