18 days into the New Year, and I broke my New Year’s resolution.
What is my New Year’s Resolution, you ask? Well, in 2010, I resolved to improve my proprioception.
My what?
Let me explain.
I learned the word “proprioception” from a friend I visited over the holidays. He’s a piano teacher, he’s studied technique extensively, and I met with him to try and improve my own technique at the keyboard. He told me that good technique is all about proprioception — the sense of where your body is in space.
Also called “kinesthetic awareness”, proprioception is the sense that allows you, for example, to know that you’re wiggling your fingers even if you can’t see them, even if they aren’t touching anything, even though they don’t make any sound.
My awareness of my body has always sucked. Meeting with my friend made me realize how much I cut my body out of everything I do. When playing music, for example, I think about the expressive qualities I want to convey, and I listen to hear if I’m achieving them, but what I don’t do is think at all about what I’m doing with my hands and arms, either to help or hinder the effect I want.
That’s pretty much the same with everything I do. Like a lot of people with dyscalculia, I’m clumsy, completely unaware of where my body is in space. I tend to get a lot of mysterious bruises because I walk into things without even realizing I’m doing it. I also tend to injure my hands, elbows, shoulders, and neck.
Sometimes this is because I’ve been typing, or playing music, or painting but this time it’s just because I was sitting on the couch sick for a week. I was leaning on my right arm in a weird way. Every time I got off the couch, I would notice my right shoulder was tight, and I’d tell myself not to sit like that again, and every time I sat back down I sat in exactly the same way. Now my neck and shoulder are both killing me.
I made my New Year’s resolution because I do this so damn often. Last year one of my goals was to get in shape, and I’ve done so. I’ve pretty much fixed the tendinitis in my elbows that I developed at 15 (from bad piano technique, I might add) that I thought I would live with for the rest of my life. The knee that was sore? All better. The stiffness in my back? Better. The plantar fasciitis from my stupid flat feet? Even that’s much improved.
But I keep doing this to my neck and shoulder. It’s always the same, every single time; something in my neck and shoulder blade tightens up, and before I’m exactly aware of it it’s killing me. Despite being in excellent shape, despite the fact that I can push my body harder than I ever have, despite the fact that I haven’t pulled a muscle in over a year — despite all that, my shoulder and neck are in a class by themselves.
This whole adventure has kicked my ass into remembering why I made my resolution in the first place. I saw a physical therapist today, got some brutal massage, and took some advil. Now, to honor my resolution, I’m going to stop frickin’ typing already. Peace out.
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