In response Sean Woods post about Focal Dystonia. Hi Sean, Really sorry to hear about this and I can completely sympathise with you as I for one know exactly what you are dealing with. I haven’t gone public about this dam condition but now’s my opportunity. As many know I have recently released 3 CD’s and was at the top of my game and then about 18 months ago was hit by this awful condition. It affected me in my A finger right hand and in my most recent YouTube videos it’s very evident where the A finger solidly sticks out. I think for me the most difficult part is that other musicians think that ‘if that was me I’d just do etc.etc.’ well I can tell you that it’s like asking somebody to stop blinking when they go to stick something in your eye as you have absolutely NO CONTROL over how the Dystonia wants to act. It’s what’s known as a task specific condition and as in many cases my fingers work perfectly until I pick up the guitar and then bang the spasm kicks in. I honestly cannot emphasise how important it is for those that do not have this condition to realise how debilitating it is and to think first before you suggest or comment unless you have first-hand experience. It’s not a matter of ah sure get some rest and you’ll be grand as if that was the case then Liona Boyd, Glen Gould, Robert Schumann (yes that Schumann) Badi Assad, Keith Emerson etc. etc. who suffered with this .... will I go on? In fact it’s estimated that 20% of the music population suffers from this yet until recently I never heard of the condition until it caught up with me. Why are the universities not screaming this from the rooftops as it is preventable? What I personally want to see is that every teacher and all tutor books around the world should have this issue addressed. It is preventable if the musician knows how to avoid it and what the conditions are that can cause it to develop, however like me I found out after the horse had bolted and now have had to consider stopping playing altogether as after months of trying to retrain nothing has improved. To end on a positive note as I want to write so much more but just haven’t the time, there are many many success stories out there of people that have cured Musicians Focal Dystonia. (The medical profession by the way say there is no cure) however we need to talk about this as much as possible and share each personal story in order to understand how those that have overcome this problem can help us that are still struggling. There are many people that can help - Joaquin Farias and Joaquin Fabra in Spain are renowned in their work in this condition David Leisner is also helping people although his method is very very difficult to employ and there is a wealth of information on YouTube and the web such as dystonia-bb.org/forums/mwd/ I have read this entire forum 3 times. Also - quickly- I have tried botox and would say to anyone that this should be avoided as it just masks the condition and is just not worth the effort – but that’s for another day to discuss. Finally https://facebook/groups/9022753084/ is a good link too and I’d particularly say that Jon Gorry is worth looking up. More later and I hope this thread doesn’t disappear into the ether as we need to meet this head on! Brian
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 20:24:12 +0000
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