« Swim Inside-Out. Power and rhythm should flow from torso to limbs. » – Terry Laughlin, Total Immersion

The swimming season has begun. Two minutes from my house is an Olympic size pool surrounded by olive trees and lavender, in which I practice bowing for an hour every day.

I was never taught to swim. I managed, as a podgy ten-year old, to get a bronze medal patch sewn onto my heavy swimsuit. Later, as a teenager, I was the one who bobbed around in the shallow end while the beautiful people dove and flipped. And yet water is my element so, at the age of 30, I decided to make friends with it and taught myself how to swim. However, I did so, as so many of us are taught to play our instrument, in a dis-integrated way, with arms windmilling and legs kicking. Somewhere in the middle there was a mass of torso I was trying to move forward in the water….

And then, three years’ ago, I discovered Total Immersion. This technique of whole-body swimming not only revolutionized my crawl but transformed by bow arm. I can now swim (and bow) for ninety minutes with little effort and great pleasure. Afterwards I feel energized and alive in every cell of my body. I have learned that the tilt of the pelvis initiates the lift of the arm, and to combine body mass, gravity and buoyancy to access ‘free’ energy with which I align minimal muscular effort. I have learned to allow the legs do what they need to in order to maintain balance, and not more. And that’s not all that goes on underneath those crystaline waters. Recently, thanks to Jennifer Johnson’s Body Mapping course, I learned to move my shoulder girdle freely and allow my latissimus dorsi (the large back muscle) to release up to free my arm into length rather than stretching and pulling. Every swim session I am practicing using my body as a whole biomechanical system, and I consider that the best kind of cello practice.

A fundamental principle of all human movement is to use the body as an integrated system, not uncoordinated parts. Terry Laughlin, Total Immersion Swimming

In the recent and fascinating discussion on the benefits of yoga for musicians on The Exhale, someone asked the question ‘What about Pilates for strengthening the core?’ and, in his answer, my wise yoga teacher, Peter Blackaby, confirmed my hunch that isolating any muscle group or body part, even ‘the core’, to make a movement is counter-productive to flow and energy. I couldn’t help thinking of all the lessons I have received in which the wrist, fingers, elbow, or shoulder have been isolated as separate entities making separate movements. Indeed, I spent three years in Germany making a figure of eight with my hand for the perfect bow change. Nothing wrong with the figure of eight, of course, that is what the hand does naturally when the arm changes direction in water for example, but I forgot that my hand was connected to my arm which, in turn, was connected to the rest of my body.

With plenty of time and space to listen in to the beauty of a simple movement just for its own sake, not bound to the greater service of music, my pool time is reminding me that the spiral of movement is constantly flowing throughout our entire body. So, the question is, when, and how, do we talk about specific bones, joints, limbs, organs and muscle groups?

I like to think about this process of ‘isolation’ only in terms of waking a body part up so it can co-operate in the whole-body movement as it is designed, and indeed knows how (in its infinite wisdom) to do. It is always helpful and often vital that such isolation involves knowledge about how the body part is constructed and how it moves in relation to other body parts. It is, above all, important to bring a kinaesthetic and somatic awareness to any such area that might be blocked or moving in a counter-productive way. For example, if I prepare for a down bow with a fixed pelvis, or by leaning my weight habitually into the left side my body is working against the whole movement. If I cross down from the A to the D string with a fixed head or with a head turning to the left (a movement which flows into the spine creating a gentle twist) it is the same story. Similarly, in ‘waking up’ my pelvis in the water and ‘initiating’ the arm lift from there, I am reminding my body that an ‘arm movement’ does not exist without every other cell being involved. As I take this experience onto the cello, I realize that with the intention to draw the bow across the string or make a shift comes a flow of movement that cascades or ripples through all of me to some degree. However small the movement I intend to make, this aliveness includes the whole spine, the head, the feet, the sitting bones, the shoulder girdle, the pelvis…and everything inbetween.

And where does the movement really start? I am tempted to say it starts with our intention. So, when someone says vibrato ‘comes from’ the finger or from the wrist, I can’t help but disagree. Even in the narrowest vibrato, the finger movement is a response to something that is alive and therefore in motion in the whole body. Our intention never occurs in an isolated body part. It occurs in our whole being.

Please, if you can, join me for the sixth and last in my series on practicing Bach from a somatic and kinaesthetic point of view this coming Thursday. Also, for those of you in America who have been wanting individual online coaching sessions, I have a child free week coming up starting July 6^th so I will, exceptionally, have French lavender scented evenings available to see you…..