Coming to Terms With an Old Injury in Practice
When I was 15 I was cycling from a friend's house to not more than half a mile home, when I suffered a rather impressive and as I've come to accept, life-changing limb injury for one travelling on two wheels.
Skip the next few paragraphs if you are squeamish...
In short, I hit a patch of newly refurbished asphalt on a corner. Cue a wheelspin, my foot slipping off the pedal into the front wheel (locking it dead), followed expeditiously by a low-scoring olympic-level somersault over the handlebars and a face-meets-asphalt dismount.
Despite my face's intentions to save the rest of my body, my right wrist also landed awkwardly.
The monumental result was a compound fracture to both Ulna and Radius bones, and a shattering of a smattering of the smaller wrist bones. For the first time in my life I could see the colour of bone marrow and what my wrist looked like at almost 90 degrees (think anti-clockwise) to its customary orientation. It was...messy.
Recovery took a long, long time and was exacerbated by a second round of fractures mid-way through the healing process thanks to a particular little juvenile troglodyte. At this age I was just at the beginning my foray into learning music seriously and enjoyed playing drum kit and piano a great deal. I wasn't sure what the ramifications of the injury would be for the future but I felt a piano playing career in-particular was in jeopardy, perhaps this event is one reason I eventually settled on the bass.
Fast forward to today. My wrist has never fully recovered, a constant resistance, dull ache, limited mobility of the ring and little digits, and an intrinsic-muscle hyper-tension are a life-long tenant. And, with age ever-on-the-heels, a history of arthritis running in the family, and previous RSI and carpal tunnel I'm sure there are more issues waiting to move in down the line.
I've spent more time than I'm willing to admit on pondering whether this will or whether it should stop me from playing the bass professionally or completely, and I've spent even more time practicing to try to overcome the technical limitations and performance issues this injury has left me.
But the point of this little ditty is the briefly indicate the recent lessons I have learned as part of my continuing endeavour to put my practice under the microscope for my PhD.
1. The life-long strategy of pretending-the-injury-never-happened-and-my-wrist-is-normal, is about about as useful as the "9" button on your microwave (i.e. not at all). It encourages working AGAINST the injury limitations rather than WITH them.
2. When not developing in practice how I thought I 'should be', I'd either: blame the injury and curse it profusely; practice my figurative tiny violin instead; or lambast myself for not having the guile or strength to push through despite the injury. All led to some... less-than-helpful practice philosophies. Denying the issue is not useful, but also be careful not to use it as an excuse.
3. The resentment and story I developed over two decades for how "unfair" it was is also equally unhelpful and is a well-engrained and insidious thought to dispel, as is the thought "You will never be good because of it".
4. There is a difference between the kinaesthetic 'feeling' of the injury-caused tension and 'regular tension' affecting technique. Previously I had attributed tension from the former under the appellative "Stop being rubbish you muppet", and the latter as "STOP STRESSING AND RELAX...you muppet". Noticing this difference makes it more manageable, and leads to improved physiological understanding and therefore self-compassion.
5. Increases in speed and duration exacerbate the affects of the problem.
6. It is ok to not focus on playing fast. Mostly when boldly vying for speed I'm rolling cursed dice. Such superciliousness typically receives a Natural 1 on dexterity. Balancing speed and accuracy has always been one of my biggest playing challenges and is a zero-sum game. In coveting playing fast I am attempting to push THROUGH the injury, but it may be the case that the wrist has an injury-imposed Welsh-style residential zone speed limit that needs to be respected. Perhaps time can be better spent developing other areas, or enjoying the slower journey.
7. Playing fluency almost directly correlates to how the injury tension feels and how it affects the coordination between it and the left hand. Generally and in comparison to the left-hand, my right-hand constantly feels like it has resistance in it, similar to a level 4 on the rowing machine I never go on. Most errors that occur in my playing are due to this difference in resistance, which interestingly can change and vary substantially during performance, whether at practice, a gig, a single tune, over time, after a break, or when the band leader shouts "BASS SOLO!" (Just kidding, no sane band-leader ever shouts that). A fairly accurate over-exaggeration would be: imagine holding a magnet in each hand and your job is to put each magnet into separate holes, the left-hand magnet is attracted to its hole, and the right-hand one repels the hole its designated toward. Now you must coordinate these two at the same time to play the phrase perfectly. The faster you try to complete it, the more resistance there is.
8. Regular stress-tension amplifies the effects of injury-tension. Had a stressful day? I might as well be playing with fists, luckily its still possible to play roots and 5ths and get through many-a-gig like this regardless. Perhaps bass guitar was a good choice for this reason...
9. In the ultra-rare occasions when the injury-tension is below normal, my playing feels silky, fluid, with flow, the best it ever does and it makes me think "wow, I'm actually sounding good on this thing!". The technique to execute lines cleanly is just there, communication between the left and right hand is like they are actually part of the same body and speaking the same language. The precise prerequisite conditions where this happens are currently beyond me, but its probably to do with the release of upper-body tension, feeling at one with the universe, and Jupiter being in retro-grade.
10. The above suggests the question that technique is there but requires a letting-go of the tension. This seems fairly clear cut, but how far can that idea penetrate into the release of injury-tension?
11. Working to find one's voice within injury-related capabilities is an honourable task worthy of time in the shed, perhaps more so than blindly fighting to be the player it's not possible to be. Acceptance is peace.
12. Finding the threshold of what is possible within the injury-limitations is also a good idea. Where is that line? How far can I push it to keep it manageable?
So here is to a new chapter of injury-compassion practice and physiological understanding. Perhaps there is a way to train my hand/wrist (and my brain) to recognise the minute cause-effect relationships, and change the story about what my playing is capable of.
In short, building awareness is progressive and curative and worthy of your time and energy.
Happy practicing!
Posted In: Reflections on Practice
Tagged: Practice, Injury, Speed, Bass Guitar
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