I keep a wire basket on my office desk. Each time I find a new piece or movement I can play without dystonic movement, I write its name on a small card and place it in the basket. In my daily routine of playing, my intention is always to focus on musical gesture, which leads me back to this basket of repertoire and pulls me away from repeated patterns. It has been important for me to take the time to make music with what I can do now (regardless of how slow or how simple those movements are), and not spend every playing moment retraining and testing my capabilities with exercises.
In his “Gratitude (yoga) Flow” class, Jason Crandell discusses the dichotomy of the balance between, on the one hand, being goal oriented and on the other, taking the time to be grateful for where we are (See Crandell’s Gratitude Flow @yogaglo.com).
He states, “In yoga we embrace various paradoxes. You are working to facilitate change, and you are working to facilitate improvement. At the same time you are also working to accept and embrace the body as it is, to accept and embrace your personality as it is, and to accept and embrace your current station, wherever you are in this lifetime.
[We are] engaging in a certain amount of transformation, and not becoming an endless black hole of constant improvements and betterments…Don’t just accept where you are, embrace it. Accepting is still a subtle pejorative. Accommodate [where you are] and embrace it.”
This acceptance is a direct way out of the cyclical patterns of perfectionism, which, beautifully characterized by Catholic monk Kilian McDonnell, “straineth out the quality of mercy*”. Mercy for yourself, where you are, and where you’ve come from.
Ring the bell that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
*mercy: compassionate treatment of those in distress (merriam webster)
Observing Focal Dystonia 