Musicians' Wellness Day 2.0

I'm recovering from the UW-MTNA's second annual Musicians' Wellness Day, held at UW-Madison and featuring interactive sessions on Feldenkrais, Yoga, and Laban Movement. I'm excited to say that this year we again had a healthy (oops, sorry) turnout and a really enjoyable day of exercises that can't help but make you want to stay fit, both in body and mind.

As musicians, and probably artists in a more general sense can empathize here as well, we all-to-often neglect our bodies in favor of long hours in the practice room. Of course, we HAVE to practice, but shouldn't the two go hand-in-hand? I'm particularly interested in the notion that we need to put our physical wellbeing in the forefront of our life, just as we promote the idea that honoring the music we make as the top priority in our artistic pursuits, because if we are NOT physically healthy we simply won't have all of our creative tools at our disposal.

So what can we do about it? I mean, we can foster this sort of experience through events like Wellness Day (if we are lucky enough to have a group of musicians and artists who are interested enough to put such an event on), but the challenge lies in transferring a fun one-day event into a steady commitment to nurturing a healthy lifestyle.

One problem is the proliferation of misinformation about 'exercise' - everywhere you look are ads touting the next 'easy' way to get ripped or lose 100 lbs. without giving up your cheese curds. We obviously haven't learned our lesson, first revealed decades ago that, yes, staying healthy requires effort, smart eating, and lots of exercise (gasp!).

I learned this lesson from being a competitive swimmer for 10 years, competing year-round at state, regional, and national competitions. Many of my peers went on to swim at the collegiate level, and two even made it to Olympic Trials. Now, I was never that caliber of an athlete, but I can say that the harsh, exhausting, and ultimately addictive nature of intensive sports training (for me, at least) directly paralleled my musical study. In fact, I often thought they complemented each other. As my coach's favorite T-shirt used to remind us: "Ignore your health, and it will go away." I think somewhere along the line we all forgot that one doesn't necessarily have to separate sports from art - they both demand a commitment from our bodies and minds alike, and they both require an holistic and consistent maintenance of our overall well-being.

Maybe I'm being disingenuous. In fact, it's probably more likely that we artists just don't think we have the time to commit to working out, Yoga, or some other supposedly therapeutic hobby. Plus, there's that rumor that we can burn up to 300 calories an hour practicing our instrument. So who needs 'exercise' anyways?

After Wellness Day I'm reminded of the hard-to-believe revelation that we can actually incorporate exercise into our practice sessions. At the very least, we can begin to harness a greater personal awareness of our physical habits we use in our arts training. I'm starting to think maybe it's time to get our feet under us so we can start moving in a healthier direction; in our lives as well as in the practice room. As yesterday proved, for the second year in a row, it's not as hard as it sounds, and, when you can find a few others interested in getting healthy, all of a sudden "working out" can become a lot more relevant to our musical experience. And, it's just a heck of a lot of fun.


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To read more about the complex notions of eating "healthy" and "exercising" as they relate to our relationship with society, check out these resources:


1) Pollan, Michael. (2007). The Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Books. ISBN: 0143038583
2) Green, Barry. (1986). The Inner Game of Music. Doublday Press. ISBN: 0385231261
3) Finally, this is a great Blog: http://a2create.blogspot.com/