100 days of practice - week 5
At the start of every year I do a 30 day Yoga with Adrienne series. One of her phrases is “find what feels good”. This week I’ve thought a lot about both this phrase, and the parallels between yoga practice and viola practice, and I guess also then the practice of living.
I started the week emotionally and physically under the weather. After last week’s burn out patch, Monday was a quick increase in my motivation, optimism, and enthusiasm for my practice, but I’ve also come down with a very slow burning cold this week. I’ve been finding what feels good in all parts of my life - my routine has changed so I’m not getting up so early. I kept my slow morning routine so I can prioritise rest while I’m recovering, I stayed home as much as possible so I could stay comfy, and I’ve started drinking tea in the morning instead of coffee. None of these hold any particular significance except that they’re a change. I guess what I’m trying to say is this week I was practicing changing my routine to align with what I really needed rather than what I expect I “should” be doing. This “take what works, leave what doesn’t” ended up being a big theme in my musical life too.
This week I didn’t write reflections for each practice day - they melded into one chunk and it didn’t come naturally. And in the spirit of taking what works, and leaving what doesn’t, I didn’t push it. I did good practice every day, of varying types and quantity. I actually practiced more, and better, I think, than I have been. I returned to a more structured technique practice - finding new scales to work on and refocusing on the technical areas of my playing that need work. I got a lot of satisfaction from going through my solo and chamber repertoire and extracting techniques - like 3rds, spiccato, very soft sostenuto lines, etc, and turning them into scale exercises. I went to the library and browsed through Viola scale and etude books and carried them around in my arms all day, romanticising my life as a diligent student. I had a lesson that reminded me what good practice looks like - and encouraged me to be particular and picky because I actually do have the means to achieve what I want - again, taking and leaving.
Like the 3d model I talked about a few weeks ago - the idea that music builds a whole world around you, my practice is expanding and growing to be more than 4 hours in a practice room. It can be that, and feeling inspired in the library, and drinking tea in the morning, and all of those things that make up my life because it’s all a practice, isn’t it? I’m practicing observing, reflecting, evaluating. Practicing patience, joy, overcoming frustration. Practicing friendship and love, practicing dealing with conflict. Finding what feels good and what doesn’t is, really, what practice is. Taking and leaving, sculpting and sanding, pulling and pushing. I called my mum this week and she said that she liked the idea she had heard “art is where life meets death.” Maybe art is where parallels and opposites meet and converge, and practicing is navigating those.
