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Published: Monday, 14 October 2024 at 17:25 PM


It may sound counter-intuitive, but one of the very best ways to improve as a musician involves putting away your instrument altogether. It turns out that a fitness regime – for mind, or body, or both – can be one of the very best things you can do to help maintain your mental focus and physical agility as a musician.

Yoga is the ‘best violin teacher’, claimed violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who took up the discipline in his thirties, studying with the Indian yoga guru BKS Iyengar. Menuhin became a serious, lifelong devotee and became so flexible that he once conducted the Berlin Philharmonic with his feet while standing on his head.

Violinist Yehudi Menuhin (L) holding his breath while studying Yoga with Yogi Vithaldas. Pic: Wallace Kirkland/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images – Wallace Kirkland/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

It turns out that Menuhin was something of a pioneer when it came to the marriage of music and yoga, and recent years have seen a blossoming of interest in musicians’ physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing. More artists than ever are exploring what ancient and modern martial arts and mind-body practices can bring to their music-making.

Let’s meet six performers to find out how they look after themselves outside the practice room.

Musicians and their fitness regimes

Elena Urioste violinist

YOGA

I went to my first Bikram yoga class in 2009, and I fell in love with it. It’s an intense practice in a room heated to around 40 degrees celsius. Now I also practise a much more mindful, alignment-based flow yoga.

I’ve always been sensitive to how my arms feel when playing, and for years I had a lot of tension at the violin. When I started regular Bikram, all of a sudden that was gone. I also realised that my left and right sides were wildly unbalanced – I had favoured my left leg when playing since the age of five.