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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. <\/p>
Yoga is the \u2018best violin teacher\u2019, claimed violinist Yehudi Menuhin<\/a><\/strong>, 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<\/a><\/strong> with his feet while standing on his head. <\/p> 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\u2019 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. <\/p> Let’s meet six performers to find out how they look after themselves outside the practice room.<\/p> YOGA<\/strong><\/p> I went to my first Bikram yoga class in 2009, and I fell in love with it. It\u2019s an intense practice in a room heated to around 40 degrees celsius. Now I also practise a much more mindful, alignment-based flow yoga. <\/p> I\u2019ve always been sensitive to how my arms feel when playing, and for years I had a lot of tension at the violin<\/a><\/strong>. When I started regular Bikram, all of a sudden that was gone. I also realised that my left and right sides were wildly unbalanced \u2013\u00a0I had favoured my left leg when playing since the age of five. <\/p>Musicians and their fitness regimes<\/h2>
Elena Urioste violinist<\/em><\/h3>