David
As I said to Rob, it has nothing to do with strength or pressure,
but all to do with suppleness and flexibility.
You will probably have that naturally, having continued to play. I
had to get back into basic form, while fighting against the continued
effects of age.
Also of course it warms the muscles up faster. I think everybody has
a warm-up time, but as you get older, and if you have given up for a
time, as I had, the warm up time seems to become much longer.
Strangely, it has given me much better control in raising the ring
finger, when lying all the fingers cupped on a table. This is the
opposite movement that you seem to make with
the gripmaster, but somehow it has had this effect.
I am quite aware that any physical activity, golf, tennis, piano
playing, or even weight-lifting calls for the practitioner to learn
how to use the minimum of effort for the maximum of result.
I well remember that the best javelin throws I ever made, were the
ones in which I was the most relaxed and felt as though I was using
the least effort.
Nevertheless if your joints are seized up, there is no way you can
acquire the degree of relaxation that is required while you are
contending with inflammation, as Rob will have found out recently.
In fact, I try to begin the day with a whole series of shoulder
exercises, to try to counteract the traces of three serious bouts of
"frozen shoulder".
Only then do I use the Gripmaster, and actually not every day.
Interestingly, it has made a slight difference to the shape of my
hands and fingers, which look and feel more lean and supple.
Makes me sound a complete wreck (when I reread what I have just
said). You might wonder why I even bothered to take up the lute again.
Well, one of my sisters on retirement has taken up cliff climbing.
She had never ever done this in it her life before, and actually it
was through her, I heard of the Gripmaster.
Now, I am not sure who was the more foolhardy of the two of us!
Anthony
Le 26 févr. 08 à 13:36, LGS-Europe a écrit :
Your fingers are more than strong enough.
With pressure, less is more. It is easy to flex a muscle fast. Put
your hand
in a flame, get stung by a bee or catch a falling lute to try. But
it takes
time to relax a muscle, we all know that. So to develop speed on a
lute, we
have to minimize our pressure. I can put down a finger fast enough,
but I
cannot lift it fast enough. With less pressure, I can lift faster
and my
speed will improve.
Another reason why less pressure is better: with more pressure we
feel less.
Left and right hand shape the tone together, the only feedback we
get before
we actually pluck the string is through the contact of our
fingertips. If we
use more muscle, we feel less. Keep your sense of touch alive by
using less
pressure, and your tone will improve if you 'listen' to the
feedback your
fingertips give you.
David
****************************
David van Ooijen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.davidvanooijen.nl
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