This is my first time ever posting here. And it is my first time ever sharing thoughts on the net with regards to my own 25 year experience with focal dystonia. This malady has been the shaping force in my life in many ways and while its too long a tale to share in detail here, I do want to become part of the dialogue on this frustrating and often depressing subject.

I have had problems that led to focal dystonia in my right hand for some 25 years. Yet I continued playing for a living for many years until the problem became so severe that I had to stop performing about 9 years ago.

About 13 years ago I discovered Dorothy Taubman and the Taubman Technique and the only reason I am playing at all now is because of this technique. It appears as if this irascible blue haired old lady from Brooklyn pretty much figured out the correct way to play the piano, although her technique is applicable to other instruments as well.

Unfortunately for me, I had to continue playing professionally for some years while in the midst of retraining my body/mind in this discipline. Even after I quit performing i would make progress, only to mess it up again. Time and time again i have crawled up out of the hole to see some light, only to blow it again. This was due to a couple of things:

1 .I am an improviser and as such the Taubman approach, which is extremely exacting, seems to be a better match with classical players as it is also known as a sort of choreography of the hands. In an improvised setting it is often difficult to set up each musical gesture perfectly, and for those of us afflicted with this malady it appears that nothing less than near perfection is required of us in order to support , for lack of a better phrase, the habit of finding "the good feelings".

2. Whenever i made progress i would get excited and over extend myself, usually resulting in re-injuring myself.

3.In my case, the action of the instrument has to be right, not too light, not too heavy and very refined and precise. As most pianists know, that controlled situation is often not available in the real worlf. Thus, i have often had to play inferior instruments which has resulted in disatrous consequences.

I also came to a certain point where I was hitting a brick wall with the technique, things that weren't addressed by the Taubman Technique, so I incorporated Alexander into my regimen and have recently enrolled in the Feldenkreis Training. As yet, I have not had the kind of miraculous results I had hoped for, but I am definitely on some kind of healing path.

At this point, I have gathered that when one steps into these refined regions of neural re-programming, much more happens than better playing. I feel as though my whole life is changing, and it has become less a quest for curing my focal dystonia and more a journey into deeper and more profound levels of healing on a fundamental level than my original intention of healing my 'hand problem". I still hope that all this work will lead to stabilizing the problem and perhaps performing again, but in the meantime i am becoming fascinated with this process of "unraveling" these patterns that have impeded my playing and perhaps more importantly, my overall potential as a human being.