Come join Amy Likar for 2 hours a day, over 4 days, to explore the Body Mapping course for Wind Players (but open to all musicians!) 'What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body.'
The Association for Body Mapping Education is a not-for-profit organization of musicians teaching the power of intentional movement to prevent and eliminate performance-related injuries through self-awareness, practical anatomy, and efficient and dynamic movement. Licensed Body Mapping Educators teach the art of movement through the course “What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body”.
Taught in universities, colleges, conservatories, and private studios world-wide, Body Mapping encourages wellness, enhances musicians’ expressive possibilities, and fosters music making without limitations. Body Mapping invites us to replace our faulty body maps with anatomically correct maps in order to reduce tension and allow for effortless and expressive movement.
In Body Mapping, one learns to gain access to one’s own body map through self-observation and self-inquiry. The student corrects his or her own body map by assimilating accurate information provided by kinesthetic experience, the use of a mirror, anatomical models, books, pictures, and teachers. One learns to recognize the source of inefficient or harmful movement and how to replace it with movement that is efficient, elegant, direct, and powerful based on the truth about one’s structure, function, and size.
Amy writes..
As a graduate student with both jaw and forearm issues, I was very lucky, when I mentioned the problems to my teacher, I was advised to take the Alexander Technique class my university offered. The class was a revelation to me, not only was I learning how to play pain free, I was finally able to play with the tone and presence of sound I always had in mind but could not always achieve consistently. The foundation of my study was something my teachers Barbara Conable and William Conable called Body Mapping: learning how to move more efficiently based on a corrected and refined body map. Getting a clearer understanding of my map allowed me to more directly apply the Alexander Technique to my practicing and performing. Fast forward a quarter century and these methods have become the foundation of my musicianship and how I organize my process to practice and perform. Learning how to get out of one's own way to create meaningful, musical playing is at the heart of why it's important to learn this information.
21 July: Session One
Body Mapping Overview and it’s application to your musical process
Discovering Dynamic Balance
22 July: Session Two
Free the arms, Free the Breath, Free the Breath, Free the arms
23 July: Session Three
The legs and whole body integration to continue to free the breath and the arms.
24 July: Session Four
Masterclass, Integration into everyday practice, questions, practical application in the practice room, anything else we didn’t cover in the other three sessions!