077 David Cartolano: The Conditioned Musician
00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 77. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, and building a purposeful career. And now your host, Dr. Renée Paul Gaultier. Hi, everyone. I hope this episode finds you doing amazingly well. Today, I'm talking health and wellness with David Cartolano, host of the Conditioned Musician podcast. David is an ACSM certified exercise physiologist, has a bachelor's degree in exercise science, and he's on a mission to build stronger, more resilient, and more creative musicians. You might remember David
00:59 from episode 75 of this podcast, which was my interview with him on his show. I'm so glad he let me share this conversation with you guys, and I'm really happy to have another chance to talk with him about the topic that he's an expert on. We're going to cover the things that musicians can do to be healthier, practice better, perform more optimally, and overall be more happy, productive, and conditioned musicians. David has a lot of great advice for us, so sit back, relax, and start thinking about the different ways you can improve your musical life. Let's go to the show. David Cartolano, so excited to have you on the show.
01:55 How are you doing, Renee? I am so, so excited to be here. David, you're a musician, an exercise physiologist, a personal trainer, and the host of the awesome Conditioned Musician podcast. And you're on a mission to build stronger, more resilient, and more creative musicians. If this is not what we need right now, I don't know what is. Well put. Well put. I love it. So, David, before we take a deep dive in everything that you have to teach us today, please tell us a little bit about your journey and how it unfolded. Yeah, absolutely. So music started for me at a very young age. I was born into a very musical family and I picked up the guitar at age probably around like eighth grade. And I was playing clarinet at the time, didn't work out. I chose a guitar and I just stuck with
02:51 it. So I always had that musical side, but I also like to move around a lot. So being on stage and teaching Zumba and doing literally anything with a stage, it made me realize like, hey, I need a job where I can move around and help other people move around because I like doing that. So I found physical therapy and I said, okay, that's cool. I'm going to be a doctor of physical therapy. And then later, after getting a playing-related injury in my right shoulder from a really tough time in undergrad and not being able to play guitar without it hurting every single time, I decided, you know what? I'm going to be a physical therapist for musicians. And that's where the story should have ended. But I got to school. It was really, really, really tough. Then said to myself, you know what, this isn't what I want. I want to build a clinic for musicians, by musicians, with doctors who understand what it's like to lug your guitar through a subway grate, you know, or a subway gate, more like. and they understand what it's like to be a musician and gig and go through that sort of things. Because I think there's a lot of clinicians in the medical field that don't necessarily
04:00 understand what we do and it's not their fault. We live a very different lifestyle. And I just want to mix the two and build the coolest clinic for musicians. But one thing I realized as I started talking about this and talking about musicians injuries on my podcast, like you mentioned, people from, you know, 6,000 miles away, 5,000, 4,000 people in different countries that end in the word Ania started listening to me and saying, David, thank you so much for talking about this. I'm like, wait a minute. This is bigger than just one clinic. This is bigger than just having like that place in New York city that I want. So I realized, you know what I need to do more. I need to make the condition musician. We need to make this into a bigger thing. I don't
04:43 even know what it is yet. But if we can focus on the simple things, like just the very simple things we can do for our bodies, it not only makes us feel better, but it helps us play better or sing better. And I think that's just really critical. And that's what I do. That's what I do. And I love it. David, I feel like we're finally at a place where musicians start to feel comfortable sharing their journey with injuries, how it affects them, how they deal with it. And we're more and more aware of prevention. And I definitely want to unpack this with you a little bit today. And I want to hear about what you see happening. But you said something that really struck a chord with me about how you had this tough time as an undergrad and developed this
05:30 injury. And I feel like the education needs to start much earlier because I had my, you know, freshman tendonitis who does not get a freshman tendonitis can you talk to me a little bit more about this what you're seeing happening with the miseducation of musicians in terms of physical fitness of injury prevention and things of that nature oh my goodness renee where do i even begin so i i think one of one of the big myths that is going around is hey exercise if you pick up a weight, or if you go to yoga class, you really shouldn't. If you do that, you're going to hurt yourself. And if you hurt yourself, you can't play. So just don't do that. But the musician lifetime injury rate is around 90%. All right. So, so like, take that number into consideration.
06:23 If, if you were to walk outside and you have a 99, if you had a 90% chance of getting hit with a bowling ball, you probably wouldn't go outside or you would at least wear a helmet. It's the same thing. We have musicians getting super injured from over-practicing, from comparing themselves to others. And I've spoken with hundreds of musicians now, and it's the same problems no matter where you are. It's this competitive, feel the need to play, need to practice more. Oh, you practice four hours? Well, I'm going to practice five hours. And we build ourselves into this culture of, hey, power through it. The show must go on, which it does. But at the same time at what cost I mean what's the point of playing a show if you're what's the point of even
07:06 graduating music school if you are too if you're in too much pain and you're too burnt out to play to do what you love and I keep seeing this and it's again this isn't just America this is in Canada this is in London this is in uh Jordan um but but all these people were experiencing the same sort of conservatory fatigue. Even if we didn't go to a conservatory, it's the same sort of I have to be more and I have to be better for no other reason than I think I need to be. And then our bodies and our minds and our relationships suffer from it. And I feel like what you do is so related to what I do in terms of I'm all about mindful practice. It's all about this awareness of how we use well of course mind over finger first the mind first the concept but then how
07:56 do we maximize the movement how do we move in the way that's efficient and how do we work in the way that's efficient not only in terms of getting the more bang for your buck on the instrument but also in the practice room in terms of how much time you spend but tell me a little bit more about that what what can help i mean this is such a vague question but i like it this way because i feel like it gives you room to explore it, but what can musicians can do to, to be healthier? Oh my goodness. I get this question a lot and people say, Hey David, like what's the best stretch I should do? Hey, should I do yoga or should I do Pilates? Should I go to a physical therapist? Should I go, go to a chiropractor? Like David, I don't know what to do. So before
08:40 you, you add on anything new, take a look at what you're currently doing and the things, you know, you shouldn't do, you probably shouldn't do them. All right. The second best way to get out of a hole is to use a ladder or rope. The best way is to stop digging, stop doing the things that you know, aren't helping you. You know, you know, if you've been practicing for seven hours in the practice room, you know, the last two hours, you did really nothing. You really didn't do that much. You feel me? So take away the stuff that is currently stopping you from getting better instead of looking for the next best thing. Because there's no stretch that's going to save you from your current bad habits. You have to look at the habits that aren't serving you
09:29 and eliminate those first. And what after that? What happens next? Yeah, so then I would say, take something simple, simple, something simple that you like to do. So if you're like, okay, David, you know, I've reduced my practice time, I'm way more efficient. And I'm taking breaks, but I want to I want to feel even better when I practice. Okay, great. When you're taking breaks, are you going to go outside? Add on something little, little things, the simple things, are you going to go outside? hey, maybe you started looking up yoga on YouTube. Try to do a pose for like five minutes or not even five minutes, one minute. All right. And try to make those little habits of doing something that'll make your body feel a little bit better. I think the quote is simple things, simple little things done consistently well over time, give a massive result. And I really, really believe that. I love that, David. And like I said, I can relate because I had my freshman tendonitis and it's exactly what you said I looked at what I did wrong at the time and I noticed that
10:37 going from high school to college jumping on my violin without a warm-up doing run-throughs playing mindlessly playing way too much and playing carelessly also not just too much but mindlessly and I was lucky that I had good guidance and I had someone who said well let's look at what you know why did this happen and who recommended that I take some time that I consult health professionals and then after that it was my part which was to do what those health professionals were saying and go to physiotherapy and I did acupunctures and I did the little exercises and one of the biggest thing I learned was really to do what had always been told to me warm up yep and you know take some time before you start practicing get your body in the best
11:37 condition possible to do the work before you jump at it I was joking with my son this morning and because he was practicing his piano and I said no no Aiden it's like you get it make sure there's water before you jump in the pool you know so it's like it's kind of this approach where you just make sure that your body has everything that it needs before you play through the tchaikovsky concerto something like this yes where do you see us lacking the most where do you feel like these injuries are coming from the most it's a great question i believe if we don't know why we're doing something, we're probably going to lead ourselves into overuse. Cause at the end of the day, most of, most of the injuries I see musicians have, um, that people have told me
12:28 about that I've worked with some clients about it's overuse. It is doing the same thing over and over again and forcing the body, even though the body's telling you, Hey, you feel a little bit of numbness, feel a little bit of tingling. You know, your body feels a little bit tired and you're like, no, no, I'm just going to power through it. And that, that is what I keep seeing over and over again. Of course, there's some rare cases where I'm like, Oh, you should probably see someone else for this. But at the end of the day, that, that overuse and just doing the same thing over and over is, is what really gets musicians into trouble. And that's why I said, Hey, figure out why you're doing what you're doing. Okay. Are you practicing the whole piece? Do you need to
13:08 practice the whole piece? How about just measure 87 to measure 95? That's the tough phrase, right? So put a bunch of post-its around it and then work on that. And by no means am I a practice coach at all, but I just want to make sure you're not overusing your body, which is your asset as a musician. Yes, absolutely. What are some modalities that you think can be really helpful for musicians? And by that, I mean, anything like from yoga, stretching, of course, physical therapy. Tell me about what you see that works out there for musicians. That's a really, really great question. So as far as modalities, when it comes to, hey, should I go to a physical therapist?
13:51 Should I go to a yoga class, Pilates, a myofascial release, Feldenkrais? At the end of the day, you are doing that modality to get a result. so if you feel tight and you feel stiff you need to choose a modality that is going to get get you the result that you want and make sure that when you try it you get that result if you have pain and you have a problem and the pain isn't going away okay go to a clinician or someone who knows what they are talking about um because sometimes the two aren't synonymous like i said clinicians don't really understand musicians too much so you want to make sure if you're going to that clinician, they are giving you the result that you want, not just giving you a bunch of pills
14:32 and telling you, oh, just ice it down and just take a rest. That's not going to give you the results you want, because when you get back to playing, the pain is just going to come back in full force. So you want somebody that's going to work with you. So back to your original question, when people say, David, like, what should I do? I say, okay, what problem do you have? And then let's figure out how to solve that problem from there. So if you just have, you don't have pain. It's just a lot of like stretching. You have a lot of tension and maybe even a little bit of stage fright. Okay. Let's choose the modality for that. Maybe yoga would be great. Maybe if you slow down your breath, try it, give it a shot. But at the end of the day,
15:13 I cannot assign an individual modality to a musician because one thing I learned from patients of all ages, shapes, sizes, genders, religions, cultural backgrounds, it didn't matter. Nobody does something that they don't like to do. So if I said hey do these exercises three times a week do it And if they didn't like it, they wouldn't do it. So what's really important? For a modality is choose the thing that you like It's so important so simple, right so simple, but if you don't like it, you're not going to do it And you know, I realized I shouldn't have included physical therapy in this because for me It's exactly what you said first a clinician
15:54 then if I'm suffering I'm definitely seeing a physical therapist for sure and then following their advice I'll know okay stay away from backbends for example but I know that for me any modality that I would or any discipline I would enter such as yoga weight lifting things like this would definitely be following the advice of my physical therapist for sure how often you know you mentioned it earlier we hear you know don't lift weights it's going to make you stiff and things like this. And I have never been more able to play my instrument than when I was really tip top form, when I was doing lots of yoga, lots of running and lots of weightlifting, not bodybuilding, but lots of weightlifting, where I was doing all the things
16:45 that were targeting cardio targeting flexibility with yoga and yoga has the added benefit of really helping me with clearing my mind and staying calm and also weight lifting which made me very strong so it's a really a holistic approach i think but definitely i would say as you mentioned first talk to a clinician if you're experiencing pain and there's there's nothing wrong with having pain in your body if you have pain in your body congratulations you're a human being and your body is doing what it's supposed to do you're not broken you're not you're not a car all right like pain is just information it's just your brain telling you hey i think something's wrong let's do something about it that is it yes i know that one of your
17:35 favorite thing to talk about is really happy having happy productive and of course conditioned musicians what are some of your tips for that happy productive conditioned musicians so I think um productivity is something that I've definitely had to work on uh because I used to think I was invincible and I would stay up and just because I'm a very I'm a very focused guy when I decide I'm doing something I'm going to do it uh however long it takes and something I would do is I would stay up way too late because I'm like I'm gonna do this I'm gonna get it done I'm gonna get it done. I'm going to do this. I'm going to get it done. I'm going to get it done. And again, that's not mindful. That's not thinking. We just want to feel good about ourselves because we're productive
18:18 and we're completely disregarding the results, which is not quality work and feeling pretty bad the next morning. Yeah. It's great that you stayed up all night to work on something. That's a great flex. That's great to talk about, but the next three days, you're not going to feel so good. And so one thing I started to do to become more productive is to say, hey, here's what I'm doing today. Here's what I'm not doing today. And I can only pick like two or three things to do. You can only have two or three priorities.
18:47 Otherwise, you don't have priorities because you're not prioritizing. So that's one thing as far as productivity. As far as happiness, that's always a tough one, right? I just, you do what you love. You do what you love and just realize that life is about choosing the problems you want. because there's always going to be problems. At the end of the day, happiness is something that I choose to do. It's something that I go to therapy and that's always really, really great to talk out what's going on. Yeah. Happy, productive. And there was another adjective
19:19 you used. Conditioned. Conditioned. Conditioned. Yeah. Yeah. I believe doing some sort of physical activity. I honestly, I don't care even what it is, as long as it's not hurting anybody else. You know, as long as you're doing something, because I remember seeing hundreds of patients in PT back when I was studying it, the ones who had some sort of physical routine, whether it was biking or swimming or fishing or bench pressing kittens, I didn't care. As long as they did something, it made it so much easier for them to get over their injuries. If you do nothing and then a physical therapist was like, hey, all right, time to start working out. You'd be like, oh, I haven't done this before. I don't like it.
20:00 I'm not going to do it. And you usually get less of a result. So yeah, just do something you love that's physical and do it consistently. Like doing two weeks at the gym on New Year's Day after New Year's Day, that doesn't count. Do something you love and do it a lot over a long period of time. That's it. What does that look like for you? so for me i love uh to run i actually signed up for a marathon that i'm just gonna be running by
20:27 myself because i told myself i'd do it um but i love to run i love to lift weights uh even though that's gonna have to that's gonna have to decrease because marathon training you just run that's all you do i love to go on hikes i like to take walks during the day um but doing that i do some a really great breathing technique that I found called the Weimhoff breathing technique. I do that. I love that. That's a game changer. I like going to bed early and waking up early. Why? Because it makes me happy because I feel better. What else? I call people who I like, like my family and friends. I play guitar without the pressure to be good and just not even to practice sometimes. Just say, hey, you know, I'm going to pick up the guitar. I'm going to have fun. Yeah. And that's, that's
21:19 what I do. That's really what I do. And again, just, I do what I love. I'm happy with it and I deal with the problems and then I just, and I just keep moving forward and that's it. I love that. It's so varied. And I was listening to you talk and it made me think too, that one thing that's hard for musicians when we're not in severe COVID times is the fact that And our schedule is often all over the place. So you have a late night concert, but maybe a morning studio class that you need to teach. Or if you have a family, you need to get up early, take care of your family. Long hours driving.
21:58 I know that for me, that's causing some issues in my lower back. So this is really an area where we can do what you were talking about at the beginning. is really looking what you're doing that's not working and trying to find solution and that could mean if you're lacking sleep finding time to nap during the day finding time to meditate but because of the nature of our work which is so at times sporadic or intense and the schedule is so irregular to really find somewhere in there something that works for you exactly what you that's something that you love, that brings you peace, that relaxes you, that can be easily adaptable to the kind of crazy lives that we lead. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, life is hard enough.
22:48 We just can't make it harder on ourselves because it's going to be hard either way. So I, and I think you really brought up something great about the travel and the irregular schedules. And again, it goes, it goes back to that why and saying like, Hey, you know, this I'm playing this gig, but I don't like it. I don't like the musicians there. I don't feel good. I don't feel comfortable in that environment. And it's not even paying that much. Well, is it worth the money then? Do you need that money to cover expenses? What expenses are they? And again, tracing it back to that why, because at the end of the day, what matters is how you feel about yourself and about your career, because that's going to travel to anybody around you, your kids,
23:28 your students, anybody, anybody, anybody, anybody. So I think, yeah, that that's, that's my take on that. 100%. David, something that you mentioned to me is the fact that musicians often don't know how to talk to medical professionals, how to talk to doctor. And I'd love to hear your take on this. And if maybe if you have some tips for us, how to talk about this. Oh, my goodness. I think a lot of doctors don't realize and not, and obviously like they're DMAs and you guys are doctors as well. I'm not taking that away. Um, I'm talking, uh, doctors in healthcare. I think a lot of doctors in healthcare don't realize how scary healthcare is because you walk into a room and you know, it's a completely white room with chairs facing each other with a bunch of people you don't
24:15 know with a receptionist who might not be happy with his, like they're, they're just not happy people sometimes, and it's really scary, and you're not sure. You might only see the doctor for a few minutes, and you're not sure if you're going to be able to get all of your troubles out. I get it. I get it. I've seen patients like that, and it's sad. It's really sad. It's really scary. So here's what you need to do if you are going to a doctor, maybe for the first time, about a playing-related injury. Here's what you do. Obviously, you introduce yourself. You make sure that the doctor is making time for you. If the doctor can only see you for five minutes and they have to move off, that might not be the right place for you. You have to be in a place where the
24:57 doctor takes the time to listen to the patient. It doesn't matter how many clinical skills you have on the wall if you don't listen to your patients. So let's say you're in physical therapy or you're in any sort of healthcare office and you're doing something and it's hurting you, but you're like, oh, I shouldn't, I shouldn't really just, I shouldn't talk about it. No, no, no, no, no. We, we're not mind readers. You know, tell us if you're doing an exercise with a TheraBand and it's hurting and it's getting worse as you're doing it, say, hey, this is really hurting me. I don't feel comfortable with this. I'm a musician and, and like, this is really, really hurting and it's making me nervous. I want you to say that and
25:38 look, look that healthcare professional right in the eye while you say it. And if the healthcare professional goes, oh no, you're fine. That's okay. Just keep going. And then goes off and does something else. Again, switch doctors. That is not the person for you. But if you have a great clinician who listens and a lot of them really want to, who is listening, they'll say, oh, thank you so much for telling me. Yeah. Let's, let's do something else. Do you feel you can go on? Really just don't be afraid of communicating. Especially, and I'm going to say this, but I see this a lot. I think a lot of, a lot of women are scared of like opening up and saying, Hey, I feel this way because a lot of male doctors will be like, ah, it's fine. You're just being
26:18 emotional again. That is not the clinician for you. Speak to someone who validates how you are feeling and make sure that what you are feeling is validated. That is critical because if you have that relationship, then they're going to help you. And you're going to help them by, doing the exercises and doing the work you need to do. Because at the end of the day, you're there to get a result, which is to feel better in your body so you can play better. And that's a really key thing. Just make sure the communication is open. And if communication isn't happening, switch. There are plenty of doctors, plenty. It's so true what you're bringing up. And that's something I've said on the podcast before. I've had a couple episodes about injuries,
27:01 one with Sarah Whitney the productive musician and another one with Stefan Jakiv the solo violinist and two things that you just touched on the first one being yes medical professionals don't always understand how it is for musicians and I have been in this situation before where either a doctor or a physical therapist, I just didn't feel like it really was it. And as a non-medical professional, sometimes you second guess yourself. But I've said this before, if you are hesitant, if you have a hunch that something's not quite right for you, go see someone else until you find someone that you feel very confident in and that's such an important aspect I mean I've heard so many stories from musicians that were either recommended to get surgery for specific conditions and
28:02 would then go on to other professionals and after five six different doctors would realize that maybe it's not necessary and ended up completely fine or other musicians going through some type of treatment that ended up just making things worse and would then tell me I didn't, I wasn't sure I shouldn't have done it. My instinct was telling me no, but I trusted them. I trusted that they knew what was going on. So I think it's really important if the intuition is telling you something to listen to it. And the other thing that you mentioned is, you know, the mental aspect of it, because an injury, not just for musicians to anyone, but a lot for us, because not being able to play our instrument is so attached to our identity maybe not for everyone but i know for me
28:53 that being in the situation where we're so affected in our ability to do that becomes almost an identity crisis so it's really important to not neglect the severe consequences that it can have on our mental health and to make sure that we talk about it and that we seek help that's great that is absolutely great and and you you really hit the nail on the head you need to trust your instincts as much as a clinician knows about health and they know a lot they studied a lot trust me i i studied a lot and i only went to school for one year as a physical therapist and that was a lot but you know infinitely more about your own body than they do and it's your job as the patient to communicate that to them yeah and and please surgery is always
29:46 last possible option get as many opinions as you can surgery that for for playing related pain surgery is like i said that that shouldn't even be on the table that's complete that's almost clinically irrelevant especially because a lot of the surgeries that are done are they're placebo like it it doesn't yeah i'm not even i'm not even opening that can of worms but um yeah make sure that your clinician is listening to you really listening to you and if you got that feeling that they're not okay no problem pay your co-pay pay your what whatever you got to pay um if it's cash pay pay that and then go and find somebody else that's all you can do i remember about 10 years ago i had a pretty severe wrist injury and found a therapist that did just that she was listening to
30:33 me and she was so kind and i really felt like the treatment were helping and then after when i was better and was able to perform I invited her to come to a concert and when she walked out she said I had no idea you described it to me but watching you play oh my gosh I had no idea how physical playing the violin was but she had this instinct to listen to me and to respect everything and all the input I gave her which allowed us to work together towards my recovery and I really will always appreciate this about her but oftentimes they don't realize how physical playing a musical instrument is so it's so important to speak up absolutely so when the thing we talked about is how you know our life is so irregular but then at times we sit in the rehearsal room and we don't
31:28 move for hours what's one of the best way that we can relieve some tension or relax our muscles What's one of the best way that we can maintain our good conditioning as musicians? So this is a question I get a lot. And I think as musicians, we focus so much on posture, which it is important. It definitely is important. But holding one posture for a long time, no matter how good, quote unquote, it is, can actually be kind of, it can be really icky for our bodies. So your best posture is your next one.
32:01 You want to be constantly moving throughout the day in different ways for this podcast. I've been standing for a long time So once this podcast is over i'm going to sit down i'm going to lower my desk and sit down while I work It's just a matter of switching things up every so often to keep things fresh and new I love that. You have to say it one more time Yeah, your best posture is your next posture Your best posture is your next posture. I'm going to put that on a post-it and have it near me when I practice absolutely i love that please do david how about a round of rapid fire questions before i let you go let's do it you're still a musician what's your favorite tool in the practice room
32:43 the door to get out and leave every so often that's one we've never had here on the podcast i love it that's usually like a metronome or something like that right how about a favorite book that you would recommend to the listeners? Oh, favorite book of all time, Outwitting the Devil. What a book. What a book. Who wrote it? Napoleon Hill. He actually wasn't able to release it until after he died. It's a whole story. It's amazing. I suggest the audio book because the voice actors are incredible. Okay. I'm going to check that out for sure. what skills do you think young musicians studying today should acquire in addition to learning their play their instruments uh learning why you're doing things um and uh
33:33 looking at your insecurities because we all have them and trying to figure out how to level your insecurities so they don't dictate who you are as a musician that's beautiful love it how about a piece of advice that was given to you that you would like to pass on to the listeners in addition to all of the awesome advice you've already given us i think my favorite piece of advice is don't numb yourself if something doesn't feel right to you then it isn't right for you absolutely finally how about a quick actionable tip that the listeners could implement today in their musical lives? What quick actionable tip.
34:20 So I would say reduce your practice time. If you have a set practice time, you say, hey, I'm going to go from maybe I have two hours or three hours scheduled out. I want you to reduce it by 15 minutes and see if you can get the same thing done in the allotted time. That's what I would say.
34:40 That's really great. Absolutely. I second that motion. David, I hear there are some really great projects in the future for you in the very near future. Please tell us a little bit about that because I'd love to hear more. Oh my gosh, I'm super excited about this. So I want to make it really easy for musicians to be conditioned even in this COVID-19 situation. So what we're doing is we're actually launching a program called Classically Conditioned where we are giving you access to group classes taught
35:14 by me. You know, I was a Zumba instructor at some point, so I love bringing it. So I'll be bringing it on camera. We're going to be teaching you guys about anatomy and injury. Obviously, I'm not going to teach you all the anatomy I learned in PT school because y'all would fall asleep and so would I, because it's a lot. So we're going to teach you, there's a special section called how to get injured the right way, which will explain, hey, here's the warning signs. Here's what's going on and here's how to get through it. And here's how to recover and not, not the tactics, but the general principles. So that way, sometimes if your students say, Hey, Oh my gosh, my wrist hurts. You don't freak out and say like, Oh my gosh, wait, do they need to call a doctor? Like, did,
35:57 did I do something wrong? We're going to cover all of that. And, uh, for, for this round, we're going to do some personal coaching with me. And I love, like I said, I'm an extrovert. I love to understand people and their stories. And it's going to be pretty great. I think that's, I think that's everything. And that's a program that's going to be starting on October 15th. I'm really, really excited about it. And we are also in like pretty, I believe in November, we're going to open up the group exercise to everybody. And so that way you can either pay per class or have a monthly subscription. And it's going to be three times a week at different times, because I know y'all are in different time zones, it's going to be a lot of fun. I am beyond excited for it.
36:42 That sounds amazing. I'm going to be checking it out for sure. And I'm going to have all of this information in the show notes for the listener, as well as all the links to find you everywhere, The Conditioned Musician. David, thank you so much for being with me today and sharing this incredibly important information with us. I hope everyone subscribes to The Conditioned Musician podcast and check out your work. Thanks so much. Thank you, Renee. Thank you guys for listening. I hope you enjoyed this chat with the condition musician himself, David Cartellano.
37:25 There's a lot to walk away with here. I personally really resonate with the need to identify and interrupt the behaviors that harm you and develop simple habits that work for you and that enhance your physical condition. I also love what David said about developing strategies to speak to medical professionals. As I mentioned in our conversation, we often dismiss our own intuition and the powerful signals our body sends us when we're talking to doctors and therapists. And it's really important to know that it's okay to keep searching until you find the person who's the right fit for you. The person that makes you feel heard and seen and that you trust will be the right facilitator for your recovery. I also really liked David's actionable tip, and I'll even up the NT and challenge you to replace that 15 minutes of practice with an activity that will be in line with elevating your playing, your performing, or your overall health. It could be priming before you start practicing or doing some mental practice, listening to
38:39 your favorite recording or discover a new piece. It could be watch a live performance, read about a composer, or maybe it's going for a walk, doing a short yoga session, meditating, or anything that works for you. And please let me know how that went. If you relate to this conversation, let David and I know by getting in touch with us and let's keep this discussion going. I'm Mind Over Finger on both Instagram and Facebook, and he's The Conditioned Musician. Also, if you'd like to hear more conversations on the topic of musicians' injuries and recoveries, check out episode 44 of the Mind Over Finger podcast
39:19 with Sarah Whitney and episode number 58 with Stefan Jakiv, where they share their stories of overcoming injury and pursuing thriving musical careers. As always, I'll have all the information related to this episode in the show notes. You can find them via your podcast app or by visiting mindoverfinger.com, where you can also find more information about mindful and efficient practice and performance preparation. And while you're there, sign up for my newsletter and receive your free guide to a super productive, mindful practice using the metronome finally i hope to see you in the mind over finger tribe that's my private facebook group where i pop in once a week to talk about mindful practice and
40:06 answer all your questions it's a great community and a lot of fun so find it at facebook.com slash groups slash mind over finger tribe so that's it for today again thank you and a bientot Thank you.
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