Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
|
|
|
Breaking the Ice before playing.... cold hands
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
  
Doitsujin
Posts: 5078
Joined: Apr. 10 2005
|
 RE: Breaking the Ice before playing.... (in reply to gj Michelob)
|
|
|
quote:
Actually tea etc. won't warm up you blood (it'll be at body-temperature by the time it gets absorbed), the warm cup will warm your hands somewhat and the tea'll get your vegetative nervous system going, thus helping your circulation.
Disagree, It works perfectly for me, really no joke. The only absorption one needs is the one which fills the stomach. You don't need warm molecules of the tea ingredients in your blood... :.D
So, just drink the tea, it works mediately. It only works if the drink is HOT and ENOUGH. So,.. it doesn't work for girls who only drink slightly warm drinks and only take a sip during 10 minutes. Like the people who swear on vine. ;.) (EDIT: sorry Ricardo...I saw your post after mine..) If you put hot drinks inside of you, it warms up your whole body rapidly. ( ^^.)bb
Some persons also think if its hot and you want to cool down, you drink hot drinks. Thats **** either. The hot drink will make you sweat and that cools you down from outside. But that doesn't feel good. Better is to drink so cold but not too cold drinks for cooling down. And why start sweating when putting hot drinks inside of the body? Answer: Because it warms up the body. And yes, also your fingers but they are the last part which warms up. eh.. Maybe your nose, ears and dick warms up a little slower. (Depends on how long your noodle is (^_-) Mine doesnt warm up completely.. )
Another fast way to heat your body up is to put a hot notebook on your upper legs. Right under your balls in your legs are the artery and when you heat up the blood with the notebook (watch a movie in bed, it heats up your notebook rapidly) the blood runs through your whole body and you will sweat like hell! I thought I had fever in past because of that.. I was sweating like I was ill. haha.. That also will heat up your fingers.. But I would recommend the first option to warm up your hands.
quote:
Hence suggestion #2: a glas (or two) of red wine or champagne (o.k. Prosecco or plain old "bubbly" will work as well)  Nice joke.
I remember when they forbid the schnaps-barrel on the neck of Bernhardiener (see photo) which was originally meant to heat up the body of stupid skiers or climbers who faceplanted somewhere in the snow. The ethanol lets your body think you are warm, but you arent and get ****ed up! 
Or they forbid the barrels because the party-skiers robbed it and the dogowners didnt want to refill the barrels with the holy schnapps everytime they´ve sended the dogs out for a minute... I mean.. in the times of DJ Oetzi and Apres ski partypeople... that wouldnt shock me.. (see prooving photo # 2)
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 25 2009 8:51:15
 |
|
Ricardo
Posts: 14822
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
|
|
RE: Breaking the Ice before playing.... (in reply to gj Michelob)
|
|
|
I struggled with this for years, but have come to realize that it is all psychological. I had to play outdoors once, it was FREEZING....my fingers went numb after a few minutes until my fingers could not feel the strings AT ALL. At that point, my playing became "normal", but it just felt like I was playing with someone elses hands. It was weird, but I realized the fingers still move...it is all about your mind.
If I am warmed up...but very nervous for some reason, then I still can't play good. Paco de lucia once said "if you THINK you are going to make a mistake...you are lost...". REally you need to have confidence, then you can play no matter what the conditions. But how to get that is the trick. For me I need 2 things....a glass of REd wine or sherry to calm the nerves a bit and warm the blood, to relax more than anything...and inspiration to perform well. That can inspiriation is really important and can come from many different sources, but mainly, from you audience or fellow performers.
So that is me...but someone like Paco needs more than that to gain the confidence. You can try his method if you want. He;
Smokes weed, keeps his RIGHT hand in a plastic bag to keep it warm and moist, has hot soup backstage before playing, needs a certain sized chair...mic,, monitor system etc, and keeps a spot of petroleum gel on his guitar for his right hand finger tips.
So if anyone one of those things is missing, it can totally throw him off for the night, just like the rest of us humans that need certain things to get in the right mind set to perform our best.
Ricardo
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 25 2009 10:06:05
|
|
gj Michelob
Posts: 1531
Joined: Nov. 7 2008
From: New York City/San Francisco
|
|
RE: Breaking the Ice before playing.... (in reply to Ricardo)
|
|
|
quote:
I struggled with this for years, but have come to realize that it is all psychological. I had to play outdoors once, it was FREEZING....my fingers went numb after a few minutes until my fingers could not feel the strings AT ALL. At that point, my playing became "normal", but it just felt like I was playing with someone elses hands. It was weird, but I realized the fingers still move...it is all about your mind.
If I am warmed up...but very nervous for some reason, then I still can't play good. Paco de lucia once said "if you THINK you are going to make a mistake...you are lost...". REally you need to have confidence, then you can play no matter what the conditions. But how to get that is the trick. For me I need 2 things....a glass of REd wine or sherry to calm the nerves a bit and warm the blood, to relax more than anything...and inspiration to perform well. That can inspiriation is really important and can come from many different sources, but mainly, from you audience or fellow performers.
So that is me...but someone like Paco needs more than that to gain the confidence. You can try his method if you want. He;
Smokes weed, keeps his RIGHT hand in a plastic bag to keep it warm and moist, has hot soup backstage before playing, needs a certain sized chair...mic,, monitor system etc, and keeps a spot of petroleum gel on his guitar for his right hand finger tips.
So if anyone one of those things is missing, it can totally throw him off for the night, just like the rest of us humans that need certain things to get in the right mind set to perform our best.
Ricardo
____________________________
New CD available here:
http://www.flamenco-teacher.com/storeitem?item=800106
What an awesome post, Ricardo. I will add nothing more than a thank you.
_____________________________
gj Michelob
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 25 2009 17:55:22
|
|
NormanKliman
Posts: 1143
Joined: Sep. 1 2007
|
|
RE: Breaking the Ice before playing.... (in reply to gj Michelob)
|
|
|
I don't know how well I can describe this, but here's a stretch routine that I use:
Start with your arm at your side. Keep your upper arm (between elbow and shoulder) relatively still and relaxed throughout. Bring your wrist up toward your shoulder with your palm toward the floor. Your arm and hand should look something like the neck and head of a flamingo.
Flip your hand back at the wrist so that the palm is facing up. It should look like a waiter carrying a tray.
Keep your hand bent back at the wrist and move your forerm back to where it was before. You should feel a stretching sensation in your wrist. As you carry through with the downstroke, carefully extend your fingers, as if you were trying to pick up a basketball with one hand. This whole motion looks something like a cat scratching at an enemy.
At the end of the downstroke, keep extending your fingers, flip your hand forward into the "flamingo-head" position, and now bring your fingertips together (fingers straight) to repeat. At the end of the upstroke, when you flip your hand back into the "waiter" position, you should notice how to stretch and grind the ligaments, joints, etc. in your hand.
So it's really just a question of raising and lowering your forearm and flipping your hand one way or another at the end of each up/downstroke. I recommend going through it carefully, as the idea is to remain relaxed and focused on achieving an uncomfortable "burning" kind of sensation, especially when you extend your fingers. You really want to make this as uncomfortable as possible, so be extra careful not to hurt yourself. Go slowly, looking for ways to stretch the stiffness. Everyone's built differently, so maybe this won't do much for some of you. I got the idea from seeing an old gypsy woman dance at the beginning of one of those flamenco shows from Spanish television. Might have been El Ángel.
There's another exercise you can do that involves extending and retracting pairs of fingers: index-middle vs. ring-little, index-little vs. middle-ring and index-ring vs. middle-little.
_____________________________
Be here now.
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 27 2009 0:53:10
|
|
at_leo_87
Posts: 3055
Joined: Aug. 30 2008
From: Boston, MA, U.S.A
|
|
RE: Breaking the Ice before playing.... (in reply to Ricardo)
|
|
|
quote:
Smokes weed, keeps his RIGHT hand in a plastic bag to keep it warm and moist, has hot soup backstage before playing, needs a certain sized chair...mic,, monitor system etc, and keeps a spot of petroleum gel on his guitar for his right hand finger tips.
does he smoke up before every show?
that would make me the most sloppy, unproductive, lazy musician ever. hot soup wouldn't be enough for me. i would have to add at least 5 family sized bag of doritos to the list.
he certainly doesn't look high when he plays.
_____________________________
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 27 2009 2:04:20
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
0.09375 secs.
|
Printable Version
