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Posts: 1706
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
Injuries from French polishing
Years ago, I had tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis) in my right arm from French polishing. Now I have "trigger finger": The middle finger on my right hand does not unclench gradually like the rest of the fingers do when I go from a closed hand to an open one. Instead it lags behind and then snaps open. This wreaks hell on my rasgueados and isn't so great for my arpeggios either. Anyone else here have this injury? It's caused by the tendon being swollen and catching in the sheath that it moves through.
My little finger on the right does not open properly and likes to be clenched, but that is where I accidentally cut a tendon with a bottle whilst drunk in France when I was 15. Still a nuisance, though.
I’ve got a lifetime of cumulative damage from working hard but mostly aircraft riveting. I really noticed it when I’m sanding my rib/lining edges on a plate and discovered I just can’t do it. On my lightly built flamencas I don’t dare use a plane and my beefy hickory edged classicals laugh at my plane blade ;) So o got smart and rigged up a power driver that moves the sanding plate with the ribs in the tooling.
Point I’m making is we can and need to find solutions to keep doing what we love as we age.
I know Capt’ Faulk bought a drum sander cause the issue with his hands and couldn’t wield the scraper. I’ll let him bring it up if he chooses.
About playing with the issue in your right hand, give it the middle finger ;) , Jango Rinheart comes to mind with only two fire distorted fingers on his left hand…
I came to the conclusion a few years ago that my mind and body was not going to allow me to play at the level I had had a young man… I’m cool with that, I make my “flamingo” noises every day, a steel string guitar guy complimented me on my rosgeoto the other day but what does he know ;)
Guess I’ll close with this: you make beautiful guitars and sure many out there smile each time they pick up one of yours; and your playing is masterful, not much to add, sit back and b grateful for what you have done and been able to do, we are all so fortunate compared to many in the world.
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
Escribano, I read that Paco de Lucia got a similar injury while spear fishing and a doctor said it would never get better but it did. Sorry to hear that you've had that problem. And yours, Kee.
Thanks for your kind words ernandez and Ricardo.
And thanks for the suggestion Manitas. I think wrapping it is a good idea. I've done that with other finger problems before but never tried it while polishing (or maybe I did and forgot); I'll do that.
I think my finger will get better when it's resting after one guitar is polished and before the next.
Irrelevant to french polishing, but when I was younger (and probably at some point again in the future) I was a champion of a game I called knuckle busters, which was a bit more intense than bloody knuckles. I would convince my opponent to connect knuckles, and on the count of three, we would punch each other's fists as hard as we could. The trick to winning is 1) acting like you felt no pain at all and 2) being incredibly eager to go again. Then one night I went up against Joe, and we were hitting each other's knuckles for what felt like 10 minutes (hard to tell the time when you're so drunk and frustrated), and at some point, I said we're doing permanent damage to our knuckles, and I would like to offer a draw, because it was clear otherwise neither of us would have stopped. He has a weird fleshy permanent fleshy bump on his knuckle now and I had a bad boxer's fracture on my pinky. My pinky knuckle has been about twice the size of the other one, and I think something that connects that knuckle to the rest of my hand also broke, because I have more movement in it. People sensed weakness and challenged me to knuckle busters, because I was quite brazen and braggadocios about it, and I haven't lost since.
When I open my pinky there's almost like a soft click, like it hangs up for a moment, and then fires open. I wasn't able to do rasgueado with all for fingers, until I was on a psychedelic last year and noticed that my strum felt different, and I looked down, and sure enough, that little pinky fella was joining in with the rest of the fingers in unison, keeping rhythm with the rest. I don't think about it anymore, but I'm sure I will when I get old if I don't die trying to get there. Cambodiaaa in three weeks
I used to have steroid injections for a while. I find certain times of the year it can flair up or die down a bit. I probably didn't help things when I played ukulele, and was figuring out various techniques, similar I guess to that of flamenco. I probably caught it funny, but could be coincidence. We're getting older too which doesn't help.
I try to avoid repetitive motions , and when doing repetitive work , change up how I do it . For instance , I french polish with both hands , alternating .
When I do get some joint or muscle pain , I apply a Japanese 'patch' , a cool medicated patch . I found they actually do have a remedial effect .
I figured it would help to drop a 150-pound weight on it so I did that while carrying a boxed mattress up the stairs with a hand truck. Now that finger will have to rest for a while, since the the fingertip is too sensitive to pluck with. I was just able to pull it up the stairs and when I got to the top I thought I would slowly lay the truck flat on the floor and then push the box off of it, but the weight caused it to fall fast and my finger was wrapped under part of the truck that took the weight, so it got squashed even though the nail side went into carpeting on the floor.
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Now that finger will have to rest for a while, since the the fingertip is too sensitive to pluck with. I was just able to pull it up the stairs and when I got to the top I thought I would slowly lay the truck flat on the floor and then push the box off of it, but the weight caused it to fall fast and my finger was wrapped under part of the truck that took the weight, so it got squashed even though the nail side went into carpeting on the floor. 
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