Author Archives: miguel

This post is the fifth in the series “Task Specific Focal Dystonia” .  The first was my discovery of the syndrome. Next came a very short selection of some of the literature that I read – I spent weeks searching for scientific and medical literature as well as first hand accounts. Other frst hand accounts [...]

Here is the  testimonial Iwrote for Joaquin Farias at www.focaldystonia.net/.
Dr. Joaquin Farias is highly competent, highly educated and an extremely good listener. Not only clear, logical and open-minded: he was a paradigm of discretion. I immediately felt relaxed in his presence despite knowing that my playing had totally collapsed.
My initial fears that these seminars might [...]

In eight hours of one to one seminars I learned more about me and my music playing than in thirty years of actually playing. And some of those thirty years were as a professional musician.
Before my visit, I knew that there was something wrong. I was practising morning and evening. I was concentrating on relaxation, breathing and good posture. I was [...]

In order to further understand Focal Dystonia I have scoured the web.  There is some carefully written literature on the subject as well as practitioners that offer help with the syndrome. To assist my own understanding I have selected the most relevant of the resources on the and provided a summary of the work [...]

I have been diagnosed with Focal Dystonia and after spending hours and hours researching I agree with the diagnosis.
Essentially, focal dystonia is an involuntary movement of one or more fingers. In short, I cannot play and have not been able to play for a considerable amount of time. Despite all efforts (and considerable efforts) to [...]