Sphincter In The Hand

Hi Alan, In the DVD and the book, you have pointed out the "sphincter in the hand"--the ring of muscles around the palm. Should this ring of muscles generally be kept taut while playing? It is possible to put the hand in the shape of an arch while leaving this sphincter fairly slack. But as you've pointed out, there's the arch shape, and then there's the "functional arch." Is it keeping the slack out of this ring of muscles that makes the arch shape functional? Taking this line of inquiry a bit further, can keeping the slack out of this ring of muscles partly substitute for maintaining a classical arch shape in the hand? When Kemal Gekic "lets the arch go" but he still gets a rich sound, could his results be ascribed at least in part to his keeping this ring of muscles taut (but not rigid) even when his hand is not holding the arch shape? --Rush

Great question - the answer has to do with terminology and context. 1) A muscle can be in many states between 'taut' and 'inert-fully relaxed.' I advise maintaining really high tonus in that sphincter for a hand whose own 'sphincter' function is dormant - the hand cannot feel the empowering action of those contractions because it is simply not in the habit of doing them, and it needs to be woken up. 2) But there are other hands that maintain an overly tense set of palm muscles - that ring or sphincter has learned to work so well that it is chronically contracted and actually inhibits the function it is supposed to help. 3) Kemal's hand sphincter muscles know how to . They can afford to stay loose, because in the instant they are needed they can contract, do their job, and then just as instantaneously return to their relaxed state. This state is not quite entirely relaxed, a tiny little bit of tonus is maintained - not enough to inhibit total flexibility, but enough to shorten the 'click in' time when the muscle needs to contract. Remember, neutral isn't dead, it is the point from which it takes the least amount of effort to engage in effective work. A very general way of describing a possible plan of action - evaluate whether your hand is closer to state (1) or state (2), then figure out how best you could teach your hand to be in state (3). Thanks for the post! AFF