The trio of our freedoms

I know how I want the piece to sound. I’m a pretty musical guy, but it just won’t come out. The piano refuses to play what I hear. Then I remember. Free the wrists. Let them rotate, do their thing, and suddenly I’m more musical than I imagined. There’s music in your wrists, a freedom that facilitates other freedoms, those of fingers and forearm. Clunky, unmusical phrasing? Free the wrists, “tekubi” in Japanese. We see that root elsewhere. Ankles are “ashikubi,” and neck, “kubi.” The freedom of each part, “tekubi,” “ashikubi,” and “kubi,” engenders freedom of the whole. That is certainly what F. M. Alexander saw in the head, neck, torso relationship, a facilitator of freedom throughout the torso, a tune to which ankles and wrists are the crucial counterpoint. Today, let’s keep it simple, free your wrists when you play the piano or type, free the ankles when you walk, and free the neck as a facilitator of the whole. “Tekubi,” “ashikubi”, “kubi,” a trio of our freedoms. What a musical day it might be.