The Physical Status

In returning to this blog for the first time in what seems like ages, I thought I'd interrupt the movie reviews, stay well away from the election results (although I might broach that subject later), and concentrate on my own physical well-being. Hey, this blog's about me, right? RIGHT??

Sometime earlier this year, I began to notice an issue when drumming; namely, my right ankle was not cooperating as well as it had been for the bulk of my drumming life. Grace notes in front of a standard strike on the "one" or "three" had become difficult to do. On top of that, I wasn't "feeling" them. I didn't have any numbness, per se, no "my foot fell asleep" sensation. Instead, it was just a feeling of, well, helplessness, when I would attempt to play fast grace notes on the kick drum. This is mainly an issue with the Pocket FishRmen, as the music, besides being blindingly fast most of the time, is loaded with that kind of feel in the kick drum patterns. The guys weren't noticing any difference in my playing, and I realized, after some horror, that I was playing these grace notes after all.....I just couldn't feel them.

The issue is also not at all consistent, and it's hard to tell when I'll have the problem. Some slower to mid-tempo songs are difficult as hell now, namely "Friendly Chimps." There are a couple of Hickoids songs that are more difficult now, but not nearly like the FishRmen ones are. As you can imagine, this is one of the scariest scenarios for a musician to face.

After a couple of trips to my doctor to attempt to diagnose this, I went to a chiropractor....but there wasn't really anything they could do about it...but they wanted me to keep coming back (ha ha)! So my doctor prescribed a bunch of physical therapy visits, and I'm starting to feel like I might be on the road to recovery, and on the road to playing more correctly.

I've been a fairly regular worker-outer (BowFlex, stationary bike) for awhile now, and one thing I definitely did not do enough of is stretching, beforehand and afterward. And I think that is a lot of the issue. I built up so much tightness that I think I was using that tightness to drive my kick drum leg. And I finally got stove up (as we say in the South) to the point that playing was becoming difficult. Now that physical therapy is loosening me up, I find that my ankle feels looser, but it's weak as hell. Two songs played, and my ankle's crying "help!" Going to take a while to build that back up. I'm doing a lot of ankle strengthening exercises now (e.g. balancing on one leg, calf raises), but it might be awhile. I only have three sets to play New Year's Eve. Hoo boy!!

I gotta say - the FishRmen have been more than patient with my complaining about this for some time. As I wrote earlier, they hadn't really noticed the issue in the overall sound, so it probably sounded like I was whining for nothing. They're good fellas.

That's it for the physical report. Back to the movies.......sometime.