The Power of Kinesiology ~ The Music Lesson

Angela Shrimpton was a former student of mine and shared this story with me. I was so touched that I asked her to write it up so that I could share both her and her students experience and profound changes that are capable using Neuro-Linguistic Kinesiology and the Mental Fitness Exercises Programme.

In 2004 I was blessed to have been introduced to the power of Kinesiology and its techniques. I have been a musician and music teacher for many years, experiencing many students who just could not seem to focus on the tasks presented to them, and in many cases they spent most of the lesson trying to distract me toward something other than our task at hand.

Previously one would have concluded that the child was either uninterested in the subject, hyper active, or a difficult child. It was only after being presented the assessments, information and balancing procedures of Neuro-Linguistic Kinesiology that I realized that many of these children had every opportunity to excel in their subject given simple and effective techniques and exercises to balance their brains and bodies.

Cassie: 8 Year Old Female / Music Lessons

On first impressions Cassie is a very bright, intelligent and active girl who has a wonderful personality and interest in her subject. During our first music lesson, which included one other girl, Cassie proceeded to ensure me that she knew all of her work, and was quite frankly the best in her class. After 10 minutes into the lesson I knew that this was not true. When I asked her to play her pieces she spent most of her time trying to distract me to other subjects, and when she finally did play it was evident that she could not even play the first few notes. She would then get angry telling me that she could play them, and that it was the other students fault for distracting her etc. Cassie was also extremely active during the class, to the point where it was difficult to get her to stand in front of the music stand without knocking it over.

It was my decision to instruct her parents that Cassie needed one on one time, and that it would be a great idea to give her private lessons where I can work with her in a more intense fashion.

It was around this time that I began learning and training in Kinesiology, and thought that it might be a good idea to do a couple of assessments on Cassie to find out as much as I could about the way she liked to learn, and how we might help her to concentrate during class. This revealed that she was at that time stuck in right brain state, which has indicated in some cases to involve symptoms such as hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder, and other learning behaviors such as lack of concentration, poor fine motor skills and inability to stop and think. Cassie also eventually opened up and told me that she found the notes difficult to read on the page, and that she felt like they moved around.

After a couple of weeks I could see a definite difference in Cassie’s behavior in class. She was definitely more focused, and actually kept her mind on the tasks set for her for most of the lesson (half hour lessons). I decided to get Cassie to do the NLK Mental Fitness Exercises every day, especially before class. This was extremely powerful as Cassie began to learn pieces within one lesson, and perform them very well by two to three lessons. This was a huge improvement for her, as initially we would spend at least a month on one piece, and would eventually move on out of frustration that she could not learn the piece effectively. During this whole process I learned that Cassie seemed to be a Kinesthetic Learner as she was physically orientated, moved a lot to get a physical reaction, and generally wanted to walk things through before feeling comfortable. To enhance this I thought that I might try to use Cassie’s strengths of being energetic, and active, and integrate it into her performing. This worked extremely well. When Cassie was allowed to move whilst playing, and express her self, she seemed to learn much faster and internalize the music much faster as well.

Interested in tailoring the Mental Fitness Exercises to the music lesson, I sourced research by a Musician, and performer Barry Green, who had written a book called “The Inner Game of Music,” which is a development of a book written by Timothy Gallwey. The techniques and philosophy within this book gave the techniques used in Neuro-Linguistic Kinesiology a whole new level of power, and gave me exceptional lesson plans and exercises to use to develop students.

After 6 months, Cassie successfully completed her First Grade Flute Examination with the AMEB, receiving a Credit. This speaks for itself. Not only this, if there were days where I came to the lesson feeling down, tired or generally out of sorts, she would very matter of factly tell me that I should do the NLK Mental Fitness Exercises 'Switch on'.... She was right, and I would leave feeling relaxed, and more energized. It is very exciting that at such a young age this girl will have learned safe and effective techniques to empower herself in so many ways, not to mention protecting herself from future Stress related illnesses that can result from performing instruments with the stretches and warm ups.

Author - Angela Shrimpton