It's Torture Day!

Every Thursday over 30 students and their parents and siblings come to my home in the afternoon for group violin classes arranged by playing level. The first week of each month focuses on technique through targeted and rigorous drills and exercises. What I call Technique Day has become known as "Torture Day" in the studio. Ok, I was the one who decided to call it "Torture Day", in order to bring fun and laughter to a day that really requires focus, endurance, and effort from the kids. This sign hangs in my studio:


One of my students gave me the sign as a gift around Halloween to hang up on "Torture Day", but the sign has become a permanent fixture in the studio. I often forget it's there until a new visitor comes to the house and comments on the true nature of what goes on in that room.

So today was Torture Day. The weather was beautiful, and after noticing how squirmy my first group of pre-Twinklers and Twinkle students turned out to be, I started the second group of students by marching them onto my front lawn, along with all parents and siblings in attendance to teach them the "Lightly Row" dance. I'm certain that marching, bending, and bowing while standing in a huge circle in my yard qualified as torture for most of them. The rest of the classes endured my idea of fun, singing and playing things that they'd just as soon leave long forgotten.

I love the whole concept of Torture Day, that through repetitious, focused, sometimes difficult actions, technical mastery can be achieved. In other words, there is purpose in PAIN... muahahaha (insert evil laugh and hand rubbing here). Don't I look diabolical?

Yesterday I went to my gym early in the morning to work out. It was a great morning for me. I met with my trainer, who took measurements for me. It was a good day for measurements, evidently, as my thighs were a full inch smaller than the measurements she took just 2 weeks ago, and as she said, my thighs were officially smaller than her own. That just made my day. Then she proceeded to torture me with a weight-training regimen that made me literally weak in the knees, followed by almost an hour of cardio training. Through repetitious, focused, and often difficult actions, I'm hoping to achieve physical mastery of my body. If only I wasn't so tortured by the temptation of chocolate.

Finally, a random note about something that made me laugh so hard I just have to write it down. I was teaching a violin lesson to Emma, age 7, today and we were working on a small part of a new song where one finger makes a diagonal movement across the strings. I was showing and explaining the movement, but Emma's face was not registering understanding of what I was saying. The conversation went like this....

Me: Emma, do you know what diagonal means?
Emma: No.
Me: It's when the finger moves like this (showing the movement), not straight across or up and down.
Emma: Oh, you mean it's OBLIQUE?

I just laughed my head off. Her mom confirmed that she had learned the meaning of oblique angles (they homeschool, and are a very bright family), so Emma understood and proceeded to move her finger in the correct direction. I love my kids... my students... they constantly amaze me.