Lessons from a double bassist

Last weekend, as rain hammered against the windows, I found myself cocooned on the sofa watching a Netflix documentary. I was not expecting to find myself reflecting on my own relationship with my body.

Orin O’Brien, the first woman to join the New York Philharmonic as a full-time member, was talking about her double bass with such tenderness that it made me pause my tea mid-sip.

“The double bass is terribly temperamental,” she explained. “It changes with the weather because it’s wood. You have to talk to it, baby it, or it’ll decay and dry up.”

What struck me was not simply what she said about the instrument, but the relationship she had with it.

There was care. There was respect. There was a deep understanding that the double bass was not an object to be dominated or forced into performing. It was something to be listened to, responded to and cared for.

A double bass is a living structure. Temperature, humidity and how it is treated all influence how it responds. Every part of the instrument contributes to the sound it produces.

O’Brien went on to explain that, to play well, the whole instrument must vibrate.

This got me thinking.

How well do we allow our own bodies to resonate?

How often do we check in, listen, and respond to what our bodies are communicating?

The relationship we have with our bodies

O’Brien emphasised that to play well, the whole instrument must vibrate.

I wondered, how well do we allow our own bodies to resonate?

How often do we check in, listen, and respond to our body’s needs?

In my years of working with people experiencing back pain, I have witnessed how often we treat our bodies more like machines than the living, breathing, adaptable structures they are.

We look for the thing that is “wrong” and try to force change. We stretch harder, strengthen more, hold ourselves differently and sometimes push our bodies further away from ease in the process.

But perhaps the body, like the double bass, responds best when we create the right conditions.

 

Listening to your body

After more than 40 years working with people and their bodies, I have come to appreciate that the relationship we have with our body matters.

Many people only begin paying attention when something goes wrong. Pain appears, movement becomes restricted, or the body no longer behaves in the way we expect — and suddenly the body becomes a problem to solve.

But what if we approached our bodies differently?

What if, instead of asking:

“What is wrong with me?”

we began asking:

“What is my body trying to tell me?”

The body is constantly adapting and responding to the way we live. The way we move, breathe, rest and recover all influence how we feel within ourselves.

Just like Orin O’Brien’s double bass, our bodies respond to the conditions we create around them.

Creating the conditions for change

The Buttafly Technique grew from this understanding.

Over many years of observing the body, I noticed what happened when people were given the right support and the opportunity to deeply rest. Rather than forcing change, we created the conditions for the body to respond naturally.

The precise positioning of the Buttafly beneath the sacrum, combined with relaxation and conscious breathing, provides support for the relationship between the pelvis and spine.

It is not about correcting the body.

It is about listening to it.

It is about creating a moment where the body can soften, release unnecessary effort and rediscover a sense of ease.

Caring for the instrument we live in

A musician does not wait until their instrument is damaged before caring for it. The relationship is ongoing.

Perhaps our relationship with our bodies could be the same. After all, our bodies are the instruments through which we experience our entire lives.

Rather than asking, “How can I fix my body?”

Perhaps the more important question is:

“How can I become a better partner to the body I live in?”