Martha: Neglection of therapy after broken hand shows up few years later in the young pianist

Marta Podlesnik at seven years old is always the youngest person in the Body Tuning studio. "The other people stare at me," she says, her eyes lighting up to shown that she enjoys the attention. In many ways Marta is a typical seven year old, except that she has learned at an unusually early age how physical injury can get in the way of doing what you want to do.

Marta has been playing the piano since she was three. She says her favorite composers are back and Bartok. Her grandmother is a music teacher wand the whole family has followed her musical development with great enthusiasm. But Marta's progress was seriously hindered when she suddenly began to experience sharp pains between her third an fourth fingers.

She was practicing a Back prelude which involves a lot of stretching between the third sand fourth fingers, her mother explains. The pain, she adds, was probably a result of too much practicing. Marta stopped playing for a while to give her hand a rest, but the minute she started up again, the pain always came back. Her mother took her to two orthopedists who both prescribed more rest. But no matter how much time she took away from the piano, her hand always hurt when she returned.

Finally, the director of Mannes School for Music where Marta studies recommended consulting with Shmuel Tatz. Marta's first visit to Carnegie Hall was to his Body Tuning studio. "The moment Shmuel started working on her I really had the impression eh knew what he was doing," says Marta's mother. Shmuel massaged her hands as well as her shoulders and neck and gave her special exercises to do at home. After four sessions of Body Tuning Marta is back to practicing about one and a half hours a day.

"Her music teacher thinks he's a magician because her hand was really recovered," Marta's mother says. At first Marta was nervous about Body Tuning. She was afraid the massage would hurt. But by the third meeting she says she wasn't afraid anymore.

Her mother says Body Tuning has made her realize how tense Marta was. "It's incredible that she should have this problem and be so stiff when she's just a child. The exercise has clearly been good for Marta, but it's exactly what the orthopedists said would not help," she adds.

Shmuel says he has seen similar problems in other musicians, but never in someone so young. He believes the pain Marta experienced is linked to having broken her hand when she was two and a half years old. People often feel the pain of accidents they had as children much later in life. "We know all about the side effects of medicines," he says, "but understand less well the effects of physical injury. It is very important in body tuning therapy to fine tune the body and regain use of the joints and muscles once a cast come off."

Marta enjoys her Body Tuning sessions. "Mr. Tatz makes me laugh. He teases me and tells me and tells me he's going to arrange a concert for me in Carnegie Hall." She says she'd like to play there, but she's not certain she will be a concert pianist. Right now she has a very busy life with school, music lessons and doing things she likes to do, "like watching baseball on TV," she says.