Why do the vast majority of musicians who suffer from Focal Dystonia keep their condition secret? Sometimes they do so out of fear of losing their job, sometimes because of a lack of empathy from their colleagues, who label them as hysterical or lacking good technique, and other times, simply out of shame at showing weakness.

I think we should all write our own story, because the mere act of writing it down is absolutely liberating.

This is my story:

It all started in 1990, when I was in my final year of guitar studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid.

I clearly remember that while I was practicing Waltz No. 4, OP 8 by Agustín Barrios Mangoré, full of arpeggios and fast-paced scales, for a recital I was scheduled to give that summer, I began to notice that I was making unusual mistakes with my right index finger.

The finger would fall slightly above the string I was supposed to pluck. Within a few days, no matter how much attention I paid to my finger, the mistake became more and more pronounced, to the point that instead of reaching the intended string, the finger would curl up to the string just above it. By then, I had no idea what was happening to me. I began to feel desperate, and suddenly all my fears and ghosts flooded my head.

After a week, once my index finger was playing, it no longer returned with the same speed as the other fingers, and other involuntary movements soon began to appear.

At the same time that my index finger curled inward into my palm, my middle finger stretched out, becoming completely rigid. Within a few days, my right hand shape had become completely distorted.

A silent intruder had taken up residence in my body and was ruling my hand against my will.

Panic gripped me, and my mind became completely clouded.

It took me a while to realize that the stretching of my middle finger was the result of an involuntary compensation in an effort to control the return of my index finger, but by then there was nothing I could do to be able to play a simple arpeggio or scale.

All the dreams I had harbored, as well as the enormous work I had done over the years, had been shattered in just one month.

I literally felt like a curse had fallen on my head.

After a long journey of over a year, visiting doctors, specialists, acupuncturists, and all kinds of alternative therapies, I finally managed to find a name for what I was suffering from. It was, nothing more and nothing less, than an incurable disease called Focal Dystonia.

For eight years, I believed what I’d been told, until I decided, with great determination and patience, to begin the road to recovery. It was an extremely slow and conscious process of movement re-education. In just under six years, my index finger was functioning perfectly again, but soon after, symptoms appeared in my ring finger. Then I realized that in my recovery process I had left something important behind: the origin of the problem.

Although this second time I had the advantage of my previous experience, it was then that I began in-depth research and experimentation to dissolve the patterns that trigger symptoms and lurk in the emotional realm.

Therefore, this time I approached my recovery from two different and complementary perspectives. On the one hand, re-education through Proprioception and Conscious Movement, and on the other, “Emotional Detox”, based on creating a deep state of presence and conscious observation.

Little by little, the symptoms began to fade. What had once been difficult became easier, and so, gradually, the movements regained their naturalness and fluidity.

Today I want to share my personal experience with those who may be suffering from symptoms of musician’s focal dystonia and encourage them not to give up and to put all their awareness at the service of their recovery.

With the proper guidance, recovering from the MFD is possible.

If I have succeeded, you can also do.