Tendonitis as a teaching tool

[starlady]

I had a bad attack of tendonitis in both wrists, worse on the right, starting about a month ago.  I've returned to the piano and can just about play scales and arpeggios, very carefully.  And my teacher, who in the last 3 years said  4 vaguely positive things about my playing,   , is now showering praise on my technique! Finally, he says, your hands look like a pianists!    

In other words, a month of pain taught me more than 3 years of yelling and screaming about how to relax the wrist and round the thumbs.  So tendontitis is actually a teacher of the ' do it wrong and it will HURT' school.  I don't like it but it's been effective.  I just hope my teacher doesn't get carried away by the idea and rig up more teaching tools involving electric shocks or something.

with vague annoyance at life, --s.

[keypeg]

...  And my teacher, who in the last 3 years said  4 vaguely positive things about my playing,   , is now showering praise on my technique! Finally, he says, your hands look like a pianists!    

In other words, a month of pain taught me more than 3 years of yelling and screaming about how to relax the wrist and round the thumbs. 

Um, shouldn't your teacher have played a role in those 4 years in preventing that tendonitis?  Did your playing technique improve in terms of the tendonitis by rounding the thumbs and relaxing the wrists?  Or some other way?

[starlady]

My teacher tried hard all that time to get me to relax the hands and wrists but none of his advice and suggestions got through.  My habits were very strong and very bad--I had been doing things wrong for a long time.  But with tendonitis the 'habitual' hurts like fire, and there are no excuses or half-measures; either I change or I don't play anymore.  Which is why I give credit to the pain, it succeeded in teaching me something that was hard to learn.   Which 'smiley face'  best expresses Irony?

--s.

[cometear]

Taubman Approach.