After developing a recurring overuse injury from playing violin in her late teenage years, Skye discovered the ELDOA method through classes at her former university. The method was so effective at both healing and preventing injury that she was inspired to become a certified ELDOA I trainer herself.

ELDOA, a French acronym for Étirements Longitudinaux avec Decoaptation Osteo-Articulaire, is an osteopathic method designed to create more space in the joints of the body through harnessing the power of the muscles’ fascia. Through targeted positions, these briefly intensive exercises offer a systemic change in the body’s posture, neural connectivity and ease of movement.

For musicians specifically, ELDOA can help reduce recovery time after intensive playing sessions with limited breaks, such as an opera or demanding orchestral performance. It can also cut warm-up time in half while preventing injury, and create the physicality needed for better postural alignment while playing an instrument.

Most importantly, ELDOA offers a way for a high-level music professional to play sustainably, using the notion that “musicians are athletes” to condition muscles, strengthen neural responses, and unlock unhindered movement capability in the body’s origins of motion: the joints.

More information on the ELDOA method is available here. A summarized overview of one of Skye’s joint ELDOA-Mindfulness workshops can be seen here.

To book an ELDOA session with Skye, please get in touch via the Contact page.

Inspired by her personal journey in mindfulness as well as years of practical physical awareness research, Skye also offers coaching sessions in mindful awareness in performance for musicians.

These tailor-made sessions are informed by her ELDOA study, research into Jon Kabat-Zinn’s MBSR method, music pedagogy studies, and her own mindfulness practice, and are meant to provide practical solutions to each client.

In a world driven by distraction, mental and physical awareness play a big role in Skye’s artistic and therapeutic approach. To her, this is as much a scientific pursuit as it is a stereotypically spiritual one. Mindfulness to her is first and foremost a way to increase biochemical proprioception in the body; that is to say, the brain’s awareness of the body’s movements in the space around it.

This is not just necessary to prevent injury, but also to be physically capable on a somatic and neurological level of moving one’s body with ease and playing an instrument at the high-quality technical level the music requires.

Skye has led lectures and workshops on preventative physical and mindful mental practices in music for ensembles and conservatory classes.

To book a mindfulness lecture, preventative practice workshop or individual coaching with Skye, please get in touch via the Contact page.