Made it to 80...

Yesterday I continued the same approach to practicing the difficult passage--I played the piece through 3 times, then played the passage separately several times.  After a few times I checked the metronome, and the setting was a bit slow.  So I raised it a notch and was able to play at that speed.  I thought I had set it at 72 and thus raised it to 76, but when I looked it was at 80.  So I was able to play the passage multiple times at 80.  And it didn't take as many tries to get to 80 as it had taken to get to 76 a few days earlier.  Today I played the piece 3 times, then played it with the piano accompaniment.  I noticed that I'm sometimes playing faster than 80, so I focused on being more even.  I stumbled a bit on the first time I played the passage; the second time was better.  I played the piece 3 times with the accompaniment; the third time my fingers started to fall apart.  And I can feel slight arthritic pain in my left middle finger; those right hand fingers felt stiffer and more tired today overall.  So I stopped playing with the accompaniment and went back to practicing just that passage several times.  Then I played with the accompaniment one last time--I made it through fairly well, although I could feel my fingers struggling to move.  Especially around the D (D-E-Fsharp-D).  I really have no idea how it will go at tomorrow's lesson.  I'll play the passage a few times in advance and hope that my fingers will relearn/remember the pattern.  But they also have to be able to move.  Maybe the colder weather is affecting the arthritis.  Or maybe it's starting to get worse.  I'll start googling to see if people have tips for people who have arthritis and play instruments.

When I would think about the things I wanted to do once I stopped working full time, I always imagined myself the way I was a few years ago--no muscle tears that don't fully heal, no stenosis,  no near-osteoperosis, no arthritis, few gray hairs.   It just didn't occur to me that I would actually get older--I thought it would just be a chronological age change.  Now I feel like I'm exercising in an almost desperate attempt to fight back time, as opposed to exercising to stay healthy and limber. And I'm less sure of myself--am I stretching or overstretching?  am I helping my neck and spine or making it worse? am I strengthening bones or pulling muscles?