Ryū Sensei: SmART Health

Greetings everyone! On and off over the years, I've been pretty active as far as exercise whether it be through taking walks, doing martial arts, or even dancing. Admittingly, like alot of people over the Covid-19 Pandemic, I haven't exercised as much, and one day, I decided to get Ring Fit for the Nintendo Switch. After even just a little bit of reworking my daily routine, I started feeling so much better again and today I want to talk about things to consider as for all the artists out there that sit for long grueling hours and how to take care of your body.

Afterall how can you make art if you're in pain and the body is out of wack? Would be pretty hard to concentrate I imagine.

Posture

The first simple step when it comes to considering our health as artists is our sitting postures. I know it can be tempting to want to noodle out or become a hunchback, but if you're finding it difficult to work for long periods of time, comfort is huge. The first thing to consider is the posture of our back when we sit. This can also even affect the height of our arm and even the tablet itself can be a factor. In the first image below, I'm showing an example of "bad posture" when drawing. You'll very quickly exhaust your back muscles if hunched over too long. Some people tend to do this if they are having trouble seeing what's on the screen. If that is ever an issue, you can change the monitor's resolution so the text is bigger on the screen you're looking at.

The next image is an example of good posture when illustrating. you may also notice in both examples I have my tablet propped up. I do this for several reasons. One being that when a tablet is propped up, it encourages better posture positions vs if the tablet was completely flat on the table. (mostly referring to screen tablets here). The tablet also is fairly close to where I can easily access the drawing pad and I also have a fairly large drawing tablet. The large scale goes back to if it's "easy to see" and also gives more room to draw. when you have a smaller drawing area, it discourages arm range of movement, where a larger drawing pad encourages the whole arm's range when drawing (which makes it easier to draw long strokes and curves).

The Wrist + Arms- Carpal Tunnel

It's important to stretch out the wrist every now and again. If the wrist is telling you to stop, you better stop. Some people are more prone to developing things like carpel tunnel syndrome, cramping, arthritis, than others. I've had wrist cramps and shoulder cramps as a result of poor practice, and I'm happy to say that with proper stretching I haven't had any issues for a while now. My most recent pain being my shoulder pain, which I'll be talking more about how I overcame that in the next session.

So some great ways to prevent various hand pains are to stretch out the hand muscles. using Kneaded erasers, stress balls, and putty are great ways to stretch out the fingers, palm, and wrist.

Take a brief hand break every 30-40 minutes of drawing. Doesn't need to be anything too intense. What's nice is this can also be a great moment to also stand up and stretch for a few minutes. Stretching the hand is important as it loosens up the nerves and tendons in the wrist.

You can even do some basic stretches against the fingers and pushing up against the wrist. Hold Your arm straight out and push against the fingers at a 90 degree angles and push for about 20 seconds. Then, relax. Do this about 3-5 times for each hand and it will really help relieve pressure on the wrist.

I suppose if you got really invested in wrist care, you may even go as far as becoming the Next Hokage with all those fancy Hand poses you've been practicing. 🦊

Tablet Curve Settings

Another thing that really affect "wrist care" is the tablet's curve settings. Some people draw softer or harder than others. When working digitally, luckily you don't need to worry so much about pushing harder like you do with some traditional mediums. If you are one to work with mediums like colored pencils where applying pressure is crucial, it's important to consider taking more frequent hand breaks between coloring sessions. (closer to every 20-30 minutes, give a hand break)

On the computer though, You can go inside the Tablet's setting sand adjust the curves so you don't need to push hard. In fact, it's more recommended to not draw super hard as you're more likely to scratch the tablet faster.

When you make the tablet "softer" to make the strokes, you don't need to grip as hard on the pen (thus putting less pressure on the tendon)

Here's a look at Huion's Pressure Sensitivity chapter

Chair Height

I mentioned also how "chair height" can be a factor when drawing. When sitting at the computer, make sure your arm is not elevated but rather at an equal height to your resting position. Trust me, there was a short period I had my mouse very slightly higher than my arm's natural resting position, and that caused great shoulder blade pain after doing that a while.

Lifting the Weight off Your Shoulders

So My Shoulder specifically on my left side had been aching for over 10 years up until very recently. I'm left handed and thus there's already going to be more precise movement on my left side. I used to also wear handbags and even book bags hanging off the left shoulder. (mostly to look cool - such is the goofy decision making of teenage me at the time ) After doing that for over a decade, it finally caught up to me. My shoulder would ache all the time and I just accepted it for a while. Occasionally, it would flare up and hurt and I'd have to soak my shoulder in warm water to make it feel better. One day, I finally decided to go to a chiropractor and ask questions. This is where I learned so much about taking care of my poor shoulder. I got a funny back hook device that I use to quite literally "tenderize" the back muscles and I even took into consideration my digital work set up and chair height to ease the burden on my shoulder. (This quite literally lifted the weight off my shoulders)

The chiropractor even described the muscles like tenderizing meat for a meal. In order to loosen up back muscles you need to stretch them and apply pressure to them. I was shocked at what a few simple stretches and a "back pressure" device could do. It's been a little over half a year now since my back pain went away, and I've been keeping up the recommended stretches and sitting postures. It's been such a miracle having a back that doesn't keel out from over worked muscles.

I also do is stretches called Scapular CARS (Controlled Articular Rotation) which is the practice of rotating a part of the body. Scapular CARS are specifically the rotation of the shoulders forward and backwards. This helps loosen up tight muscles in the shoulder and shoulder blade and increases body mobility.

One other good stretch is to lightly pull your neck to the shoulder for about 15 seconds and repeat on the other side. this can help prevent neck strain!

Acupressure

Acupressure is important to maintain circulation in the feet. When sitting for long periods of time, the feet are not being worked, so one tactic I use while sitting is rolling my feet up against an acupressure board. This board imitates the deep foot massages using the piercing motions of the thumbs, and is a form of ancient Chinese and Egyptian medical practices. when the foot is massaged, it not only alleviates the immediate foot muscles, but works the veins and pressure points to supply more blood flow all across the body.

Fitness

Ring Fit was the perfect way for an artist who sits all day to stay active and healthy.

I look to have some sort of motivation when I exercise, and generally I prefer farly low key methods of exercise. What was great about Ring Fit, is it gamified the exercising experience, and turned exercising into an RPG game (which was perfect for Ryan and I!)

Yoga & Stretching

Stretching and Yoga do incredible wonders for relaxing muscles and keeping limber as one gets older. Many people have a lot to do in a day, and finding even just a simple 20-30 minutes a day to exercise and stretch is huge. Honestly, I even just like stretching throughout the day.

Physical Activities

Whether you do martial arts, sports, gymnastics, Biking, dance, walking or anything related, this becomes beneficial further for general body health and circulation.

I used to also do Karate, and often I'll even bring various exercises and Katas (single person sparring matches) into my routine. It's great for focusing and keeping the body moving.

One would normally not associate outdoors or physical exercise with art. funny enough, it's quite important especially if the art requires extended periods of sitting down. hen sitting down for extended periods, it can really put a damper on your body's circulation. the opposite is even true when standing too much, and thus balance is important.

See You Soon!

Thank you everyone for reading this blog. Once again, look forward to upcoming art ideas and topics. Make sure to subscribe to stay up to date! You can also take a look at my social media updates on Instagram!