Focal Dystonia in my life

I won the Hungarian Classical Guitar Competition in 1991 at the age of 17. I was a great virtuoso. I started the Music Academy (Franz Liszt) in Budapest in 1992 then I had to stop my classical guitar carrier in 1994 because of focal dystonia. I was studying at Jozsef Eotvos at that time. Then I changed school and teacher. My friend and mentor called Ede Roth helped me a lot. The Most. I had to relearn to play the guitar. It took me more then ten years. I could not move my forefinger at all but only on the guitar during playing. I could use it on piano or typewriting. I was so depressed for years and felt that I am good for nothing since I was handicaped person.

Focal dystonia of the hands: this amounts to a disorder of muscle tone. From one day to the next, a musician’s fingers are incapable of coordinated movement, and the simplest movements become impossible. Male pianists and guitar players are at the highest risk, largely because of the enormous expectations that accompany the concert repertoire.

Many successful career musicians have had their lives ruined by dystonia. The first musician definitely known to have suffered from dystonia is Robert Schumann. He died in a mental institution after – as legend has it – using a knife to sever the tendons between the fingers of his right hand.

At that time, the disease as such was unknown. Today, an international research and treatment institute in Spain is dedicated to focal dystonia.

Alcoholism, depression, self-destruction, self-mutilation. Desperate loneliness and a longing for death. The struggle between the will to live and the will to die. This is the road traveled by artists suffering from dystonia.

In the last years from 2003 my right became better and better but I had to restart my life as well but I had no energy for that. Then I met my wife in January 2007. We get married 30th June 2007. Then we decided to make a documentary about my story as well as about focal dystonia helping lots of other musicians. My wife, Eszter Hajdu she is a film director. I would like to help people surviving focal dystonia since I know how to relearn to play an instrument. Simple but if you are in it you are incapable to do it alone.

Abstract of the documentary
By chronicling the experiences of the main character, this film introduces us to focal dystonia, a disease affecting thousands of musicians. The main character is a classical guitarist, who 15 years ago was stricken by focal dystonia, causing the partial paralysis of his fingers and ruining his professional and private life. Total despair, self-destruction, longing for death, and, finally, starting over: this is the road traveled by our main character, who made a careful record of every phase of the disease, in a disturbing and excruciatingly honest style. Through these written records, and through the intimate disclosures by the main character and other artists currently suffering from dystonia, the film introduces us to a disease that affects thousands of musicians - yet no one dares talk about it. This is a film about taboo sufferings in the world of classical music, about a disease that caused Schumann to end up in a mental hospital, where he slashed his own fingers. It is a shockingly personal drama of the life of a classical guitar artist who lived through the experience of seeming to lose the very thing that makes life worth living.