Relax Darnit!

I'm struggling now with intonation.  During my lesson last Monday my instructor watched me from several angles while I played through some of the exercises in my Grant book and he diagnosed my problem as not relaxing.  He told me how to relax and I tried to emulate him.  Then he had me play through some more exercises and proceeded to shout "Relax!" when I wasn't relaxing.  He said by not relaxing I'm trying to play with my finger tips and not my whole body.

When I played trumpet back in college I took lessons from Leon Marion.  He wrote a book called Trumpet Isometrics and made me buy it from him before I could take lessons, but that's beside the point.  Basically the premise was that playing the trumpet wasn't just about the embrasure but your whole body.  He made a point about using muscles from your core and even legs while playing.  

Just like my cello instructor was saying you play with your whole body and the fingertips are almost an afterthought.  For me my problem of tensing caused my hand to do most of the work.  This developed a terrible cramp in my left hand after just 15 minutes of playing along with really bad intonation.  My instructor made the point of using gravity and the weight of your arm to pull down the fingers.  Also, using the whole arm to rotate my wrist to do a lot of the work for the fingers.  What troubles me is that I didn't use to do this and I don't understand why I developed this bad habit of tensing.  He also prescribed a glass of wine or beer prior to practice--who am I to argue with a Peabody alum.

I think if I can conquer this problem and get my intonation better I will enjoy playing and want to practice more often.  Sometimes now I struggle through and get discouraged.  If I'm not having fun with it then I'm not going to want to do it.  I just paid off my beginner cello.  Originally was on the 2 year lease to own plan but paid it off a year early.  Hopefully that wasn't a mistake and I can get back to enjoying this new hobby again.