Explanation of the different bow hold traditions.

Let’s look closer at the position of the thumb and middle finger. The most popular bow hold traditions are placing the thumb against the middle finger, or against the middle and ring fingers. My personal preference is toward the first one - against the middle finger. For two reasons! One, sometimes in our desire to bring the thumb under the middle and ring fingers, we add extra tension in the hand, because the thumb has to reach little more to get there. In order to keep the hand relaxed, you want to keep, as much as possible, the natural distance between the fingers so they are nice and relaxed. The second reason is that if the ring finger is more independent, it can be helping the little finger with the very important task of controlling the weight of the bow. You see, if we only use the little finger to press on the short end of the bow and to lift the weight of the bow, this can be too much work for the weaker and generally clumsier little finger. But if we add a little help from the ring finger, then the job becomes much easier and the result is better control of the bow and more relaxed little finger and bow hold in general. The next exercises are for the wrist, so if you need to practice the fingers position, go back and play the video again. If not, just continue. Happy practicing!