Nate asks how to cure a jiggly bow in the upper half. Every time I see a jiggly bow, I also see a tight right shoulder. I want the right shoulder totally relaxed. Usually you see the jiggle happen during a down bow, but the cure is to start by relaxing the up bow.

On the up bow, the elbow (dangling) will dip in towards your waist at the beginning of the stroke. You will feel like your arm is traveling underhand, like throwing a ball underhand.

Here's the quickest way I've found to achieve this:

1. "deflate" yourself (hairball)
2. now that you've created a vacuum, open your mouth and let the air rush into you, inflating your whole chest. It should feel effortless. From now on, you never have to breathe in again! Just deflate yourself and create a vacuum, and the inhalation will happen easily.
3. now imagine that your knees are in charge of opening your mouth to let the air in: exhale and straighten your knees, then unlock your knees just the tiniest bit and use that to "pop" the air into yourself.
4. loosen your arms and let them swing back when you exhale, and then let them follow the knee movement as air rushes into you. They will swing slightly forward.

Here is your new way to do up bows:

1. set the bow at the tip.


2. let your arm weight settle into the bow.


3. pop your knees and let the right hand/arm follow the knees' movement, pushing the bow up. You should strive for the feeling that the knees are doing all of the work and the arm is just going along for the ride.

Your shoulder should feel totally relaxed if you are bowing like this. If you leave your arm weight in the bow and leave the shoulder that relaxed, you will be able to play a full down bow without jiggling in the upper half.

This post makes me think about arm weight, another potentially tricky thing to master! More on that later.