When I take a new student, especially an adult, but also a young student who has been learning the violin in school, I start them out with Six Steps to Perfect Posture. This exercise is guaranteed to make a new student look at me askance, but if he's willing to practice this, I know that he'll succeed in my studio. A very young student probably won't need this, especially if it's the very first lesson. In that case, a simple "zip, step, sniff, bouncy knees" will suffice. Kids are so loose and flexible before they get older and filled with angst. :-)

The purpose of the Six Steps is to use your breath to put your body in a comfortable position. Some steps will feel very uncomfortable when you are just starting.

The "Hairball" exercise is a good one to pair with the Six Steps to Perfect Posture warmup. I often need to do it in the summer, when the humidity is making me feel crappy. If you're finding it difficult to inflate your chest enough in the Six Steps, or if you're tired, try this exercise. Both the Six Steps and the Hairball help you to hyperoxygenate a bit, which will wake you up. The Hairball will trick your body into taking a deeper breath into your chest.

Tonight a student said to me, "I was so mad at my husband, I couldn't even play the violin! But your peeing exercise finally worked it out." I'd sort of forgotten about it, since I hadn't done it in a while.

This exercise was inspired by the amazing Argentine tango dancer Luciana Valle, who vastly improved my tango technique by saying "pee, pee, pee..." as we all danced. :-)

What this does is relax your lower back, putting your spine into better alignment. A lot of dancers learn to "tuck" their butts. That's not the motion I want, because the act of tucking doesn't invite relaxation. This exercise is great to do when you feel physically tense or emotionally stressed-out, which basically amounts to the same thing most of the time.

During the past 2 weeks I've been talking to a lot of my students about counterbalancing. When you're holding the violin, you have a violin and an arm sticking out in front of you, so in order to be in balance, you have to sit back a bit and feel like you have weight in back of you to counterbalance the violin and arm sticking out in front.

If you're playing the violin, you can still play fairly well if you don't do this. If you're playing the viola, though, you absolutely have to counterbalance. It's the difference between a violist who looks like she's playing an instrument that's too big for her and a violist who looks like her viola is dancing with her body. Give it a try:

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.

Using your breath is, I think, the fastest and most effective way to start aligning your body and developing body awareness. See the "breathing" archive for ideas. Some students who are really twisted up need the 6 Steps to Perfect Posture. Some don't. After the body is mostly aligned, though, everyone can warm up quickly just by gently reminding the body what to do. Here's the abbreviated warmup that I do with my students now that their bodies are alive and aligned:

1. sniff quickly and deeply into your chest, sending your chest up in the air (same as step 1 in 6 step warmup).
2. let your breath huff out.
3. Hairball (step 3) to force all of your air out.
4. open your mouth and let the air rush into your body without you making an effort; the vacuum just fills you up with air.
5. easy breath out.
6. get "thinner": suck your stomach back towards your spine. Your chest should not rise.
7. get "taller": breathe in as you suck your stomach up towards your chest, letting your torso stretch upward as you breathe in.
8. holding your breath, shrug your shoulders up and set your heels down into the floor, stretching your middle from both ends. Arch back a bit to stretch your stomach even more.
9. bend at the hips, continuing to set your heels down, stretching your back. Feel your head and neck getting longer, your head stretching taller away from your body.
10. let your breath out as your let your shoulders fall back down.
11. "hairball": expel all of your breath.
12. vacuum your breath back in by opening your mouth.
13. exhale, tossing your violin into position.

This whole operation usually takes a minute or less.