Eureka #1

HA - take that bow!!!

Finally a breakthrough!!  And I almost didn't practice today because I was in such a terrible mood, I even snapped at my poor husband who was waking up from a nap when I got home! ...like shooting a bear waking up from hibernation - completely dazed and confused!

I was so flippin busy at work (although it didn't seem like any one else was busy...), and I was tired and cranky and ready to go home, when I heard my co-worker practicing for his cello lesson. He was playing Bach!! (and gosh darn it, I was still stuck on Twinkle!!). I have to admit I was kind of jealous, but I reigned it in and figured that my teacher knew what he was doing, and there was a reason I was still working on my bowing... *sigh*

So driving home, I tried to convince myself that working on technique was FUN! Unfortunately, that didn't work, so I arrived at home feeling more frustrated, but as I practiced I kept thinking, "what is it that he's seeing, that I'm not?"  I stopped periodically at different places to see how my bow was aligned and didn't see anything wrong. Finally, near the end of my practice session, I was playing one of the faster Essential Elements songs and glanced up and noticed that every time I changed direction at the frog, from up bow to down bow, the tip of my bow would  point up!

Even though I heard Adam say it a hundred times, to make sure my bow points downward, I finally noticed it! I'm not sure if I want to rejoice or throw my hands up in frustration...I'll take it as a victory for now because I'm not sure if what I've done to "fix" the problem is correct. It feels correct to me and its much easier to bow, so hopefully during my next lesson my teacher approves!

Its kind of funny, when I practice Lindy Hop (swing dancing), the best test to see if a dancer has good technique is to dance to really slow or very fast tempo songs. During really slow songs, dancers with incorrect technique will lose their rhythm and pulse; and during fast tempo songs, dancers won't be able to Swingout (an 8 count basic move) because they aren't relaxed enough! I can already tell this is going to apply to my cello practice - practice slowly to make sure basics are correct and if I want to double check to see if it is - bow faster and see where it falls apart!  

Random thought: I wonder if blogging also helps with learning and picking up technique faster.  If sleeping and dreaming helps to consolidate and organize the days events, maybe putting thoughts down onto paper (or blogs) helps organize incoherent ideas, thoughts and information, which helps the brain process, sort, filter and make sense of information faster so the body is more aware of the technique that is being learned. I wonder if there's a study out there that shows the difference between a non-blogging person versus a blogging person's learning in an activity. Although its probably a correlational study only. I should probably Google that and find out!