Bow Hand Flexibility Exercises

Having a soft, flexible bow hand is important not only to create a beautiful tone, but also to perform more advanced bow strokes such as spiccato and sautille. In this article,you will learn 3 exercises to help loosen up your bow hand. These exercises are in order from least challenging to most challenging.

If you enjoy these exercises and are interested in learning more like them, check out The Complete Bow Technique Manual.

Exercise One: The Paintbrush

Place the bow on the left shoulder, supporting the bow with the left hand underneath the frog. Make the shape of your bow hold with your right hand with the thumb on the inside of the stick and gently glide the hand up and down the bow. Be as soft and loose as possible and allow the fingers to flow freely.

Exercise Two: In and Outs

Place the bow in the right hand with the tip of the bow pointing up towards the ceiling. Extend the fingers outward so that they are almost straight, and then curl them back in toward the palm so that they are extremely curved. Do not move the wrist. If the pinky falls off the bow during this exercise, that’s a sign to work on developing pinky strength.

Exercise Three: Colle

Place the bow on the string at the very frog. Using only the fingers, execute a down bow by straightening out the fingers and allowing the bow to come off the string at the end of the stroke. Place the bow back on the string and perform an up bow by curling the fingers back in. Again, allow the bow to come off the string at the end of the stroke. Only the fingers should be moving.

Check out the video below for a demonstration of each exercise.