In the “ship” exercise (see the next page), draw the child’s attention to the “belly” that appears in the middle of the string. The bigger the belly the more beautiful and louder the sound. The child must look at the string, and only change bow strokes when there is a “belly” (without interrupting the vibration).
The child practises upbows and downbows, without any particular rhythm (qua, qua, qua, qua…)
This exercise is done near the bridge, using the wrist, a lot of pressure and very little bow.
This is rather like the “woodpecker”, but it is done with the wrist moving up and down. The bow and the arm lift as if in flight. This is one of the first exercises and helps to relax the grip and show how the forearm must open out. It gets children out of the habit of drawing the bow towards the body.