Infinite Loops

First, my husband is recovering quickly from surgery. He is able to walk without using a cane for miles without pain in his hip. He said that he had actually forgotten what a 'normal' stride felt like. He still can't bend past 90 degrees, so if he can't pick it up with his grabber device, it stays on the floor until I can get it. So he's in his own loop, learning to walk again.

My infinite loop is going back to the beginning days of playing cello. My teacher told me in one of my lessons that he could still see a scoop in my bowing when I changed directions. So I went back and isolated the problem. It was that I couldn't stop my bow on an upbow. I noticed that I couldn't stop the bow movement at the frog without the bow wiggling around a little. Now doesn't that sound basic? Starting and stopping the bow?

So, I started the very tedious process of fixing the problem. For a while every time my bow went near the frog, I stopped the bow. If it wobbled, I played whatever it was I was playing again and stopped it. I even did Emily's scale challenge stopping the bow at the frog every single dang time the bow went near the frog. And guess what, it got better (not quickly, though!). I can now hear the string still ringing when I stop the bow. I still stop and have a 'do-over' if the bow wobbles at the change of direction. One of these days I'll get past lesson 1!

Also, my teacher had me go back and play grade 1, then grade 2, and now grade 3 repetoire again. This time he demanded that I control the tone, the volume, my bowing, and to play even the 'easy' stuff musically. It's quite hard to do, but my husband has noticed a change in my playing...guess returning to the beginning is useful in its own way...