This week, in order to help me maintain my sanity (well, starting on Wednesday, after a horrendously negative attitude at the start of the week) I decided to focus on one technical problem that many of my class students share.
Pancake wrist.
I don’t even know how that expression got started. What does a collapsed left hand wrist have to do with a pancake?
I guess it’s because pancakes are floppy? One of my students also invented “waffle wrist” in which your wrist bumps in and out of pancake wrist. You know, because waffles are bumpy.
For those who aren’t violin teachers: you are probably asking yourself, what IS pancake wrist?
Well, it’s NOT this:
though that woman DOES have a pancake wrist cushion.
That is an example of “pancake wrist”.
It should look more like this:
In any case, we had a great time laughing about delicious breakfast food! Perhaps next week I shall choose another technical issue to address in a funny breakfast manner. Thoughts?
Ha! I see the ‘pancake’ wrist ALL the time. I’ll have to borrow that term, though! Sometimes, when my students get lazy with their bow arm and the produced tone is bland and careless, I liken it to sounding like oatmeal or ‘soggy’ cereal, and sometimes that seems to get their attention and they fix that sound right away.