I just got a book called "Schradieck School of Violin" and the very first exercise I realized how bad my bowing really is and I thought it was going to be easy (I'll do my best to explain the exercise.) The exercise was to play on open A string in first position and to play B, C#, D, E and come back down to open A at a comfortable speed using a full bow, you could try it all slur, some notes slur or do it separate still using a full bow which I find really hard to keep my bow straight doing it separate. It was all over the place and difficult from keeping from going near the fingerboard. My bowing has gotten a bit better since I've practice it but still can't keep it straight. But I thought I share that information because (besides you really professionls violinist) this book, that excercise alone is really useful and forces you to break bad habits. Hope this made sense!

I've never heard of that book, but this is the kind of exercises my teacher quite often has me doing. It helped me a lot when I was practising that to have someone hold my elbow in place so that I wouldn't start pushing it back (and making my bow go everywhere).

Right now my teacher has me trying to do semi-quavers without moving my arm.. she's trying to make me use just my fingers - now that is hard!

Yeah that does sound pretty difficult but that is one way to tell that you have a really good teacher. Right now I'm working on my bowing and 7TH position....and it is really hard to make that sound good. The thing that puzzeled me is I've been playing violin for quite awhile now and never realized how bad my bowing is. I can't blame my teacher for not telling me to fix it...I think its been a little over half a year since I had lessons. *Sigh* it's where I live there is no music life and each time someone tries to start a string orchestra in school the band teacher finds a way to shut it down so he doesn't lose students and money for his band. And they've attempted to stop teachers from teaching music all together but I'm getting off topic here......

That's annoying - I don't think I could ever learn alone to be honest.

7th position doesn't sound easy at all; I've only done basic work into 2nd and 3rd at the moment, and that's hard enough!