How it started
She came to me via my good friend Hsuan-Wen, who was a patient of Shashika's mom. She's like neurologist or something. They began lessons in April 2006 after having done her NYSSMA. I noticed that her left hand looks crippled and tight, and I immediately began to focus on that.
Problems
Her left hand is very strange. I don't think she has been playing that long (maybe a year), but she has become so accustomed to her "old" position, it's hard to open up her hand. When she plays, she scrunches up her fingers tightly, which makes it hard for her to play each note/finger in tune. For example when playing a scale, when she puts down the index finger, each following finger is pulled back so close in relation to the first finger. This is all due to the fact that she "chokes" or "squeezes" her hand around the neck of the violin. Her thumb is so high and tilted back because of her bent inward wrist (a common problemof poorly set-up students). There is no "tunnel" and her fingers placed on the strings are at a dangerous back-leaning angle. She can hear out-of-tune pitches, but she does this weird sliding finger thing, which is a sign of high tension in the hand, preventing the fingers from being placed in one place. This is her OLD way.
Resolution
Ever since that first lesson, I've been telling her to put her hand in a new NATURAL position and practice scales, tiptoe-ing each finger insteading of sliding. I also suggested "thumping" fingers down without the aid of her thumb. She also bought a KUN shoulder rest which will help her hold the violin up without her left arm. This is just a bunch of experiments from my point of view and any suggestions are welcome.