Here is a fun tool I made that strengthens all the fingers to help stop collapsing knuckles. It’s easy to make your own.
Collapsing knuckle joints like the one pictured above are a common sight when people start to learn the piano, because they haven’t yet built up the strength in their finger joints. Especially those with hyper-mobility.
It’s best to address this early on, and I recently watched a great video showing a simple peg squeezing exercise for violinists with hyper-mobility, and thought ‘Great, just the job…
……but this peg is clearly crying out for a crocodile make-over!’
A few bits of foam, my trusty glue-gun and a googly eye. and hey presto, meet Peggie the Crocodile. A cute little finger warm-up tool.
You can use it as a quick finger exercise with a few squeezes (make sure the end joint stays curved) or put this cute little critter to work with a game of pick up sticks
Get or make some finger number cards and just use cards with finger numbers 2 through to 5 as the thumb will be squeezing from below. I used these Tippy Tap cards designed by Nicola Cantan at www.vibrantmusicteachers.com.
Use the correct fingers on top (thumb beneath) to squeeze the jaws open and pick up and place in a jar as many lollipop sticks as you can in 1 minute.
Pick up red sticks with right hand and blue sticks with left hand.
It’s also a fun way to reinforce finger numbers!
Wow! This is so creative! Could you share how to cut the crocodile?
I just drew it by hand on a sheet of foam! Feel free to copy my basic shape though.