Discussions

Ok, being a relativly new/beginner violin player, I need to see if anyone has any experience with using different violin bows and how it affected their playing. I realize that choosing a bow is just like choosing a violin, and that it's pretty much going to be a personal preference with what feels better, sounds better, etc (to a certain degree, of course). But here's my problem....  
 
I've been using a certain bow for about a year, (octogonal shaft) and it never did feel right. It seemed like I couldn't ever get a good bow hold on the stick, and my thumb would always want to collapse flat because I would tend to grip the bow too tight, which didn't do any wonders for wrist bending in playing, or the bow would tend to want to "lilt" to one side too much and I couldn't keep the bow hair very flat on the strings. Which made me grip the bow even harder....etc.. (I kept using this bow because it did cost a bit more that usual (although not like a CodaBow or anything like that), and I figured I "had" to use this bow after dishing out cash for it).  
 
Finally, I got frustrated, because I thought I was doing something wrong but everything I tried never seemed to "fix" the problem. I then thought that maybe a 'different" bow would be a good thing to try, so I went out and just bought an inexpensive $30 dollar bow with a round stick just to try to see if that was going to make any different (because a year of playing like this pretty much gave me some really bad habits that I now have to work on to correct).  
 
Well, I have to say after a night of playing I'm starting to think that maybe it was my old bow, because now my hand isn't so stressed and my grip seems more natural, somehow.  
 
Has anyone other violin players out there had any experience in their bow being "wrong", or just having a bad bow (maybe my "old" bow wasn't balanced correctly or something and it just took me so long to realize it)?  
 
I'm just curious to see if this is something that someone else locally came across in their violin playing at all - or maybe just experience on how they "chose" their bow. It would be good knowledge for the next bow purchase, that's for sure.