As mentioned before in the Stretch Exercises section, here it is the Vomit, also named in Gary Karr Method Books as Bow Stretching. The exercise it is mostly about the bow, teaching us how to use as much as possible, the gravity force. It is also a great warm-up, developing endurance skills to play the double bass, and this is the reason why it should be followed by the Stretch Exercises explained before, as they work together.
Below it is the exercise notated:
It should be played in a very slow bow style, the tempo is about 60 for each eight notes;
For left hand, the shifts are without releasing the string, using the gravity force, and no strength to press the string;
The challenge it is shifting from the high note to the low note at the bow speed of the low note, according to Gary Karr's golden rule "During every shift the bow moves at the speed of the lowest note";
Before leaving the top note apply the brakes (stretching from the back) to immediately slow the bow to a crawl;
All without vibrato;
The fingerings are divided in four groups for easy memorizing, each group for each left hand finger, in combination with the next fingers, excluding the thumb. Each two numbers like the starting “1-1” it is to play one time the whole exercise notated. The complete Vomit repeats 16 times, and takes approximately 30 minutes:
1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4
2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4
3-1, 3-2, 3-3, 3-4
4-1, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4