Hi and welcome to the forums  

I'm also fairly new here, though I'm completely new to the violin. 

People here seem to be really nice and friendly, also the forum contains lots of information.. I joined almost a week ago and I'm still digging through all the topics just to get the general idea of the layout and stuff  

Regarding vibrato.. I don't know, the basic concept behind it doesn't seem so complicated.. and even though it's kinda my 6th day of playing violin, I'm actually practicing the vibrato movements and exercises to try and develop it properly in parallel while learning the violin so that when I'm ready to use it I'll only have to struggle with and focus on putting the two together.. 

Based on what I read pretty much everywhere... this probably scares a lot of violinists and teachers alike a newbie swinging a hatchet at vibrato... haha, but I try to focus on learning it the correct way so I really hope it's not going to do more harm then good.. I find that it helps with bowing.. since trying to keep a steady bow while attempting vibrato motions with the other hand really challenges the motor / coordination skills so when I'm just playing simple notes my bowing seems to require less attention afterwards.. 

There are lots and lots of resources online and we're lucky to have the internet. For example what I did was pretty much watched every noteworthy video about vibrato on youtube and despite of how they might explain it differently, I tried to actually pay attention to what they're doing.. which muscles move.. which ones don't.. Also, given that everyone does a slightly different variation of vibrato what I did was look at all the common elements across all of those videos and tried to make my own educated guess about what I should be doing and how can I apply that to my big clunky hands On their own none of the videos give you an actual clear picture, even though they explain it pretty well, but combined you can actually get a sense of how you're supposed to move your muscles and try to visualize that in your head.. then it's only a matter of learning these new motions... 

I hope this somewhat helps, though be advised.. take everything I say with a grain of salt, since like I said.. I have only been playing the violin for 6 days so I'm nowhere near qualified to give anyone any sort of violin-related advice :))) In fact you should probably be the one teaching me based on your history  

Cheers and once again: welcome to the forums!  

Just gonna chip in with my thoughts a bit. I'm probably the one on the forums with the least amount of time spent with a violin :)) I received my cheap Stagg VSO on the 27th of September

So I don't know much about learning the violin except for what I experienced since..

However I do know a lot about learning things in general and developing different kinds of fine motor-skills etc.. since I did a lot of sports which required the learning of new movements and making them 'automatic'.. I learned how to operate heavy-machinery, which again requires fine automatic movements.. I do some gaming from now and then (some of those are actually quite hard and challenging), not to mention that I started learning the piano in January and have been playing guitar for the past 6 years. 

All of these pretty much have one thing in common. They require you to embed the information required for those fine movements deep within your brain / sub-conscience so that when the time comes, you don't have to think about them, they become automatic and you only think about which rock you want to move with an excavator or which note you want to play on a violin, etc. - the rest is pretty much automatically performed by your hands  

The 'focusing on one thing at a time' approach is fine, but imo it's mainly aimed towards kids who have no intention of learning instruments and would prefer to do something else all-together.. so their mind is racing and you somehow manage to give them one additional task which would be bowing or something. It has been used for decades and usually it works since most successful instrument players are the ones who started at a young age. 

When it comes to adults however.. it is your own decision to be there and use the time you have to learn violin.. and that's it.. you even go as far as to try to empty your mind before practice so there's not much else going on. Our brain works in a very funny way though. It usually also 'stores' the things that we can't pay attention to, much like a computer stores memory data that isn't actively being 'processed' in a page-file, but most of the time when it comes to movement.. this type of 'storage' is much more efficient and fast. That is why for example people who have learned how to text while driving are actually way better drivers when they put that phone away.. since they learned to drive while having a distraction present and once you take away that distraction the skill level skyrockets. 

Now let's translate that into violin terms  

The way I do it for example is that I try to focus on something else or something less specific.. I want to play 'something'.. be it a song.. a scale.. whatever. I'm not focusing on bowing open strings to learn how to bow properly.. I'm trying to focus on the sound for example and if my bowing is off, that will be heard in the sound, which will then force me to come up with an automatic 'fix' without thinking about it too much. Or if you want to focus on bowing alone, then find ways to overload your mind by breaking down that bowing into multiple parts and try to do those at the same time. For example work on finger flexibility by standing infront of a mirror and only look at the mirror to see how your bowing looks, never look at the strings, but still try to hit them separately (or together in case of a chord), then reverse it.. try to play a song as accurately as you can while trying to look for those fancy bow-changes with flexible fingers from now and then while looking at the mirror

So the key is shifting focus from the thing you want to learn the most then back again instead of just mindlessly hacking at it for 2 hours. If you manage to implement this successfully your progress will speed up. Also keep general learning tips in mind like playing before going to bed (which will make your mind process the information in a much more relaxed state storing it more efficiently) and just keeping your violin around all day if you can.. You can learn even when not playing.. simply not stashing away your violin and keeping it in sight can help, since looking at it can trigger all the stuff you learned before and reinforce it in your mind even if you're just busy doing the dishes It 'reminds' you of important information. 

Lastly, don't be afraid to try new stuff.. Ever since getting my violin I've been reading about people being afraid of vibrato for example, like it's some big scary monster that you're not allowed to go near until you've played for at least a year or two.. Why? Nothing is preventing you from trying and experimenting with it, who knows? maybe you'll get it the first time As long as it doesn't hurt your progress (meaning that you spend more time with it than you should instead of doing more useful stuff) nobody is stopping you from trying and the fact that your teacher doesn't want to teach you that yet since it's an advanced technique doesn't mean you can't try it at home in your own time. Or cases where you are afraid to move on to fingerings because you want to perfect open strings first. Remember, you can always go back, but sometimes taking a peek forward isn't such a bad thing. As far as learning bad habits to a point where it takes more time to fix it, that doesn't happen overnight.. it would take years of playing badly to reinforce it at such a degree and even then it's easier to correct than with a beginner, it simply seems longer, because it doesn't feel like you're learning something new and it's more boring  

Anyway.. this is just my opinion and my way of learning things, the only reason I dumped it all here is in case someone finds some useful ideas among them that actually helps. I am not trying to convince anyone to change their ways or to even try new stuff Everyone should learn and play the way they want to, perhaps the only golden rule is to enjoy it as much as possible since music is supposed to be about that!

Cheers!