Am i doing this right?

Technique Critique
#1

Hi - I’m a newbie, just diving in to the world of wrist mechanics. Here’s a couple of videos:

upstroke escape, trigger grip side view slow motion:

and normal speed:

a few things:

-traditionally, i’m a shameless string-hopper - trying to break that habit. i tend to be pretty stiff-wristed.
-i can’t do this any faster without my muscles tensing up and veering in to string-hopping territory. this is all still pretty new to me; i’ve been playing a long time, and i play a lot, literally every day - so the grooves are worn in pretty deep. is this normal? or is the fact that i can’t go any faster an indication that something isn’t lined up quite right?
-i watched the explanation for downstroke escape, but for the life of me i don’t understand how to do the pronation version of that technique (ie, the version where you don’t change your forearm alignment). help?

in terms of goals, i’d like to loosen my wrist, i’d like more of my playing to come from my wrist in general. i play a lot of rhythm guitar too - that’s been an area of special interest lately. (in fact, is there any content on the site that addresses funk rhythm playing? there should be!)

thanks for your time!

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#2

Hi! Thanks for posting. This doesn’t look stringhoppy to me, so it’s a good first stab. However, in general, when you’re trying to learn a new motion, and you experience what you’re describing here, where you can only make very deliberate slow motions like this, and you experience tension trying to go faster, then that is very clear feedback: it’s not right.

The number one thing you can do right now is find something you can do fast, right away. What you don’t want to do is put time into a motion that’s not working. Instead, your goal is to do a motion — any motion — that you can do quickly and at least somewhat smoothly. It may not be the one you want to use long-term, that doesn’t matter. You gotta start somewhere.

First thing I’d like to see is what this motion looks like when you do it as fast as you can. If it’s 150-160bpm or faster, than it may not be as wrong as you think. If you can’t go that fast, then we need to find one you can do fast. What’s the absolute fastest motion you can do? Have you tried all the ones we outline in the primer?

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#3

oh. that actually makes tons of sense. behold:

normal:

slow:

sometimes it feels like i have to drop in to this via a stiff-wristed elbow motion - in other words, I get going with my elbow (which is a motion I’m much more accustomed to) and then, while that’s going, I’m able to activate my wrist. Once it’s going, it feels pretty good, although I do experience some tension in my forearm. I can’t quite make the jump to the six-note chunking pattern - I guess that just requires more practice?

thanks so much for replying!

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#4

Hi Troy,
in principle your right of course, but I can somehow relate to what alecberlin is talking about because I had a similar problem when I recently tried to get into USX with a supinated position, coming from a pronated setup originally. While I was able to do the motion slow and deliberate I always switched to a double escaped motion when transferring into higher speeds because I went from closed loop to open loop. So the motion he is targetting does not necessarily be inept for faster speeds, he just might not be able to do it on autopilot yet.

@alecberlin
As Troy said, i you can find a motion that goes faster right away -> use that one. I would try forearm rotation with more supination, that’s what kept me from double escaping while going faster. In my experience, when you have a motion you can take up to 160+ you can try and slowly transform to other motions if the first one causes problems in other aspects.

Thomas

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