Sorry for the confusion!
If you look at the form Iâm using in the Antigravity seminar you will notice it is the broadly same as in the RDT lessons. In other words, Iâm using Reverse Dart Thrower motions in Antigravity. We just didnât know what RDT motions were back then, why they work, and why so many people use them.
So the first and most important step is to consider the overall form youâre using and make sure itâs efficient and comfortable. If youâre a reverse dart player, then make sure youâre doing that form correctly using the tips in the RDT lessons.
The second step is to decide what types of lines you are trying to play. If itâs phrases that mix upstroke and downstroke string changes, the RDT form gives that to you. You shouldnât have to worry too much about which specific escape motions your hands are making as you try to play these phrases. Great players tend to mix and match these motions subconsciously, so we see all kinds of interesting combinations when we film them. All of them are broadly correct in that players use them and they appear to work.
You also shouldnât have to be too concerned about whether or not there is any forearm motion, i.e. âtwo-way pickslantingâ, as you attempt these phrases. Since the RDT form gives you access to both types of string changes, you may simply find that less of this is necessary and so you see less of it. But I wouldnât try to eliminate it so much as simply to focus on doing the form correctly and playing the lines you want with the greatest possible comfort.
Yes, we have seen instances of âunintentional two-way pickslantingâ where the player is changing their arm orientation, and subsequently changing their motions in ways that arenât helpful. This can cause pickstrokes to get displaced to different strings, notes to go missing, and so on. If thatâs happening, then you may want to take a look at it. But again, I would approach this by considering the overall form first since that will probably address most of this before it becomes a problem.
Let me know if that helps!
The âlarge / unnecessaryâ motions thing happens when players try to learn the techniques and perform them in an exaggerated way. I donât think itâs that the techniques themselves always lead to exaggerated playing, since very good players do actually make these motions and they arenât always exaggerated or problematic.
Out in the wild, many wrist players, even the most âwristyâ of them, exhibit some amount of forearm involvement or other small changes in their overall form on certain phrases, of precisely the type that we demonstrate in the Antigravity seminar. So this information isnât so much outdated as it is part of a bigger picture which is clearer to us now.
You can file all the reverse dart players broadly in one family if you like. And then at the smaller-picture level, you can notice that some of them use slightly different combinations of motions, sometimes little bits of forearm here and there, and so on. Questions of why they do this, and whether these differences matter, I think will remain âsmaller pictureâ questions that may have some impact on how we teach things in the future, but probably wonât change the big-picture teaching too much.
The big-picture teaching is getting the form, making sure the range of motion is good, making sure the motion is comfortable, etc. This places you broadly in the ballpark of what all these players are doing. Once you have that, the little things hopefully start to fall into place with less thinking.
