Hey all, I am struggling to understand and apply USX and DSX.
I’m thinking it might help if I had a few decent exercises I could learn that might help me wrap head (and my hands) around it 
Do any of you have any specific exercises you like to work on for applying those techniques? Would you be able to share?
Thanks in advance!
You’re not really applying the techniques, per se. The techniques are inherent in your joint motion. Whichever picking motion you know, it’s going to be one or the other, not both.
I notice you have posted some clips of your playing. I wasn’t able to view those on my phone, something about iCloud. I didn’t recognize that link type.
The best approach is to upload to YouTube, and just make them unlisted. Then just paste the link here in the forum, leaving a blank space before and after the YouTube link. If you can do that, we’ll take a look, and we’ll tell you what kind of motion you’re using. Then you use just play the phrases which match with that type of escape motion.
Thanks so much Troy…I won’t hold it against you that you are an Android guy 
I’ll upload my vids to YouTube now and would love to see what you think about how I can fix things up a bit.
I’ve been a passive member for awhile now, but just in the last couple of weeks or so I have been committing a lot of time your lessons and really trying to get the most out of it. So your feedback is hugely appreciated.
Stay tuned for my uploads!
Here are two videos of my playing some basic chromatic runs…here I am mainly focused on trying to keep my pinky from being an anchor, but I’d also appreciate to hear your thoughts on other aspects of my technique here.
Regular speed:
Slow motion:
We use iPhones in all our stuff, but I was getting weird prompts like it wanted to copy these videos to my account or something, and I don’t really use iCloud — at least not that I’m aware of. So I just canceled out when I saw that. YouTube is a much better option.
Thanks for posting these, they look great. Your slower speed technique looks like double escape motion, and your faster speed looks more like USX. You can see in the second clip, around 57 seconds or so, how the pick hits the higher string when you start to go fast. That’s not a mistake, that’s a rest stroke. You see this in Gypsy playing and Eric Johnson’s technique. That means the downstroke is lower, in between the strings, and trapped. That’s why it’s hitting. The upstroke is either not going far enough to contact the lower string, or it’s actually going over the top, which means it’s escaped, i.e. USX.
Olli Soikkeli is a double escape player we have filmed where when he speeds up, the double escape motion isn’t really visible because the motion is smaller. However he is still able to escape as needed in both directions, to get over the string, by doing the escape at the moment of the string change. Here’s an example of that, which you can watch in slow motion to see what it looks like:
I tend to think of this as “mixed escape”, because we don’t really have a name for it. I think it’s basically what happens to double escape players as they get very fast, into shred speeds, where the motion is still basically the same, just trimmed to only the portion of the motion that matters — either the downstroke escape portion, the upstroke escape portion, or the center portion. Maybe we’ll come up with a name for that down the line.
Anyway, in your case, what I would do is basically try some test phrases to see what happens to the motion and if there is any issue with changing strings. The chromatic example you are using here, which is four notes per string, is a good test:
Can you do that with your fastest motion and still make the string changes cleanly? That will tell you if upstroke string changes are working. Then another test would be this kind of scale pattern, which is a very simple test to make sure downstroke string changes are working:
If both of these tests are working then I might not worry too much about your motion because it’s probably working. I would go the rest of the way by feel. But take those tests and see how you make out.
Wow, thank you so much…you’ve given me a lot to chew on.
I look forward to posting my progress here in the forum and always welcome feedback from you and everyone else here
Thanks again!
One thing I’m instantly noticing to be one of the biggest challenges with these exercises is starting with the upstroke.
I am somewhat able to do these exercises at an OK speed once I actually wrap my head around starting with the upstroke…but starting with the upstroke feels super awkward, haha.
On the occasion when I get it right I am instantly feeling the benefits of the USX and DSX actions that are occurring…but, as I said, starting is the tough part.
I assume that just gets easier with lots of repetition…I assume it becomes more of an instinctual thing at some point?
I’ve always started all of my picking motions with the downstroke and with some elements of economy picking for nearly 30 years, so this is much more challenging that I would have ever thought.
Regarding starting on a upstroke: I’m all for experimenting and trying new things, but in my opinion I think it’s ok to develop your own personal “rules” as you figure out what works and doesn’t work for you and your stylistic preferences. Like you, I start pretty much everything with a downstroke, but unlike you I strict alternate pick. There’s like 2 riffs I can think of where I start on an upstroke, and they’re both Gilbert legato things (I also rarely do legato).
I guess what I’m trying to say if it’s not something you’re dying to do and you can live just fine without it, there’s no need to force it into your playing.
That’s reassuring to hear…as I do believe it is something I could probably manage without.
On the other hand I do I like the idea of being able to be somewhat ambidextrous with my pickstrokes, so I may keep at it for a bit longer just to see if it adds any other valuable weapons to my arsenal
There’s also a trick where you could add 1 or 3 notes at the beginning of the lick, and start those on a down - making sure that you arrive at the note of interest with an “up”.
E.g. instead of playing say 5-7-8 on the low E, starting with Up, you could play
8-5-7-8 starting with down, or 5-7-8-5-7-8 starting on a Down.
Hope I’m making some sort of sense 
That makes a lot of sense actually…I’ll try that now!