Hello CTC forum! I’ve been playing guitar for almost 20 years now and only after diving into the CTC YT Channel did I decide to finally take my picking seriously. I decided to join the site and have watched all the Primer videos, done the tests and am now in the middle of Antigravity. Over the past year, I became a FW player to unlock my DWPS/USX potential. I was able to unlock some great things but after joining the site I wanted to slowly transition to a more neutral PS to be able to be a DBX player with RDT motion.
I want to transition to a more RDT style motion but think that I still find myself with FW motion or wrist supination. While I am able to play some things with my current motion, I feel like it is limiting me still. When playing normally I catch myself sometimes doing both on some phrases but I do want to unify everything so my body mechanics don’t get confused between both.
I’ve attached 4 separate licks in one video, each played 3 times to highlight 4 separate issues. In all of these, I tried to consciously use RDT according to the picking mechanics videos of the form setup, pisiform bone, let hand drop, touch thumb and index and that’s the general form. In practice since a lot of phrases I am at with my current level are USX DWPS EJ, Yngwie or Mateus licks, my body keeps reverting back to wrist motion. Its actually helpful that I have this little ghost tattoo because it shows me the “jiggle spot” very clearly for the telltale sign of forearm rotation instead of RDT.
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZwGb159F4nI
Lick 1 - The Volcano lick
I followed the form using the pisiform as the anchor point instead of putting my fingers on the body. Over time as I drill this one, I feel my pinky and ring finger become really tense and flexed to the point of hurting. I then find myself needing to consciously relax my overall grip before it starts getting tense again. Towards the end of the phrase on the turnaround of the DGBe strings, I also find that its significantly sloppy.
Lick 2 - Gilbert Descending Sixes DWPS
My main issues here are 3, the garage spikes at the start of the phrase (since its a DWPS but starts on an upstroke), the flowiness of the lick (the notes dont feel like theyre connected they feel like fast staccato notes) and the habit where most licks I feel need to get “ramped up” before they reach maximum speed. Regarding the garage spikes, I think its still born from the fact that I grip the pick too hard when I should be able to let it flow. I was subbed before to Bernths Patreon and he suggested gripping the pick with as little tension needed. I find myself though eventually having the pick move around in my finger tips laterally altering overall grip causing me to overcompensate and cause unneeded tension. Any thoughts on how to alleviate these 2 issues?
Lick 3 - Mateus Asato Last Man in the World Penta Asc
I think this is a good lick to test things. I really do have issues with the ascending 2NPS part of this lick and others like it. Ive tried chunking, and forcing the speed and cleaning it up but the feeling of getting it at the speed of fast slightly uncomfortable but doable is really difficult. Basically it feels like theres a point i can either do it slow or not do it at all fast.
Lick 4 - Circular EJ 5s Asc and Desc
This one i wanted to keep cycling until my form changed and tension crept in.
Overall i think my form and grip need serious work and I wanted to give a bigger sample range to get a better idea of my overall mechanics. Thank you all for making it this far! Excited for any good suggestions from all the forum members 