When done correctly, does wrist-forearm USX feel mostly like a wrist or forearm motion, or does feel like a rough 50/50 of each?
Also, on another note, when I watch @Troy do this motion, I notice that the escape motion is quite ‘steep’ (if thats the right word) and not shallow. Is this what correct USX technique looks like, or can it be shallower/flatter providing that the motion still clears the string?
Thanks again for all the help - I really really appreciate it 
There are probably a lot of correct answers to your question. I bet you could get 5 different answers from 5 different players who have a wrist/forearm blend For me it feels like mostly forearm. I think the litmus test is, can it go fast and does it clear the strings on the upstroke?
I’m confident that how steep the escape angle is does not matter (much), so long as there IS an escape happening. So if you’ve got an escape, I wouldn’t worry that it doesn’t look like what Troy does. If you suspect there IS NOT an escape then the motion itself is probably wrong.
Try some drastically different things and see what gives you the best results. Try an EVH style tremolo. Try imitating a gypsy player’s form. Try Doug Aldrich’s form.
Completely agree, when I discovered my motion I was trying to do the purely rotational EVH-style forearm motion. I don’t feel the wrist motion at all
This!
This was my breakthrough moment with the technique, my arm position was more floating back then which made the activation of the forearm really obvious because of the very visual shakiness of the motion. Very helpful to me back then, might be worth experimenting with 
Less obvious shakiness now, took ages to slowly adapt to this position:
Great! Thanks for the input and videos, its really helpful to know that there are a variety of ‘correct’ ways of doing this
Not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this to you but your fretting hand looks so good in these clips too. It’s so light and effortless looking.
It’s basically the only “fast” motion I do. I can’t really describe how it feels other than “easy”. I don’t feel how much forearm is involved or how much wrist is involved.
I’m aware my forearm is moving, as is my wrist, but I don’t think you can describe a universal feeling for this
Also, when taking advantage of the downstroke sweep, that tends to feel a lot more wrist based, depending on how much sweeping is happening.
This depends entirely on the joint motion being used. Mike Stern’s wrist motion generates about a 15 degree escape trajectory. Gypsy technique generates 25-35 degree escape. Marty Friedman’s motion, whatever it is, goes even steeper.
Not criticizing, just pointing out a bit of subtlety which probably most people don’t think about. Tommo and I have discussed this, and I may have mentioned this somewhere in the Primer forearm lessons. But in general, I think that more vertical escape makes string changes more accurate, for two reason:
One, for the same reason that NBA players shoot foul shots on an arc — because it’s easier to hit the target coming straight down at it. It’s a much bigger target that way. This is especially true for bigger distances, and especially true for inside picking.
Two, because the sum of the picking motion and tracking motion vectors isn’t as great in the horizontal direction. In plain English, with a more vertical motion you’re not slamming into the target string as much as a flat motion (wrist technique) would.
In a flat escape, your tracking and picking motions are both going mostly horizontal, so they sum to even greater velocity toward the target string and you really kill that string, especially when you try to hit it from far away— as for inside picking over big distances. By comparision in a hypothetical “steepest escape” picking motion, you would be picking perpendicular to the string plane, 90 degrees, and your tracking motion is going parallel. So when you do them at the same time, the picking motion contributes nothing to the horizontal velocity of the tracking motion (math/physics types please check my reasoning on this!), so the approach to the string can be slower and/or less forceful, which is better for accuracy.
Ergo I think this is why Gypsy players have a relatively easy time covering big distances and don’t care too much or even notice whether something is inside vs outside picking. Single escape in general doesn’t really care much about this distinction, but vertical single escape cares the least.
That all sounds reasonable, I’ll draw up some vector diagrams and work through the logic of it.
I think deflection on collision is probably a factor here aswell.
It’s fine to criticize me You’re right, I never thought about it like this. Out of the various players you’ve covered, what would you say are examples of steep vs shallow escapes? You mentioned gypsy players. Am I wrong in saying your ‘primary’ motion (as if you only have one lol) i.e. forearm rotation-wrist blend is pretty steep? You seem to get lots of ‘air’ on your upstrokes.
Would you agree the amazing Bill Hall gets pretty shallow escape on his fast DSX stuff? This almost looks like trapped playing to me (though I think he does clear the strings on downstrokes, mostly)
Then there’s Yngwie. I thought, for some reason, that his escape was pretty shallow. But that could be that it just looks that way because his motions are pretty small.
I did mention this in the forearm section, but it’s been a while. There’ s a little segment on it here. This would do better as it’s own lesson, not buried in the intro lesson:
Joscho has different joint motions he makes, and they’re not all the same escape, but I’ve measured at least one of his in Final Cut around 25-35%. In general, foream pulls up out of the strings.
There’s no reason the wrist can’t move that way but it’s probably grip / pickslant that is the limiting factor. If you’re using wrist motion, and you’re moving so the escape almost vertical, like a table tap, how would you get the pick to be slanted enough to match that? Probably not with an index grip, which is why wrist players tend make flatter escapes.
However a trailing edge player could get more vertical with only wrist motion because the pick can just be rotated in your grip to match almost any escape. The Primer examples where I do the 250bpm DSX motion are a good example of this — they’re pretty vertical, and I have to hold the pick to match that.
Bill is an elbow player and the elbow simply cannot pull away from the guitar along a vertical pathway. So even without Magnet footage we can guess his escape will be mostly flat and for sure that’s what it looks like.
I just want to make sure I understand. Are you saying that in general, we should try to make as vertical an escape as possible (within the comfortable range of motion of whatever our joint motion is) because that aids in string changes? Or are you saying that it’s more specific to USX forearm/wrist blend players? OR is this one of those things we don’t really need to try “doing” and it’s something that just takes care of itself when we’ve got the motion going correctly?
When I’m wrong (which, let’s face it, happens pretty often lol) I’d like to know where I missed the mark. I’m sure I said the escape angle didn’t matter probably because I’ve seen footage of great DSX players where the escape was pretty shallow. It sounds just like me to think that would apply across the board.
I’m not saying we should do / not do a specific thing, I’m just commenting on how I think these different techniques work. In general, think you see Gypsy players doing lots of 2nps lines covering large distances because the technique is particularly well suited to it, so that type of playing becomes idiomatic for the style.
By comparison, wrist-only players might tend to do less of this kind of thing, and your really flat escapers, like elbow players, might do the least. That’s my observation, and I think it hold up, more or less.
Again, relevant to the discussion in the other thread of how mechanics influences creativity and improvisation. Even if these effects aren’t always perceived by the players, we can observe the creative output and draw some conclusions — or correlations, at least.
Edit: Sorry I didn’t directly answer this. I don’t think we should try to do this. In fact, for some techniques, like elbow motion, there is no way to “add more escape”. The elbow just works the way it works. For most techniques I would guess there’s is just a particular way that it works, and that’s the technique. Otherwise, it would be a different technique.
So I think we should just do the techniques the way we see them being done, on average, by players who are good at them.
Excellent. Thanks for all the responses!
Is there a DSX equivalent for this? My RDT DSX has a steep slant on the low E string, but gets more shallow on the higher strings. Just curious.
You’re probably changing your form on the lower strings. Lots of people roll the forearm over on to the body, making the escape angle look more steep on the low E string than it is on the other strings. This isn’t “wrong”, per se, if it works for the line you are playing. But it can be confusing.
Remember, the wrist can do any escape trajectory it wants. For example, you can tap on the string if you want, effectively creating a 90-degree escape path. The problem is the pick attack — you would need to orient the pick somehow to actually get through the string.
That’s how this picking motion works:
By using trailing edge, you can rotate the pick in your grip to align with any escape path. The additional benefit of this form is that the combination of the arm position you’re using, plus the motion you’re making, means that the motion is almost exactly lined up with the reverse dart axis. So it’s very fast and comfortable.
I’m not saying you want to play this way all the time, but if you’re curious about how to get different escape paths it’s worth experimenting. The takeaway is that with wrist motion you can make any escape path you want, you just have to figure out a grip that allows the pick to hit the string smoothly, roughly perpendicular to its direction of travel.