Isolating hand from arm

Playing Technique
#1

I’m having this recurring problem at the moment where I’m trying to just use wrist motion, but the arm keeps moving with my hand, causing this rigid movement that I dislike. I know some players have had success with moving the whole arm, and I’ve experimented thoroughly with it, but it’s just not working for me.

Anyone else have this problem? How do you fix it? For some strange reason, this problem often disappears when I play my acoustic, so it seems to be somewhat to do with arm anchoring, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is. This problem is most drastic on my strat

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#2

It’s hard to explain this in text. What helped me to get rid of the tension in my forearm is to curl your RH fingers a bit inward and try to play a bit more from the wrist by imagining the “shaking water from your hand/extinguishing a match” movement. By keeping your arm/hand as relaxed as possible, movement will automatically come more from the wrist.

I’m sorry, but this is really hard to explain this way. Best thing is to consult with a teacher who plays from the wrist.

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#3

To force a change in technique, I had some success with changing the mental image of what i am doing.

I find for example that i use a better wrist rotation when i imagine that the pick only touches the bottom side of the string. For some reason this doesnt result in an extreme pickslant but in a more relaxed wrist (and a cleaner dps).