Struggling with 2 way pickslanting for years now

[AGTG]

One thing I will say: I think Down Up Rotate applies more to natural upward escape/DWPS players as they’d naturally start picking a string with upward escape pickstrokes, only to change after the fact. I think if you’re natrually a downward escape/UWPS player, you’re used to starting with the escape type you already need. Therefore, I think if you’re an upward escaper, you do the rotation towards the end of the 3 note cluster, but if you’re a downward escaper you’re used to being prepared early, so you actually do most of the rotation on the first stroke of a new string (e.g. if going from 3 notes on the high E, when you next hit the B, you do Rotate(up)-Down-Up.

I think analyzing the actual movements is helpful in the respect that you recognize there are specialized movements involved. That being said, since everyone is different ergonomically, it may benefit you more to simply forget trying to emulate a certain pattern. Just get your hand moving fast, and organically gravitate towards the movement that suits your ergonomics to achieve it.

When you do that, you may be surprised how subtle the actual twps is, and that your desire to emulate a pattern was not profitable at all. TWPS, can be a very shallow and subtle movement when going at high speeds.

[ConcreteLlama]

I think analyzing the actual movements is helpful in the respect that you recognize there are specialized movements involved. That being said, since everyone is different ergonomically, it may benefit you more to simply forget trying to emulate a certain pattern. Just get your hand moving fast, and organically gravitate towards the movement that suits your ergonomics to achieve it.

When you do that, you may be surprised how subtle the actual twps is, and that your desire to emulate a pattern was not profitable at all. TWPS, can be a very shallow and subtle movement when going at high speeds.

Yeah I totally agree - that was kinda a post analysis of something after experimentation yielded something that to me felt smooth and comfortable.

[ConcreteLlama]

Hey, I realise I’m bumping up quite an old thread now but I thought I’d share some progress I’ve made since making the initial post - around a month ago, I fixed what I was struggling with and thought I’d hold off posting anything about it until I’d given it time to settle in (as I often feel like I’ve had a eureka moment only to find it’s not repeatable). I’m not suddenly super amazing at it or anything, however I now feel comfortable with these motions to the point where I feel if I keep practising it in exactly the same way, it will only improve. Basically the technique is there now, it’s down, it’s just a matter of increasing speed through repetition.

So here’s what actually, finally sorted it. I noticed that there were some new videos on the pickslanting primer - just by chance, it happened to be while all of the videos were getting a bit of an update. I watched the “Introduction to Picking Motion” Talking the Code one, and at around 30:35, @Troy talks about the range of motion for wrist deviation, and how it’s more natural to pick from a netural position to ulnar deviation, rather than going up too far to radial deviation. I realised that since trying to do DWPS years ago (having previously been an exclusively UWPS player), I actually subconsciously started doing radial deviation beyond the neutral point when trying to get the pick to escape. It wasn’t to the extent that it was obvious to me however - I could still move within the range, but something always felt off. I just thought that was how DWPS worked and I had to work with it.

Anyway, since watching the video I started thinking about my movements very carefully and basically saying to myself “Do NOT go higher up than this point” - and for everything I played, very consciously putting a block on any form of radial deviation from the neutral position. So downstrokes are down, and upstrokes are more of a “return to neutral” rather than an upstroke. This way of thinking immediately had a positive effect on my picking, and has continued to help me significantly. It also totally explains why I struggled so much to descend with an upstroke!

It’s funny because I was always aware that radial deviation was uncomfortable but somehow as it was fairly subtle never really noticed that I was doing it. Completely eliminating any radial deviation above the neutral point pretty much sorted out my picking, and I would urge anyone else struggling with their picking technique to take a look at whether they’re doing this - even a small amount can mess you up. All you have to to is put your hand in the neutral position, think of downstrokes as a downward movement, and upstrokes as a return to the neutral position rather than a full on up stroke.

[Troy]

Hi! Glad to hear you’re making progress here. We spend quite a bit of time on this point, i.e. the “ulnarized” range of motion, in the new chapters. You shouldn’t have to go fishing around in the intro to picking motion talk to find it. In fact, that video is now removed from the Pickslanting Primer, replaced by the new wrist stuff and a couple excerpts from the longer talk for forearm and elbow.

Did you watch the new chapters, and did you feel like the point was clear enough? Because if not we can be more clear about it. Just want to make sure the most salient points are as easy to find as possible.

[ConcreteLlama]

Oh amazing I didn’t realise there were even more updates! I think I checked out the downloads section as you were in the middle of updating them as I noticed new ones appearing (I think the last I saw uploaded were the pick grip ones). After watching the talking the code, and fixing my issue I didn’t think to return to the downloads section as I didn’t realise the extent of the updates - looking forward to checking those out later!

[ConcreteLlama]

@Troy So I just watched the Wrist Mechanics video and the Wrist Motions ones and they are excellent - I think make the concept of ulnarised picking motion incredibly clear to the point where I can’t really imagine anyone having many questions after it. I find it funny that I picked up on that part of your Talking the Code video and ran with it only to discover a month later that it’s an integral part of the newer videos that I’d just missed. Another thing I happened to start doing around that time which really helped me was to start accepting (and indeed embracing) the fact that actually a lot of the downstroke is almost as much a motion towards the bridge (which is something you explicitly mention in the Downstroke Escape video) - it’s a more natural path for your wrist to take and gets you to work with the way your body naturally moves rather than fighting it.

As an aside, I enjoyed your tshirt selection in those videos.

[Troy]

the fact that actually a lot of the downstroke is almost as much a motion towards the bridge

I know I say that in the lessons, but that’s not really totally accurate. The Downstroke is a motion that moves to the right of whichever way your arm is pointing. If your approach angle to the strings is vertical, then the downstroke will appear to move toward the bridge. And it would be hard to get any grip on the string at all with that much edge picking. If your approach angle is more like 45 degrees, then the downstroke moves diagonally down, toward the bridge but also toward the floor. And of course this is all semicircular motion, not really a straight line, though we can imagine it that way in the interest of simplicity.

I know you know this, I’m just stating this for anyone else reading. “Toward the bridge” is not magic. It’s “to the right of your arm position”. And this means, if you want your pickstrokes to move in a different direction, then you change your arm position.