Heya!
So, I’m in this annual phase where I drive myself crazy with practicing and picking instead of actually working on music.
I try to focus on my wrist technique and synchronization, especially since the latter has always been my pet peeve.
If I look back a couple of years I have probably improved overall but now that I’m focusing again a bit on getting accuracy under speed I notice a couple of things. One of my main issues is that I tense up when trying to maintain a higher tempo for a longer time. Repeated bursts with a quick break in between are no issues but maintaining for example 12bpm 16th triplets for longer phrases is an issue.
I quickly recorded two videos demonstrating it, both going from 96bpm to 120bpm (16th triplets).
Besides me feeling the tension (in the upper arm but also the shoulder) I think you can also see it, at least I think so (and I feel like it’s starting from the upper arm, biceps, etc):
Also it looks like the elbow wants to engage a bit?
Generally this issue is better one some days than on others but usually I can only even attempt to somewhat do it OK after some warm up, so definitely not cold.
What I’m currently trying to do is to stop when I feel the tension, shake it off and start again, but no clue if that’s even the right approach or if I should rethink something else from ground up.
Cheers!