I was watching footage of Chris Poland and I noticed something. Do trailing edge pickers tend to have hitckhikers thumb? I know Tosin has it.
For those that don’t know a hitchhiker’s thumb is a genetic condition where the thumb joint is wildly flexible.
I have such thumbs, and when I got into CtC stuff, it was a bit unusual to me to realize that there’s such thing as “leading edge picking” and many players (including Troy) employ it. Seems that I always tended to hold pick nearly in parallel with strings… It is kind of difficult to me to pick with leading edge. The bigger the angle the more difficult it feels as I have to keep my thumb in certain position, while for “natural” leading edge pickers it is kept in that position by itself as it can’t be bent any further.
Watching tosin feaks me out - looks like his thumb is really busted! Cant argue with the results though!
I have a hitchhiker’s thumb and I use a trailing edge grip much of the time. Some pictures here