What's the role of the slight 'ulnarization'?

Masters in Mechanics
#1

None of the wrist primer videos talk about the slightly ulnar form explicitly, except to say that you want some of that. Why is it needed? What happens if you dial it out? Some of the example player seems to have more or less of it, is that just due to different morphology?

From the videos I got the impression that this slightly ulnar form is the ‘sweet spot’ where the wrist deviation motion is most efficient / effortless, given the anchor points. Is this a case where the proof is in the pudding, in the sense that if you can do a fast and smooth motion, with the right anchor points, then you’re also the right amount of ulnar (given your own morphology)?

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#2

If I understood this correctly, Troy was outlining the wrist position that allows roughly equal ranges of motion for upstrokes and downstrokes.

In other words, you are at the midpoint of the wrist’s range of motion so that upstrokes and downstrokes are equally big.

This is probably correlated with comfort for most players, but my guess is that depending on the individual things can still work well if you move away from this idealised “center of motion”. In the end, if it feels and sounds good it is good :smiley:

#3

As a rule of thumb: the more ‘ulnarized’ the wrist the more your motion is wrist based, whilst more ‘radialized’ position is about adding forearm rotation. Not always of course.

#4

I don’t think this is a good rule of thumb. The pronated form that gives you DSX with wrist deviation is slightly radial and is no less ‘wrist based’ than the slightly ulnar USX form.

#5

Emm… first of all, I mismatched ulnar and radius (I always do, sorry). And as I say it’s not always correct. But quite often is.
Second, the most often pure wrist motion is used by DSX players. And you may see that their wrist is often bent to radius. While every guitarist who uses forearm rotation more or less uses more ulnarized posture (as Yngwie or Troy do).