The miracle man video is blocked in the States.
But yes, I see what you’re talking about. he seems to use that thumb motion with his medium tempo picking. Once he goes into hyper speed he moves to what looks like an all elbow mechanic and his thumb seems to lock in to position and doesn’t move.
I’d really need to thisbin slo-mo and a different angle to really see what’s going on.
Also not seeing any finger movement when he gets into elbow mode, as I wrote on the other thread. None of these clips really looks different than what I’ve seen from him.
So this raises the question of whether or not he’s actually escaping when in elbow mode. Or is it that Zakk’s elbow mode isn’t really exclusively elbow? To the best of my knowledge, the elbow simply doesn’t do an escaped upstroke motion path.
It’s a mystery!
I mean, he HAS to be swiping those notes. There’s no way that I can see that there’s any type of precision in the elbow mechanic.
Now i’m not sure if i see the thumb movement or i just “want” to see it
I think that in hyperspeed speed is a bit tiny,perhaps just enough to escape the string in the upstroke?
I think I can spot forearm rotation. With that strongly supinated position, this should produce exactly the required escape path on upstrokes.
He moves his thumb, and more than other players, that’s pretty obvious.
But I think it’s neither a picking motion nor an escape motion.
My guess is he controls tone and attack with it, and probably adds some extra strength on specific notes by combining it with his ‘normal’ pick stroke.
I see lots of thumb movement, but no repetition on every single stroke.
… my biceps looked just the same and then I went to McD … one single time 
Great shots!
My vote is “not seeing it because it’s probably not happening”. What you’re seeing in fast mode around the 8 second mark is actually wrist movement - one of the myriad blends, but closer to the flexion/extension end of the spectrum.
No finger movement is necessary to produce the escape with this motion. If you make this movement with a supinated arm, that produces a dwps pickstroke. I occasionally use variations on this type of movement, especially with a flexed wrist.
There are some other ingredients happening, including a small amount of elbow and forearm. The mix appears to vary based on whether he’s playing on the bass strings or treble strings. But I think the answer of how he is escaping is pretty clear from this clip.
Note that I haven’t watched all these all the way through so there may be some other variations he uses for the curious.
Here’s another example of Zakk’s somewhat mysterious use of the picking hand thumb. It’s in a lick from his song, “Speedball.” The lick comes at 0:10 into the video, cycles down a few frets chromatically, then repeats. A professional transcription of the lick, which I’ve uploaded below, suggests it’s hybrid picked with legato. It doesn’t look like it’s hybrid picked in the video, but I’m struck by why he would need to flex/extend his thumb at all to play this lick. What do others think?
Here’s the video:
And the tab:
Yes,there’s an hybrid part,the one with the a string ringing,i think he plays open a and b flat with the pick while playing fast legato runs with his middle finger
There was a time when I first watched these videos that i was pretty sure he used his thumb to achieve that speed,so i tried to develop that technique and incorporate it to my picking style
Perhaps I was wrong,but now that “mistake” is a part of my picking and it allows me to play more relaxed
That’s why i’d like the ctc team to interview&decode takayoshi ohmura and other “thumb pickers”
Hopefully they will do 
As I mentioned a few posts up, Zakk does this when he sweeps, to push across the pair of strings. That’s what he’s doing here as well. Not sure what that tab is but it’s not what he’s playing at the ten second mark.
Yngwie uses fingers for this purpose too, perhaps most famously in his 3nps scalar sweeping. It’s relatively common where small sweepy distances are concerned.
I would call that ‘wiping’ - or ‘mopping’ to avoid confusion 
I think it’s called scalpel picking.
Funny thing, I just googled it and ended up here:
Yes,that’s right
I think ohmura and others have taken that to a higher level
There are ohmura lessons in YouTube,but he speaks japanese
I’m going to start a takayoshi ohmura thread,he deserves it
Back to Zakk for a minute: Since he’s a fairly dyed-in-the-wool DWPSer, does anyone have thoughts about how he would approach a pedal tone lick? I’ve uploaded some tab from a lick in his first solo on the Ozzy song “S.I.N.” The tab of course could be inaccurate, but assuming the pitches at least are correct, what do people think about how Zakk would play it?
looks like he could swipe the whole thing seeing all the downstrokes are outside string changes
Yeah, definitely. Or he could keep to DWPS and just swipe at the end of the lick. So many of his solos seem very DWPS-compliant. I wonder how he’d play the occasional non-DWPS-compliant lick if he doesn’t ever swipe?
Hey Troy, This is interesting… Since posting is it still a mystery or have you possibly discovered something new? Regarding elbow mechanic, are you positive the elbow doesn’t do an escaped upstroke path? If so, it seems you’re implying that the elbow does do an escaped downstroke path so was that implication intended? Vinnie Moore used elbow for his fastest stuff and it wasn’t all swiped was it? So how did Vinnie Moore achieve escaped paths for upstrokes and downstrokes at his top speeds? Thanks!