Trying to break a bad picking habit.

What ever works best for you is good for me. No worries about the delay either. The rest of this week is fairly booked for me too.

Next week is gonna be pretty busy for me during the day (gonna resume working on my front deck) but the evenings will be chill time.
Mike, I’m really sorry brother! A minor cut, then a week camping, then a beach vacation… I was still answering during these things but saw others trying to help, and we were talking on the phone via text. To be honest, when we got back from the beach I just forgot. ( I get forgetful when I get to the beach with my wife…).

This week I have, oh a holiday, trip to daughters, cabin for a few days…nothing major. LOL. But I PROMISE that I will get you a video!
 
Been trying to work on increasing my picking speed and it just ain't hapening. Watched a bunch of videos to see how these folks are utilizing their picking hands and i noticed how steady their thumb and index fingers are while holding a pick. Got in front of a mirror with my guitar to watch my picking hand and it's a totaly mess.

I've been aware of this for a while but it really hit me today. May be hard to explain but......I'm double jointed in both of my thumbs. When I pick, it's like all of the picking movement comes from my thumb and index finger. There's a lot of excessive motion. Plus, my thumb at the joint is going up and down, up and down.
It actually looks rather ridiculous. It bends at the joint when I down pick and it bends up when I up pick.

Even watched a video of someone playing some songs I know. Example, "Love Me Two Times" by the Doors. The guy's picking hand/thumb were real steady. Looked at my hand in the mirror while playing it and there's my thumb going down and up, down and up. Again, too much motion.

Anyone else here double jointed in their thumbs and if so do you have this problem? I don't know if I can break this bad habit or not.

For years I never had much time to practice due to work. Finally retired in March of 2020 which gives me more time to practice. I play at church, I'm 71 years old and trust me, I'm not trying to compete with anybody. Just want to be the best player I can with what God gave me.

Thanks in advance.
I am double jointed in my picking hand thumb.
What I did was to do all of my normal sow to medium picking the normal way, and I practiced doing the fast picking by keeping my finger and thumb still and using wrist action for the fast stuff.
 
Mike, I’m really sorry brother! A minor cut, then a week camping, then a beach vacation… I was still answering during these things but saw others trying to help, and we were talking on the phone via text. To be honest, when we got back from the beach I just forgot. ( I get forgetful when I get to the beach with my wife…).

This week I have, oh a holiday, trip to daughters, cabin for a few days…nothing major. LOL. But I PROMISE that I will get you a video!
No worries at all my friend! Believe me, I know how fast life comes at us. Plus, where did these last 3 months go? My gosh, but this past October and November seems to fly by at an unusually fast rate for me. So please, enjoy your holidays and we'll get back to business afterwards.

Besides, I haven't touched a guitar these last few weeks because I played bass at church this past Sunday. Bass is my first instrument, hadn't played it in a while so I was really going at that to try and do my best. It went well! Gonna get going back on the guitar this week. I admit I kinda slacked off these last few months with "practicing" because I've been writing. So I've got to get going on the whole practicing thing again.

Till next time brother!
 
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