Hi there guys, it's Rick here, hope you're all doing extremely well out there. I know I am. If you've been watching my videos of late, you'll know that I've had a long break from playing while I was ill over the Christmas and New Year period. I'm not asking for sympathy, don't worry. I didn't get much playing in at all for a long period of time and as a consequence, my technique has kind of taken a nose dive, especially the picking technique. So over the past few days I've been working really, really hard to try and get my picking technique back up to scratch. And over the past few days I have been experimenting with a idea, a specific idea. One thing I've been aware of with my playing is that I've always approached holding the pick in the same way and any time I pick I make sure or have made sure that the joints stay roughly in one position, especially this joint here. I can't remember what the technical name for this joint here is, I'll stick it on the screen somewhere, but it's this tip joint here. And what I've been experimenting with is allowing just a little bit of give with a pick like that. I don't know if you can see it. And when I transition from string to string I just allow a little bit of give with that joint of the index finger. And for some reason it really, really works well for me. It allows me to transition very, very smoothly in comparison with holding the pick in one position like this, which I've done since right from the word go really. I'm not going to change this. This is a specific technique that I use that's been very, very effective. I'm just experimenting with different ideas just to see how I can add to my arsenal of techniques. I think it's important to be able to do that, to be open to trying new things with your technique because it could open up a whole load of doors for you and improve your technique even more. And that's what I'm looking to do is to get more control over what I play because the moment that we sit back and go, hey, everything's cool, then you stop learning. So, you know, it's an ongoing process. It's something that I'll be doing. Until I'm no longer here I would think. And I love doing it anyway. So I'm just going to show you exactly what I've been doing over the past few days. So let's just take a straight ahead scale. Let's take C-Lidian for instance. Okay, I need to be nice and relaxed when I play anyway. I want to be able to be in control of what I play. However, what I've been doing is loosening that joint and allowing one transition from one string to the next. Like I said before, just allowing a bit of give with that joint and the thumb. It's less so what I've realized over the past few days, it's less so when I'm ascending. But more so when I'm descending. So if you notice there's a little bit of movement here. Anyway, I'm messing around here. So it's very much a feel thing as well. I'm kind of feeling my way through it. I mean that sounds a little bit cliche and cheesy but it's absolutely true. And that's one thing that I've been doing in all the years that I've been playing is kind of feeling my way through specific things. It's important to experience how it feels when you do something. And this is kind of it's like almost like a mental cue for me to relax even more when I'm practicing my scales with this technique. It really really has been working for me pretty well. Like I said before, this is an addition to my technique. So what I'm doing is just throwing this out there just to give you some ideas to experiment with it yourself and see where it can take you. There's no guarantees that it's going to be beneficial to you but there's no reason why you can't explore the idea and see where it takes you. If it's beneficial to you then it's worth doing. A lot of people, what I find, a lot of guitar players are kind of scared of changing things, especially if they've been playing for a number of years. But I think that can be quite detrimental. It's not allowing you to try new areas of playing that really you could benefit from. So anyway, this is what I've been doing. It almost feels like the kick is going to fall out of my fingers. It's not cool. It feels great. So I just thought I'd share that little idea with you. Like I say, it's just allowing that the tip of the index finger to just allowing a little bit of give with that joint rather than keeping it rigid. So I just thought I'd throw that idea out. I'm going to practice it some more because I really, really like the way it's taking my picking and it's really helping me to really zone in on being completely relaxed where I play. And hey, that's got to be a good thing. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this lesson. Give it a try, see where it takes you. And remember, this is not a replacement for your current technique. This is to augment your current technique to add to it. And if it doesn't work for you, don't worry about it. It's no big deal. Okay, thanks for checking in to this lesson and I will catch up with you guys in the next one. Cheers!