conky wrote:Skip, I hate to burst your bubble but your hand problems are exactly what mine were and that turned into full blown carpal tunnel. I'd be careful if I were you. I found that stretching a lot before I started playing (which i never did before) helped as well as going to better balanced sticks. I use the Neil Peart Shirikashi oak 747s and they fit right with me. I don't get so much shock. Bigger sticks likea 2B might help too where you don't have to use so much force to get a hart hit as you would from a smaller stick. Those Nova sticks are shitty. I get them for Merrick so he can bang the shit out of his kit without me having to buy a ton of sticks all the time. I can tell a huge difference in them and the Promarks. Relaxing your grip when you start to cramp will help but it feels counter-intuitive. Another thing is that I don't try to do everything with my wrist. I make my down beat come mostly from the shoulder, the "e" come from my wrist, the "and" come from my elbow and the "ah" come from snapping my pinky, ring and middle fingers closed. My blasts arent even, but I like to keep blasts with the down beat a little more accented anyway. If I want them even I just don't hit as hard on beat one. It keeps me from tensing up so much like I was before. I've found that I can do this for about 3 minutes straight with no problems now. I'm not sure how much of that has to do with me having a carpal tunnel release, but I'm sure changing up my technique has a lot to do with it.

I'm currently using 5B's but I need something longer and a little thicker to feel balanced in my hands, like you the 747's usually are the best fit.
Depending on what I'm playing I'll use my wrist but I typically use my elbow flexion for hard hits and my fingers for faster beats (this is where french style really helps out). For blast beats its all fingers cause my OCD has to have even hits.
Looks like a combo of stretching hardcore, getting better quality sticks and doing a pre show warm up is in order to try and get this sorted. If that doesn't work looks like I'm off ot the doc.