Arch Exercise

In the video, there is an exercise that involves raising the arch of the hand without raising the wrist. In the preliminary stages of practicing that exercise, do you think that there would be any benefit to practicing it with a wrist splint on? The splint could prevent your wrist from undesirably raising when you lift the arch of the hand. My theory is that if you practice the exercise with a splint (where your wrist cannot rise and do the wrong thing), you may automatically feel the appropriate "let-go" in the wrist. That let-go may be retained in your muscle memory, allowing you (once you are familiar with the exercise) to take the splint off and still have no unnecessary movement in the wrist (as a result of your muscle memory remembering the let-go and lack of upward movement in the wrist that was internalized during the preliminary practice with a splint). Do you think that there is any benefit to such a practice strategy?

OK but only if you don't overdo it. Remember, we are educating our senses. A constraint can indeed be helpful but you have to know when to remove the constraint - i.e. before it becomes an . And remember, the metacarpal-phalangeal ridge is the primary arch only to about . Above that dynamic level, the wrist does indeed become the keystone of the arch as shown in Thomas Mark's book - with the proviso that the metacarpal-phalangeal ridge does indeed remain a crucial secondary keystone. So by using a splint, you might be preventing the wrist from rising in a situation where it actually needs to rise... Be careful! And mindful! AFF

So you're saying that above mf, the wrist should be slightly higher than the metacarpal-phalangeal ridge, but that the latter should still feel elevated and potent? After watching Horowitz in the slow motion video of the "Octave Etude", I think that I know what that would look like. When playing the octaves, his wrist was somewhat higher than the metacarpal-phalangeal ridge, but the arch of the hand was still clearly elevated.

Exactement!

But look in this video, at about 01:30, Horowitz plays some lighter sounds and he still raises the wrist above the arch. Why's that?

Most likely because he is playing octaves not single note passagework... AFF