It's essential to know how to use your wrist, especially in presentation casts. You've got to know what it can do and what effect each of its possible anatomic movements produces. I particularly like Mac Brown's classification of these movements in his great work, Casting Angles. Take a minute right now to fully understand them.
Pick up a ball point pen. Grip it as if it were a rod handle. Hold it in front of the computer screen, as if you were going to cast over it.
1. Now flick your wrist so that the palm of your hand is facing the screen. That's a perpendicular extension.
2. Now flick your wrist the other way so the back of your hand faces the screen. This is called perpendicular flexion.
Take a rest (this is exhausting). Go for a cuppa or to the bathroom. When you get back,
grip the ball point again in position to cast over the screen.
3. Bend your wrist so that your knuckles point to the ceiling: linear abduction.
4. Bend it so your knuckles point towards the table: linear adduction.
Now try the rotations:
5. If you rotate your wrist so that the palm of your hand faces the ceiling, you're supinating your wrist.
6. If you do it so your palm faces the table, you're pronating your wrist.
And that's it. Your wrist can't do anything else (except be still). Understanding this language will make it easier to describe the execution of numerous casts. Here are some examples.
- Wriggle cast: flexions and extensions.
- Short reach cast to the right: supination after the forward stop.
- Ample curve in the line to the right: extension to the right–micro-stop–back to the center (line with the forearm—remember: linear)
- Etc.
Now stop fooling around in front of the screen and go outside and practice for real.