Using the left elbow to aid stretches

The movement of our hands is limited by various physical restraints, the obvious one being that our fingers don't move freely if we play with bent wrists. Another very useful technique to aid freedom of movement of our left hand fingers is the position of our left elbow.

This video explains that we have to work within the limitations of the body, but by simply moving our elbow, in or out, our fingers can stretch to higher positions with little effort.

A straightforward exercise would be to play the sticky chromatic exercise (http://www.jonnymossguitar.com/guitar-basics-blog/finger-independence-chromatic-exercise) starting on the sixth string with our elbow tucked in and then as the exercise develops, smoothly swing the elbow to the normal playing position.

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