Pivoting

To get from one drum or cymbal to another, I try to position my hands or arms in between the instruments in order to eliminate moving my arms from the shoulder(which would involve using the larger chest, shoulder and upper arm muscles). This enables me to pivot the stick from the wrist between two toms, for example, in a sort of windshield wiper fashion arcing from side to side. To do this the wrist is bent slightly into the up position and is moved by twisting the wrist at the forearm. The same principle is used to pivot between my high positioned cymbals and lower positioned drums : by raising my upper arm at the shoulder, I can position my wrist at about shoulder height between the drums and cymbals. Then, I can pivot at the wrist to go between them using the smaller muscles of the forearm with less effort than lifting up and down with the shoulder, upper arm and chest. This technique can be expanded to the whole kit. Just place your wrists in the center of a group of toms or cymbals and try to pivot with out having to move your arms too much(for example, if you were to cycle around 4 toms, place your hands in between tom 2 & 3 and see if you can pivot to tom 1, 2, 3 & 4).
Thank you to Terry Bozzio