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Word, gents. I am a big advocate of very slow work. Charles is being unduly modest. Working fast with a Steadicam is astonishingly easy. Making a very slow gentle start, slow deliberate path ending in a clean gentle lock-off is always the goal. It is the hardest work we are asked to do. Just check out someone's demo reel some time. If it is totally devoid of lock-offs, that tells you something. It means that they may have trouble starting and stopping gently. Similarly, a reel filled with running or off-horizoned music video shots tells me that there may be a lack of cleanliness when it's needed. Maybe, maybe not. But as a rule of thumb, as you start working on your chops to become more and more expert with our Noble Instrument, slower and more precise is the key. In addition to Charles' last remarks about how moving slower will aid you when moving faster, there is a mechanical element to consider. The Steadicam arm ( in general- there are a few flavors of arm now ) will work beautifully if it's reacting at 50 rpm's ( rebounds per minute ) or at 20 rpm's. Where your clean good work really shows is when you are using a firm right hand grasp of the Steadicam arm to keep sure that the vertical placement of the arm remains perfectly even as you move. Not too firm, but firmly enough to stop any vertical displacement of the rig. It's an acquired taste and one that folks work on from day one in Workshops. Frequently, it takes a while to learn to get out of the way of the arm's excellent absorption characteristics. Fast is easy. Perfect fast. Slow is hard. Perfect slow first. Luckily ( unlike some Steadicam work ), this can be done alone in even a small apartment. Chose a shot that's just stupidly boring and simple. Work it out. Then make it last 20-30 seconds instead of the 5-10 seconds it might take when moving at a normal pace. God, it's difficult. As you work the same shot over and over, you will discover the minutae of very fine Steadicam Operating. Time...and attention to detail. :) Peter Abraham New York

Yup, it's just another of those dastardly "practice makes perfect" Steadicam things. Do the "cross on the wall" exercise, and walk as slow as you possibly can--forwards and backwards--and repeat ad nauseum. There is always a great tendency to hustle around when practicing because it seems more fun and Steadicammy to go hurling through doors and whip the camera around, but the the more time you practice holds and slow moving stuff, the easier it is to do the faster stuff (because your body will have internalized the balance that is required).