Hello, all. It’s been long time since I posted a question (or two for that matter LOL), but hope everyone is doing great and in good health.

Obviously, I have two questions that baffled me for a while as the below:

1) Lately, I’m finding the left palm of my hand is sticking to the neck while playing lead, especially when I’m improvising and I’m focusing on what to play rather than how to play it. My question is what is the right way? Is it okay that the neck rests on the palm of the fretting hand (and it gets awkward when I bend, I have to kind of raise my shoulder or arm upwards to maintain the bend, sorry for not being able to express clearly) but with pictures you get the idea. So which picture is the right way? Should I leave space between the neck and palm of fretting hand or not?

2) Up-down picking technique. A very important technique to master of course, while practicing scales, especially sequence ones, I find myself alter picking fine, but when I speed things up, I can’t seem to maintain an accurate manner of up-down-up-down picking. I sometimes do 2 downs especially if I’m moving to another string. Is it normal or should I have a very accurate manner?

As always, I really really do appreciate all your help and efforts. Thank you and God bless everyone here. :)