Anyone who's sat in on a James Hill Strumming Workshop might help answer this one. I was wondering about his strumming technique. That stuff is happening so fast its hard to tell. All I know is he appears to be following with the thumb at the end. Here are a couple of videos:
If you look carefully you might see that James has a wind up hand shaker, the kind you get at any gag store. Then he shakes his hand to make it look like he's strumming. While you are watching that he is, through sleight of hand, doing real magic with his left hand. But the most fascinating thing about his picking technique is to see which tie he'll pick to wear at his performances. Akamai Okole