Regardless of whether the movement has meaning or not, movements should not be so rapid that they require airbrakes to stop them. If your signing space is TOO LARGE than there is a good chance that your are also moving too rapidly, using quick starts and quick stops to move your hand from location to location to location. At NTID we call this BALLISTIC SIGNING and it is one of the most obvious things to diagnose. If on your video recording you see your hand REBOUND either at a contact point or in mid-air, then that movement was too forceful and you are spending extra effort to GENERATE that movement, then even more effort to STOP that movement. If your CONTACTS in your sign production make a sharp noise, then you are being too forceful. If you make quiet brushing sounds at your contact points then your movements are not too forceful. If you make ZERO noise at your contact points then you might be over-restraining yourself... stopping before you actually make contact. If the sign is supposed to make contact, then make contact because PROXIMAL distance is contrastive to CONTACTS... so make the contacts but don't use so much muscle power that you leave a mark.
If you are a ballistic signer then I have a self-improvement tip that I ask you to be careful with. The method is to practice overly-fluid signs that run one into the other. This gets you to break your ballistic (START and STOP) habits, but like using methodone to help a heroine addict, this solution has potential problems. Signs do need to have distinct starting and ending points. So my solution is what I call SIGN-CHI. I take instrumental music (without words) and I describe a visually vivid scene, usually with a character moving through the scene and/or interacting with it. For example with a slow piece I might describe a wooded scene with snow at sunset and a cabin in the distance as I walk or cross-country ski, rhythmically to the music, toward it... enter, warm myself by the fire, etc. For a more rapid piece of music I might describe doing a triathalon or skydiving or some other extreme sport. The requirement in SIGN-CHI is to maintain fluid movement with distinction. I am not interpreting anyone else's words so I can emphasize any element of my message at any time.
To get a better idea of this, visit my website, go to the RESOURCES section and find the SIGN-CHI video. I find the activity to be more entertaining when done as a group of several people as a warm-up activity or at the conclusion of an assignment.
Just remember that normal signing needs to use direct movements between distinct locations and that there are times when the hands are moving and moments when they should not be moving. That's the next topic.
