Tunesmith - perhaps you could make things clearer for the posters by amplifying on your original post to describe (rather than just 'dance band' method) how you hold it, and how the professional guitarist had interpreted the method wrongly in your opinion. I know it's not easy, having tried to describe the gypsy method above. (For example, I didn't make it clear that the point of the plectrum points outwards, away from the palm, at right angles to the line of the thumb rather than along the line of the thumb - not a mistake you're likely to make, but if you'd never handled one before and had only the description to go on you might do that.)

Mick