I also took classes at the Guitar Study Center (mostly with Woody Mann, and Howard Morgen later on) - that was a great place. I also took lessons with Dave Van Ronk. I don’t hold my picking hand like Dave did, but he did say that the motion to move the picking fingers should be at the big knuckles where the fingers meet the hand, and also that the fingers should be very relaxed. I think he may have planted both the pinky and ring finger, but I’m not sure. And as the OP pointed out, he did not mute strings with his picking hand.
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