Pointing on large displays with an indirect, relative pointing device such as a touchpad often requires clutching. This article introduces gliding, where the cursor continues to move during the clutching gestures. The effect is that of controlling the cursor as a detached object that can be pushed, with inertia and friction similar to a puck being pushed on a table. We analyze gliding from a practical and a theoretical perspective and report on two studies. The first controlled experiment establishes that gliding reduces clutching and can improve pointing performance for large distances. We introduce cursor efficiency to capture the effects of gliding on clutching. The second experiment demonstrates that participants use gliding even when an efficient acceleration function lets them perform the task without it, without degrading performance.