Practice Discipline, Focus, learning abilities. Options

[Marcus Desaiha]

Hello everybody!
I was sitting here practicing the same lick for an one and a half hours straight, increasing the speed by 1% each time I had repeated it 10 times.

Now my head feels like scrambles eggs..

nevertheless!

I would like to hear how you practice to build up speed and technique.

I've got some theories of my own regarding the matter of practicing "the right way".

First I wonder if it really pays of to practice hours and hours every day. And if you always should do it slow? Shouldnt you sort of let your mind get used to the higher speed some times just to remind it of where the finishing line is?

When I started getting serious with my guitar playing (while still in school) I remember skipping school days just to sit at home and practice, I could do that for 6-8 hours straight almost every day of the week. Though, now when I think about, was it really worth it?
Could I have wasted thoose days learning and evolving my guitar skills the worst possible way?

I wonder
Is pushing youself, sitting through five hours straight of full on practicing really the answer? Or could it be better to practice 1 hour, take a break 1-2 hours and then do the other hours of practicing after your brain processed the info you just put in it?

Lets make an example!

Billy wanted to become lightning fast, he heard that all of his favorite guitar players sat countless of hours practicing in their rooms, so he decided to do the same thing. Billy practiced for six hours straight without any break, he ate dinner and went to bed, during the night his brain tried to process the information he just put in there, and here is the thing, maybe the brain got too much on its hands and maybe thoose last 5-6 hours of practicing was for absolutely no good? Because you see the next day Billy tried to play the same thing and this time he only got an increase of lets say 3%.
If we rewind and tell billy that he should only practice for two hours, take a break, eat dinner, watch some TV, go back and practice one more hour, then go to bed. Maybe the precentage would be even higher the next day, maybe he would have had a 5 or even 10% increase?



Should you perhaps restrict yourself to a max of lets say two hours a day, just to avoid some sort of "overload" in your mind and optimize your learning ability?

The brain works in mysterious ways and I've always been fascinated by how we humans learn things.

I remember when I was a kid, my mom got me a Super Nintendo, you could sit through countless of hours, trying to beat "That certain level" without any achievement, til you gave up, took a break, went back and all of a sudden you cleared it flawlessly?

There are always better and worse times in your guitar career, some times you got such a flow, and you feel unstoppable, other times you feel like you're going nowere. Could it be that you were practicing in a slightly diffrent way during thoose periods of time without knowing it?

Please tell me your stories about how you practice, what you've learned from practicing in diffrent ways, and how you obtain maximum focus when practicing.

Your sincerely
Marcus

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