Most of you have seen the Vai video where he talks about how he ignored his weaknesses and focused instead on his strengths. Taken out of context, it could seem like he was advocating everyone to ignore anything they weren't good at. But delving a little deeper, what he was meaning was that there are some things that maybe don't serve us as players anyway and that, instead of devoting years to trying to force it into getting better, one could be better served by embracing their uniqueness as a player.
For example, why devote all that energy into being able to play all those Yngwie licks when you could have spent more time working on your really good tapping technique? Or maybe you 're great at something else but you wish you could do what Michael Romeo or MAB does..... why, you must ask yourself? They're already doing it so why not be content with taking a little bit of what they offer but spending more time building up your own library of licks?
We will all have things that we're good at and things we're.... not so good at.
We could completely avoid using techniques that we're weak at or we could work to bring them up to a usable standard that allows us to implement them in our repertoire to the best of our ability. We don't have to master them, however. This is potentially a controversial point among musicians if you believe that all techniques used should be fully mastered.
I personally don't believe you need to master any technique because I don't think anything can be fully mastered. There is always more to be done. Always somebody who can get more out of a technique. Always more honing that one could do. Where does it end?
I say don't look to the end. Look to the now. How does it serve you now? Can you make it work in this song? Does it sound good now? If the answer to those questions is yes then it has done its job.
If you can take an idea and practise it until it sounds good in the context you intend (a solo, for example) then it is good enough to be used. What may be a weak technique can still be utilised. So what if you can't effortlessly blaze up and down the neck with that technique? If you are able to use it for that moment and make it sound good then you are using that technique well.
So, we can have weaknesses and still work with them. Or we can ignore them. Either way, you don't have to be a master of all techniques. In fact, you don't have to be a master of any technique. I bet that none of us here are masters of a single technique at all.
So, embrace the weaknesses and enjoy working with them. A great phrase from our very own Mr Dahl is "Use your limitations as your inspiration" and he's right. Messing around with techniques you don't normally use or techniques you're not good at can often spark an entirely different approach because you're forced to find a solution to the 'problem'. You might end up combining techniques to create a hybrid approach to a run or lick.
It's all fun!
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A fine article indeed. It's fine to be motivated by things you want to be able to play, after all, that's why many folks pick up the instrument 
