Sometimes the technique is fun, sometimes it’s frustrating, sometimes it’s clumsy, sometimes it feels surprisingly heavy. A lot of starters think that they must feel motivated in order to practice consistently, but the truth is that they need to find a way to practice even when their motivation is low. If they wait for the perfect mood, they will experience long gaps followed by rushed effort. And then they will try to squeeze in a marathon practice session. But that kind of practice is not conducive to clean technique. Better is to find a way to practice that is sustainable even on days when the motivation isn’t high. This might mean practicing under conditions that can be replicated even on an average day, a day when concentration isn’t great, but it’s sufficient.
For example, maybe you can shorten practice before you make it more intense. Many starters try to plan a long practice session, but then they don’t actually practice because the long practice feels overwhelming. Instead, you can plan a short practice period with just one goal. Pick one technique to practice. Choose one weakness that you want to address. Pick one chunk of content that you can practice repeatedly without a lot of variation for its own sake. When the practice is narrower, you don’t have as many opportunities to get distracted, and you have more opportunity for your body to develop a sense of what proper technique feels like. So consistency develops out of sustainable structure more than out of big blasts of inspiration.
One thing a lot of starters do is use their practice time to seek variety. When they get bored, they switch techniques. They search for new content. They challenge themselves with something way beyond their capabilities. This gives them the illusion of activity, but it doesn’t allow them to achieve the repetition that they need in order to refine their technique. When you get bored, don’t necessarily switch immediately to a new exercise. Instead, try to find a way to vary the exercise. Slow down. Shorten the length of the content you are practicing. Make it easier. Focus on one aspect of technique that you normally ignore. Sometimes boredom is a sign of too much looseness, not too much repetition.
When your schedule gets busy, sometimes the only thing you can do is a 15-minute practice session. That’s okay. The first 3 minutes, review your notes from yesterday. Try to recall the last time you practiced and what mistakes you were making. Then spend 8 minutes practicing one thing. Don’t push yourself to be spectacular. Just try to practice correctly. Then spend 2 minutes practicing your target technique in a more performance-like way, where the skill has to function under slightly less control. Finally, spend 2 minutes writing in your journal about what worked and what didn’t. What cleaned up? What’s still shaky? What needs practice tomorrow? If you have records like these, then each day you don’t have to start from scratch.
Sometimes when you feel like your practice isn’t helping you improve, I would encourage you to take a look at your practice schedule. Sometimes it’s not that your practice is bad; it’s just that it’s inconsistent. If you have one big practice session, but then you don’t practice for the next four days, that means you never really have time to settle into the technique. Sometimes short daily practices are better than long practices every few days because they at least keep the corrections fresh in your mind. So if you have a break in your practice, don’t try to plan some long practice to get yourself back on track. Instead, simply do the minimum practice that feels honest to you. It’s better to do one good exercise than to plan some grand practice that never happens.
At some point, daily practice doesn’t feel like discipline; it just feels like routine. You sit down, you do one or two bad attempts, you do another attempt or two that are better, and then you settle in. That sense of settling in is important. It allows the technique to function even when it’s not new and exciting, and it gives your practice some structure that can bear improvement.
