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You’ve heard this already. I’m playing this note a lot this year. First it was with the “caves” video. Then, last week, with the “attitudes”.
It’s probably high time for a “what makes JD Beck Great” lesson, or “The ONE Secret to Exploding Your Single Strokes in One Hour”. Those would almost certainly get more views. But if I didn’t make this video this week, it wouldn’t still be fresh in my mind. As I write this I’m a week and a few days out from a discovery.
Last week’s video detailed how I think we need to be open to self-critique in order to improve. To open the door to entertain what we might wish…were better about our playing.
And just days after publishing that video, I made a fresh discovery.
Even now, it’s faded from memory a bit. And if you watch the video of the practice session in question, it’s increasingly hard to feel the same way I did about it then. (Which might itself be an argument for “taking a beat”.)
But in the moment, I knew: My ghost notes were wack.
I was confronted by the naked horror that something right under my nose wasn’t up to par. And I reacted in all the wrong ways. Instead of taking a day, formulating a good exercise, and attacking it with fresh eyes, I “looped” and spun my wheels for another 90 minutes, just making myself feel worse.
And given that using my own experiences reaching for “greatness” - or whatever - is the DNA of this channel, I kinda couldn’t not make this video. Because if I’d waited a week I wouldn’t have the visceral memory of the feeling.
Ok - so maybe this is the sequel to the “How to Be More Open to Critique” video. We can call it “What to Do When You Spot Something”.
And if the “caves” video dealt with it in the abstract, this one is concrete, recent, and personal.
And I can use that as a “teaching moment”. Here’s what I did wrong, here’s why it happened, and here’s what I’ve learned over the years is the better way to handle it, which I didn’t do until 2 days later.
But as a kind of postscript, watching the video…my sextuplets weren’t even that bad.
So what was all of this really about? Maybe “don’t always believe negative emotions in the moment, but check your recordings after the fact”.
But the “rage cave” this experience inspired fueled two of the most productive weeks of practice in recent memory, so there’s that.
Anyway, this video is for anyone who’s ever thought “I suck”. To show it happens to all of us, what to do about it, and that it’s not always “real”.
Hope you enjoy!