Kutulu and JJ--Thanks for the great advice and encouragement. I just watched Caren Armstrong's series on practicing and she gave similar advice regarding learning the tough stuff. The gold nugget I took away was that your brain and muscles are going to learn what how you play--play sloppy, learn sloppy; play right, learn right--even slowly.

I'll check out the fundamentals section now with a little more open mind, and I'll track down the Zen book.

Thanks again for the help!