Originally Posted by: matonanjinThe concept of only 10 minutes of actual pounding and most of the rest of the time at actual fun completely revitalized me.

And I have to say that with only 10 minutes of actual practice instead of 45 or 60 at a time I really believe that I am progressing faster. It's all about attitude.

I have taken that 30 minutes and modified it for 45. So I go 5-20-15-5.

It's fun again!

The problem is that no matter how much you pound, you can only retain so much. Your brain needs time to post-process what you are learning which continuing to pound isn't going to help. It can also be non-productive since you could be digging yourself into a rut or even worse committing a bad habit to memory.

Sometimes, the best thing to do is "walk away", which doesn't to mean putting down the guitar, but doing something else with the guitar that is more pleasant.

I'll never forget when I was learning the pentatonic shapes and working on an exercise of ascending and desending the scale in thirds. I came home from my lesson and tried working on it. My fingers were tripping over eachother. The next day, it magically came to me and I could do it. Continuing to pound away in the situation would not have helped my situation at all - all it could have done was frustrated me more.

Everybody is different and learns differently (all things, not just guitar). For me, this was an important thing I learned about my learning style.

Basically, if what you are doing isn't working, try a different strategy. If pounding away works for you to plow through obsticals, that's great. If not, consider a different strategy like the suggested practice schedule.