Why are you pretending I said things I didn’t say? Finding the optimal way of doing something involves getting it wrong before you get it right. We all know this. What I was talking about was not greenhorn entry-level practice, but the practice of an expert who has already figured that much out. Obviously, you have to learn the right way to do something before you can do it the right way.

Ask literally any half-decent guitarist if trying to do the same exact thing in the same exact way helps or hurts their skill. Now ask a martial artist. A dancer. A singer. A painter. An engineer. A carpenter. Even a bowler, as someone else already mentioned. These are all skills that are honed through repitition.

In the spirit of the dialogue, I am going to repeat myself because it seems like I might need to; none of them got it right the first time. But after they did get it right, I guarantee you, their practice became about doing it again in exactly the same way. And then, once they were happy with their newly refinded skill, they learn something and start that cycle again.

What’s that Bruce Lee quote? “I do not fear the man that has practiced a thousand moves once. I fear the man that has practiced one move a thousand times”. Skill comes with understanding and understanding comes with focus. At first, you focus on placing your fingers on exactly the right frets at exactly the right time, and then, after you’ve figure that out and can do it correctly, you do it over and over again until you’re sure that can always do it exactly the way you want to whenever you want it done. This isn’t esoteric lore. It’s common sense.