Straight into a Full Run-Through

My daily solo practice routine (before competition)

  1. (On my way to the studio, I would listen to the music and run through the whole routine two or three times in my head.)
  2. Once I arrived at the studio, I would give myself no time to think and go straight into a full run-through under performance conditions, filming it as I went.
  3. Then I would watch the video, score it, and review it.
  4. With those notes in mind, I would do another full run-through, film it, then watch, score, and review again.
  5. After that, I would isolate the parts most likely to fail and test possible fixes.
  6. If time allowed, I would still try to squeeze in one last full run-through at the end, filming that too.
  7. Cool down.
  8. Clean the studio.

Outside studio time, I was also constantly analyzing the parts of the routine structure I was not satisfied with and testing more systematic ways to improve them.
Warmups and basic conditioning were kept outside studio time as well; once I was in the studio, the point was to run, review, and fix.

There were several reasons I began with a full run-through the moment I arrived at the studio. One was simply that I wanted to get it done while I still had energy. Another was the idea that if I could not run the whole thing on the spot, even right after waking up, then I was not even minimally ready for the real thing.
Also, in order to reach the extremely arbitrary goal I had set at the beginning (200 full run-throughs in three months), I had to run the routine two or three times a day, and if I did not get one in at the start, I would not be able to accumulate enough repetitions.

That alone was already more than enough. Most days, it would take up the whole session.

The success-rate spreadsheet was not there to grade me. It was numerical data for identifying causes and planning countermeasures, a way to judge by evidence rather than by impression.

Blessings upon you all!


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