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Hi @Sheryl14 ,
I was one of the cheerleaders. But with the site change I found myself focusing more on my own guitar practice and playing. At first, the slow page loading speeds were just more than my patience could handle, but when the speeds picked up, I was slow on the up take. I can only say I’m sorry.
The good news is there are other cheerleaders who are still active. @Loraine spends time visiting the forums and encouraging others. @jumpinjeff still comes to the forums and encourages others. And the are many new cheerleaders. @Bill_Brown responds to many threads giving encouragement. And there are others though I can’t come up with any other names off the top of my head.
I’m very sorry, Sheryl, that you have been suffering hand and finger pain. I glad you are able to get back to playing guitar. And I understand the feeling that you are starting over. However, you have had some experience that you didn’t have before. And you have some knowledge and some muscle memory even if it’s rusty. It’s true that your playing was on pause for a little while, but you didn’t actually start over. What you did was to show perseverance and pick up the guitar when you could that’s a big win.
And in the future, because there will be other times when you can’t actually play or practice for one reason or another, remember there are ways to continue improving even when you can’t play. You can practice finger independence by placing your hand palm down on a flat surface with you fingers splayed and lifting them one at a time. Try to do it in patterns and/rhythms. You can review rhythms you know in your head or by tapping them out. You can “strum” against your leg to practice patterns and/or rhythms you know or even learn new ones this way. You can review or memorize song lyrics and/or chord progressions. You can review or learn more about music theory. And you can always listen to guitar music and try to find songs or techniques that you would like to learn.
You are doing great just being here and reaching out. Please let us know how you progress from here.
MG 😀