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Thank you @Bill_Brown for reading my post and commenting. I appreciate that you are a very regular contributor to the forum. Thanks for that also.
So, I just wanted to say 2 things as I read your comment.
1st) I learned that we need to break things down to a really simple level at the beginning. Tony has a finger style warm up where you just hit the base strings with your thumb and you don’t use your fingers at all. In fact, the one I’m thinking of you hit all 3 base strings in different order so you really get used to being able to hit the correct string with your thumb. I believe you can find it in the Fingerpicking Jumpstart course found in the Skills Courses. After that, you can start adding your fingers in very simple patterns. First, do pinches. You can pinch with one of your fingers or all 3 along with the thumb. But do thumb, pinch, thumb pinch; then try thumb, pinch, pinch, thumb. There are actually 4 variations of just alternating the pinch; 1.x,3,x; x,2,x,4; x,2,3,x;1,x,x,4. (The “x” can represent the pinch or the thumb, you’ll still arrive at the same 4 patterns.) Then, there is the staggered finger pluck (Tony calls it the staggered pinch since there doesn’t seem to be an “official” name.) There is another warm up that does that using 2 base strings. Thumb, index, thumb, middle, where the thumb is hitting 2 different strings. Of course, that’s not true alternating thumb as you only have half a measure if those are 1/8th notes. True alternating thumb, the thumb strikes a base string for every 1/4 beat and the thumb hits all 3 base strings. The order depends on which string the root note of the chord is on. 5,4,6,4 or 6,4,5,4 are the 2 most common ones. But that is usually not carved in stone, but just a place to start to train your thumb to be automatic.
2) Don’t confuse the “mark complete” button with your desire to continue working on a particular lesson. That’s where our “intentional” practice comes in. It really works to actually write down what you want to work on every day. Now a days, I just hit “mark complete” at the beginning of my practice session because I have forgotten to mark it complete so many times after I practice. If I sign in and open the page, it’s because I’m about to spend a few minutes, or more, on the lesson. So, why not just hit complete. Now, I can get down to work on the lesson. But, I should already have warmed up using that weeks warm up or the one I am currently focusing on to increase some particular skill. Before or after the current lesson, I can go to any previous lesson that I want to do again and again to really get it into my muscle memory.
I hope this helps.
MG 😀