Yeah that would be as if a psychologist needs to have each mental disorder they treat in order to treat it, at least as far as the relaxation/psych viewpoint.
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So would you take lessons from somebody who never picked up a guitar before but claims they fully know how to relax the arms, hands, shoulders, neck etc in order to play guitar better? I don’t think I would. I’d go to Anton because he can play guitar very well as a result of these things. Why not just go to a hypnotist? Unless I’m unaware of some information about his father, I’m still not sure how significant of an impact it is that his father was an Olympic athlete trainer outside of teaching how to practice efficiently and staying disciplined. Which are huge advantages themselves but that’s not really how his father gets discussed. It’s more about some secret information about relaxation that his father taught him. It’s got me curious That’s for sure
If they had evidence of multiple successful students I maybe would.
edit: I’ve been working on singing a bit recently and there definitely is that thing with trying to find someone who occupies all three points of the “can do it, can explain it, can get you to do it” triangle, but ultimately the most important one is “can get you to do it”.
I disagree with that. Physical skills and the law of specificity is different than a psychologist understanding all the signs and symptoms of different mental disorders in order to treat them
“So would you take lessons from somebody who never picked up a guitar before but claims they fully know how to relax the arms, hands, shoulders, neck etc in order to play guitar better?”
No, i would not, like the rest of us. But, maybe we should, like Anton did 
I read somewhere that Anton’s father played some guitar, but not good.
Still Anton has the best possible technique ever by incorporating the things his father taught him as a professional athlete coach.
To me that proofs you do not perse need someone who knows the instrument realy good or is a musician himself to teach you how to totally relax and use your muscles a certain way in order to get the best possible results on your instrument, regarding to technique that is.
I think this might be the most revealing thing if he were to do it. This particular string skipping is honestly not bad with outside picking, but inside might be a nightmare. I might give it a shot later just to see the speed difference.
Well for the relaxation part at least, that isn’t specific to any particular movement and is more psychological. That can be taught without being good at guitar for sure.
But for the physical part - I’d say it’s necessary to have a lot of familiarity with the thing you’re training, but not necessary to be especially good at it.
We have Olympic coaches that can’t perform nearly as well as the athletes they train. They get a lot of experience and knowledge over time that help them hone those with great genetics. Not sure if that would translate to them being able to take an average person and make them great (almost certainly not).
I also don’t really see Anton replicating his own success in any very visible way - which does give me pause. I’ve seen maybe three students total that could shred pretty well after significant practice with him but not to any exceptional degree beyond what some folks here accomplished working on different movements.
Maybe it’s because Anton is genetically more gifted than he admits. If the few students I’ve seen represent a baseline of what he can do rather than the best he can do, it would be interesting to see him with someone who’s a natural shredder as a baseline and improve them to his level (if he can).
Alexander Technique?
Not really sure how that would lead to advanced guitar playing skills. Are there any elite guitar players who references this as a significant part of their training? Seems like that’s just for general body relaxation and movement.
We do know Anton based a big part of his training on this and has the best possible skills you can imagine.
Of course you also need to practice a lot of other stuff to be a overall good guitar player in the end.
But, Anton is capable of doing stuff I have not seen any other player do it at his level.
He showed it in his latest video, playing all those difficult stuff even more precise and more relaxed then those already outstanding players.
I agree but I would chalk that up to him just having more natural talent. Or somehow grasping the correct efficient concepts early on and practicing those as opposed to spending years practicing incorrectly. I want to believe we would see more of his students at or closer to his level if this were so significant. I’d be happy to be proven wrong once his school opens up for us!
It’s really unfortunate that every time a video is posted of Anton doing a cool / challenging line, the thread starts to devolve into this kind of strange worshipping of him, with a mythical tone of his upbringing with regards to his supposed deeper knowledge of physiology gained from his father’s coaching experience. All of this is speculation at best, of what is most likely a marketing gimmick to sell more courses (no offense to him, but he is selling a service).
I enjoy seeing his content and trying out his lines, but he’s just another (very talented) guitar player. Plenty others have been posted in this forum, even interviewed by @Troy , that do some pretty unreal stuff. Somehow, their threads don’t become this “hype” chat about how untouchable their playing is, or how they’re the pinnacle of picking (alliterated somewhat on purpose).
This is basically what I was trying to get at but you were much more concise about it lmao
Edit: oops accidentally deleted my previous post
Hi All,
Given past experiences, can we please try to keep the discussion on the technical side of things?
Thanks!
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Then you just don’t understand how special Anton is.
He realy is something else when it comes down to technique and especialy alternate picking technique.
Of course there are lots of outstanding players out there, but when it comes down to alternate picking technique Anton realy is in a league of his own.
We are just trying figure out why he has this extra capabilities being able to play the most difficult stuff you can imagine so relaxed and with such precision
And, yes i “worship” (read admire) Anton for his unbelievable picking technique, but i also admire Allan Holdsworth for his unbelievable legato playing and out of this world improvisation capabilities, or Guthrie Govan who can do it all, or Pat Metheny etc, etc…
I’ve just deleted some off-topic, obvious shit-stirring posts. You’re doing fine so far checking out playing examples and fun attempts. That’s as it should be. Anyone else shows up trying to turn things negative, let us know and we will shut that down immediately.
Here’s some specific advice: if an opinion has been stated before, stop re-stating it. Otherwise we go around in circles. This idea of Anton potentially having or not having some type of secret physiological knowledge or skill has come up before, and all the opinions have been expressed. It’s clear that nobody’s mind is being changed. So let’s just move on from that. It’s fine to discuss things we can do to improve playing technique, or cool science stuff you’ve learned and want to link to. But the speculation on him specifically is part of where this drama starts so let’s leave that subject in the past. Thanks.
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Julian Lage, but it has been many years since I saw the article or videos where he talked about it. I do remember that he thought highly enough of it that he became a certified teacher. Granted, he was already a heavy player by that point.
Edit:
https://www.easeofbeing.com/digging-deeper-the-diving-board-effect
I didn’t read this article, so he might talk smack about it in it.
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Taking a step back on technique in general - I think there’s this idea that if you get “The Right” technique down - suddenly all picking patterns are unlocked. I had a bit of this impression with Crosspicking and learned pretty quickly that it’s not the case, it just provides the tools you need to master a wider array of picking patterns, It doesn’t abstract away attaining mastery for all picking patterns or something. Getting a lot of motions down will give you a lot of ways to attack mastering new picking patterns, but you don’t get them for free or even really that easily after that.
So likewise, there’s nothing magical about this string skipping, but I think you need to treat it like a new technique, and explore the motions until one feels like it clicks. Coming at it from shock and awe will just increase your mental block towards the technique.
With techniques like this, I do think we’re introducing even more joints into the motion - shoulder and elbow and wrist and forearm, so it becomes difficult to convey beyond saying “It’s like a relaxed scooping motion”, and that adds to the “mystery” of it.
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Yeah, some good points!
But, i still believe some people have just the abillitie to control their muscles more and/or move faster then others.
Like some people, without any problem, are able to move just one eyebrow a lot while keeping the other one completely motionless. Others, how hard they may try, just can’t do it.
Other example:
Back in the days i owned one of the first sample machines, Akai, which had this button to replay the sample you recorded.
A friend of my was able to push that button repeatedly so much faster then i was able to do.
How hard i tried and tried and tried, i never got to his insane speed.
Yeah I don’t think anyone can argue against there being some level of genetic component where you’ll cap out in terms of speed/accuracy - but I think the argument has been most people it’s way faster than they think and the margin might not be as wide.
It could also end up being more noticeable with compound movements and fluidity between them because some are less coordinated than others. I don’t know to what extent that is a real limiting factor. I think the vast majority of people can play much more complex/fast stuff than they realize though.
Just like there appears to be genetic ability to really retain and quickly pick up lots of picking and fingering patterns or to mentally string them together in a tasteful, unique way.
But, that doesn’t really get us much in the way of constructive advice since it’s pretty much set in stone. All we can do is push our limits.
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