# New Member Update **URL:** https://forum.troygrady.com/t/new-member-update/52419 **Category:** Playing Technique **Created:** [January 30, 2022, 2:56pm UTC](https://forum.troygrady.com/t/new-member-update/52419 "2022-01-30T14:56:19Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 2
### Author: ![joebegly](https://forum.troygrady.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/8797f3/32.png) [@joebegly](https://forum.troygrady.com/u/joebegly) #### Post date: [January 30, 2022, 5:16pm UTC](https://forum.troygrady.com/t/new-member-update/52419/2 "2022-01-30T17:16:59Z")
Great to hear about your progress! Though it’s not official CtC, one of my favorite threads on here is one that discusses your 5th point: > [@Rexx\_Engineering](#): > > My speed on single string pattern exercises is improving quite a bit. I can go much faster if I avoid patterns that have consecutive ring finger/pinkie combinations. I am avoiding those for now to build speed. I guess I will come back to them. > [@Efficient Digital Cycles](https://forum.troygrady.com/t/efficient-digital-cycles/18608): > > I have been preparing a post about the left hand postures and fretting strategies I use in my playing, after reading through the following thread: That promised post is still in preparation, and I will present it when I’m satisfied with it. In preparing that post, I watched through several instructional videos and CTC interviews again. While re-watching Shawn Lane’s Power Licks for the first time in a while, I realized something about his fretting sequences that I felt was extremely interes… Rather than coming back to them (unless they are vital for passages you play), an alternative is to just keep avoiding them since they are inherently slow for _most_ people. We’re conditioned to think everything we are bad at needs more work. Many successful players, consciously or not, took the alternative approach of just capitalizing on what came naturally for them 🙂 Life’s too short to be good at _everything_ and almost no one is the absolute best at everything. Eric Johnson can’t crosspick like Steve Morse. Allan Holdsworth couldn’t alternate pick like Al Di Meola. Rather than address these ‘weaknesses’, they all made careers out of their strengths. You sound like you’re already on your way to success, so congratulations and keep up the great work! --- _[View the full topic](https://forum.troygrady.com/t/new-member-update/52419)._