Have you ever noticed how professional musicians play in such an effortless way? They can be playing some amazingly complex song while at the same time grooving with the emotions and enjoying it with the audience.
That’s the result of a process… It didn’t start out that way. Playing any kind of musical instrument, at the beginning, is both mentally and physically challenging. In other words, it hurts! Practice session after practice session can be a grind, because it takes many years to master any instrument.
Along the way, you often learn more things than you’ll ever need. For example, I play clarinet. There are many alternate fingerings for various notes. You might never need to use them, but you might run across a composition where the standard fingering just won’t work, especially when playing something very fast. You are also going to play a wide range of music, trying out anything from classical to jazz to very Avant Garde compositions or improvisations.
So, the climb up that hill is difficult. You can’t master it all, so you’ll find your path and then you’ll start shedding all the unnecessary things to do your own style and what you like best. You’ll then perfect those fewer parts that you find you need and discard working on all those other things you don’t need.
Now, you start coasting downhill, it is smooth, it is fun, and you’ve built that mental and physical stamina, speed and fluidity that makes it all look so effortless to everyone else.
Do you realize that a complete training of a dog goes through this process for the dog and the handler? It’s hard for the puppy in the beginning. Every new thing is a challenge. Same with the handler/ owner. The homework piles on, and it is hard to keep up with all of it. Eventually… mastery. And now it isn’t so hard, and the application of the lessons to the real world all start coming together.
For a wolf, that process takes about 3 years in the family pack. For a dog, if you start them early on, it takes at least 2 years, and for some dogs, as much as 4 or 5 years, for mastery.
So, if it is hard right now. That’s ok, that is normal. One day it won’t feel that way, won’t be that way.
Plan accordingly.