Excellent idea! I will hang on to that thought, thanks.
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Julie, I like your idea of searching out a song on Ultimate Tabs if you’re feeling like you can do nothing right (or are otherwise in a guitar funk). I have searched out tabs on that before, but I want to keep that in mind as a specific technique to use to try to break out of a guitar rut 
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Try changing from C major to D minor several times and you will notice one finger stays in place. A local guitar teacher was showing that to my daughter for her class to play Stand By Me. I tried it as well because I never got the change quickly. No more woes with Dm.
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Agreed, anchor fingers are a big thing to consider and just how the fingers move between chords in general. Economy of effort if you like. Don’t move your hands further away from the fretboard than is absolutely necessary.
With this in mind (and I’m also at module 7) I’ll sit and watch something on TV and move between a series of chords without looking at my guitar. Maybe 2 chords have 1 finger in common, or perhaps it’s just moving a finger 1 string up/down. I’m not trying to hit a strumming pattern, just move my fingers as accurately as possible (without looking) strum, if it sounds good, keep going, if it sounds rough, have a look at my left hand and see why. Maybe try it on a chord sequence from a song you want to learn.
There’s definitely days that are better than others. Trying to do chord changes and maintain a strumming pattern (especially one with missing downstrokes) is hard so don’t be hard on yourself about it. I practice a lot with muted strings so I’m working on one skill at a time. I then try and bring the 2 skills together but I don’t do it for long, a few minutes because after that it tends to get worse! When I take a longer view, maybe a week at a time, I see the progress
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Hi I feel just the same ,like I have gone backwards feeling very frustrated with my playing hope you can keep on with the journey of guitar,don’t know if I can sorry to be a downer
It’s the d chord that does my head in ,can never get right on acoustic
Hi Danny, I’m sorry that you are frustrated about your progress. Be sure, a lot of us sometimes have the feeling, something won’t ever work. You try it for weeks or even months and don’t succeed. Try something else, leave that D chord for a while and learn other chords. Give yourself the chance of getting a little distance to what frustrates you. And: DON’T GIVE UP! 
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You probably mis-typed a chord name here, since the C chord (CEG) and the Dm chord (DFA) do not share any notes, so no finger is staying in the same place.
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You’re right. I was thinking of D minor 7 to C major. Try that change quickly before moving to learn Dminor. I find that sliding my fingers instead of lifting when possible helps.
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Hi Helen thanks for your support,I am still sticking to it at the moment;just hope I can keep going, don’t want to give up just feel very frustrated at this time.
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Boy, looks like a found a thread that was written just for me. I started Justin’s course back in January. The beginning was a little rocky and frustrating, then I started gaining some confidence. Now, I feel stuck trying to pass Grade 1. I passed the first four requirements easy peasy, but I’ve been trying to learn my five songs for about four months now! I get discouraged some days, but I know I will get there.
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Hello Howard, it took me also quite long to finally pass grade 1. Learning the 5 songs wasn’t easy and quite time consuming. In my case, the reason was, that I didn’t only want to learn 5 easy songs to play with very simple chord progressions - as Justin suggests. Instead, I chose songs which were more challenging, and I learned to sing along as well. Maybe, the songs you have chosen, are also a bit tricky?
Sometimes it’s not so easy to stay patient, but it is definitely worth the time and effort. You’ll get there .
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Hi Nicole! I don’t think my song choices are too difficult, but I was pretty much told in another thread that I was taking on too much for passing Grade 1 as I was trying to learn some of Justin’s beginner techniques for my chosen songs. Example: the “reggae” sound for Tide is High and the “thumb & strum” for Chocolate Jesus. I’ve toned it down now — sticking to straight strumming and old faithful. Hopefully this will help move things along for me.
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I agree with you 100%. Keeping it more simple. I have done the same thing started really wide and had to narrow down my goals.
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Just checking back in on this post, thanks for all who engaged, and for others that came along and got some advice and encouragement from others. How’s everyone coming along?
I just started consolidating at the beginning of the year, and I’m glad you all posted this because I feel the same way! Things have been sounding ROUGH lately, even though I know this is better than I’ve ever been in prior attempts to learn guitar (I’ve had mine for 10+ years, but haven’t ever put enough work in to properly play it). And while I’m not glad that everyone goes through this, it certainly is reassuring that it’s not just me!
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This is helpful. It reminds me of a quote from cycling - " “It never gets easier, you just get faster”.
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as far as moving to the next level here’s my take for what its worth……I’m sticking with each mod til i get “relatively” comfortable playing the chords , strums and songs in that mod….not perfect. the lessons in grade 1 do not disappear in grade 2, you will still be playing A, D, E, G, C all over the place so you will get better at each as you move along and add new information.
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Thanks for your input, LesPaulMoreRay. I’m on Grade 2 Module 8 now, since November, though not consistently; Now I’m struggling through the stuck 3&4 chords, my hands and fingers hurt so bad, lol. Buuut, I’m trying to persevere, and then consider when to move one using a similar metric as you mentioned.
I’m new to the group and was going to post exactly the same topic however having read through all the replies here i feel much better. I’m 5 months in and on module 7 so i seem to be there abouts with good and bad days. It doesn’t help when my darling wife keeps asking when i will play proper songs and not keep practicing chords!!!
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