Regulars may have noticed my absence from these pages so far this year. I’m afraid that I overdid BLIM class 1, and by Christmas I was burnt out, lost all motivation, and I wasn’t getting the sheer joy from playing guitar that’s the reason I started Justin’s lessons in the first place. Where I went wrong, I think was concentrating too much on technique and learning individual licks at the expense of playing songs.
So, I made the decision to take a break. I’ve had my guitars on their stands in my living space, just waiting for the inclination to strike, for four months.
Well, a few days ago the inclination did strike, I’ve started to pick up and play a guitar every day for the last few days. I’m steering clear of lessons and structured practice for the time being, instead I’m just playing songs, revisiting old favourites that I know I can play reasonably well with practice, that give me that joy that I was missing, and I’m going to stick with that until I’m certain that the habit of playing every day is locked in again. I have noticed that every time I pick up a guitar, at least an hour disappears, so that may not take long at all 
I’m already trying new things; the Telecaster I treated myself with towards the end of BLIM just begs to be played with barre chords, so I’ve been rearranging one or two songs that I originally learned with open chords. In fact, the limiting factor to my playing at the moment seems to be the pain that eventually develops in my left wrist (the one I injured a few years ago) after playing barres for a while. If it wasn’t for that I could quite easily play into the wee small hours.
My plan eventually is to revisit the part of the BLIM course that I woefully neglected - learning the Blues Standards. Also, at some point I guess I’ll tackle the final unit again, but putting myself under a lot less pressure this time! Then it’ll be time to start grade 4 of the “main” course. I’m anticipating treating much of grade 4 as BLIM revision 
My emphasis this year is going to be @Richard_close2u Richard’s mantra: Learn songs, learn songs, learn songs!
I’m glad to be back, both playing guitar and participating in this community; it feels like coming home x
