When I was practicing my one minute chord changes I was rushing to get as many changes I could within the minute,I thought I was doing great getting just over 40 changes a minute. However when I tried to progress onto practicing songs I found my fingers were getting tangled all over the place. I decided to go back to the start and decided to relax instead of rush, now from A-D it’s 39,A-E 30 and E-D 28 changes per minute. What a difference relaxing and letting it flow is to rushing and being all tensed up. I enjoyed the guitar before but enjoy it even more now. I know it’s going to take time to really become good on the guitar but I think the journey will be worth it, after all Rome wasn’t built in a day.
That’s a good mindset to adopt. It will take time but sloppy practice will result in becoming a sloppy player, practice making permanent as Justin says. It’s no bad thing to push just a little bit beyond where you are as something of a test and also after you’ve practiced a little too fast, then scaling back just a little can feel really easy.
It sounds you’re being honest with yourself which is also a good trait as long as mixed in with the occasional pat on the back for recognising what you’ve achieved rather than just being defeated by the mountain ahead. In the early stages that might be basic stuff like doing 30 chord changes a minute, but a week ago you probably couldn’t do that
I’ve been right there with you! For me, adding the Beginner Stretching exercise to my practice routine was a great complement to one-minute changes. It increased my flexibility and reach, and greatly helped with accuracy.
I find it’s best not to go straight into the chord changes. As another post suggested some kind of warm up is a good idea - finger exercises or scales.
When you feel ready and relaxed go to the chord changes. The trick for me is not to over-think it. A measure for me is being able to do the changes on auto-pilot, if I can put it like that. And don’t focus on the speed because that will slow you down
I normally do my finger stretching exercises and finger independence exercise before I do anything else.
That is totally normal. When you are practising the chord changes on their own your brain + fingers are repeating one movement over and over again. Just one thing to focus on. When you are moving on to a song there is a chord progression so your brain has to process more than one movement and those in a specific order. If you are tangling up slow down a gear or break it down into smaller pieces. You could also bulk up your chord changes in steps, e.g. move on from one to two chord changes over again A-D-A-E-A etc (or different versions of it) and when that’s ok then add a third until you can play through the full chord progression.