Leveling Up | A Guitarist's Self-mastery Journal

[Dan Arnautu]

Entry 11 | Leo's Book List, Catching Up With Old Friends and The Pursuit of The Driver's License

 

Today I just bought Leo's book list and it's mindblowing. I sat for a few hours looking through the selections in awe, reading and listening to the reviews - basically just being just all around hyped about how I am going to further skyrocket my growth. A lot of the books from the list I have read already, but I think they do deserve a re-read.

There are definitely some hidden gems in the list that I would not have found elsewhere in a million years and that makes me just more glad that I had bought the list. My thought process right now is that whenever I encounter a problem on a specific aspect of life, let's say dating, I can just go to the dating section of the booklist and find out from the book reviews which book may adress my current problem at the time.

Also, now I know which ones are the most profound and life transforming or the "you NEED to read this before you die" kind of books. With this intel, I can get to dive into them ASAP. Although, the first book choices will still be made depending on what issues I am currently facing.

I recommend this list to everyone. It is definitely worth much more than what I paid for it, at least in my opinion.

 

I got back into my hometown about one week ago. Here I got to meet some of my old childhood friends again. Even though I like Bucharest for the opportunities it presents, I also enjoy the quiet time in my hometown and the chance to catch up with my old friends. It really brings me back to my roots. My mood is much better right now.

One friend specifically came to visit me for about 2 weeks. I get to go to the gym with him while he is here and, I gotta say, it's nice to have (even a temporary) gym partner once again. I also get to teach him how to play the guitar until the end of his stay here.

I briefly wrote in a previous entry about how I would like to sell my current Gaming PC and buy a Macbook Pro laptop (for many different reasons). This guy I was talking about is kind of an Apple junkie, meaning he has a lot of Apple products, including a Macbook Pro that he did not bother to sell until I asked him about it. I am actually writing this post from that Macbook right now, as he offered me a 2 week trial period to see if I like it or not. I still did not get to sell my own PC, but this guy told me that if I am gonna be 100% decided on the purchase of the Macbook by the end of the trial period, he is going to keep it for me until I get all the money I need to make the actual purchase.

I think I am already sold out on it to be honest. The laptop works like charm and I can definitely say that it's all I ever needed and wanted for my work to blossom. 

 

The last thing that I wanna talk about is my driver's license. I started working to get it last summer, but before I got to take the exams, I already needed to go back to college and postpone the exam towards the summer of this year. Unfortunately, I need to remake all the documents that are needed for the driver's license folder as their expiration dat is due next week.  

I need to make another medical record and take all the physical and psychological tests again. I am not even in the slightest mood for that right now, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right? Also, I need to learn all the theory once again in order to pass the theoretical test by the 18th of July (less than three weeks from now), and it's not gonna be easy. 

Although, I strongly believe that I am gonna get through. 

 

This was Dan. I'm signing out! Have a great day!

 

Edited June 28, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Dan Arnautu]

Entry 12

 

Bowen Therapy

So, my mom not long ago got certified as a Bowen Therapist. For those of you that don't know, Bowen Therapy typically involves gentle rolling motions along the muscles, tendons, and fascia. The therapy's distinctive features are the minimal nature of the physical intervention and pauses incorporated in the treatment. They just give the muscles and tendons a stimuli that sort of triggers the body to "repair itself".

I don't know if what I experience is a placebo effect or not, but I personally found that Bowen Therapy helped me with the release of some energy blockages and muscle knots, and I also found that at least for me, it is a good method of relaxation or even meditation (because of the long pauses between interventions).

Anyway, while I was away in Bucharest for college, my mom kind of transformed my room into an office or therapy room, with a massage bed and all. She kind of did the same with the living room, just so she could work on multiple clients at once. I have no problem with that, but right now, as I'm gonna be here all summer, it's kind of irritating to have to get up and move to her bed in order to sleep when she has a client at 7:00 or 8:00 A.M.

Granted, I do ask her for money from time to time, and I can't complain because the money probably comes from the therapy sessions and she also does some interventions on me once or twice per week while I am here.

A funny thing that started happening to me yesterday and that usually happens to me 1 day after a therapy session is that my muscles start to contract spontaneously (from my calves to my palm flexors, traps, hips, shoulders, neck etc.). Yesterday, my left palm's flexor muscle, right under the pinky finger and together WITH the pinky finger started having constant spasms for about 3-4 hours. It looked like I had Parkinson's disease (knock on wood), lol. My mom told me that what I am experiencing are just the muscles rearranging themselves and healing.

I don't really care if what she says is true or not. This thing is still freaky AF, haha.

 

Working on My Personal Website

A close friend who happens to also be a programmer started helping me a few days ago with my website. He helped me save a ton of money with the website hosting and back end dev overall (a thing I am no specialist in).

I am now officially hosting my website on a UK server through 5wire Hosting. I really can't recommend this service enough as it is 5 times cheaper than most web design platform packages that come with hosting or even 5 times cheaper than only the hosting service. The payment was easy and I experienced no major problems with the setup. I soon after installed Wordpress on the server, created a professional e-mail, got access to my cpanel and wp-admin page in order to edit the website and all that is need to do now is to, well ..... design the actual website.

The web design part is no biggie for me though. I had designed at least 5 websites before, although not from scratch, but with various different builders, from Wordpress to Wix and Ukit. It shouldn't be that much of a hassle for me to create this website, although I am once again thinking of redefining it's purpose and figuring out how to use the new builder that my website theme comes with. 

All of these may take some time, but I know it's all gonna be worth it in the end.

 

Guitar Student Success

This programmer friend that I've have been talking seems to also be passionate about music. Just before he left Manchester for vacation here, he asked me to help him with choosing an electric guitar. In the end, he purchased the guitar that I guided him towards. While he is on vacation here and until his guitar arrives, I started helping him with some problem areas he had on the guitar like his palm muting, alternate picking, hand synchronization and rhythm.

Yesterday I taught him how to play a simple, but awesome solo. He was more than pleased with my guidance but he is still doubtful of his own potential and rate of progress.

I found that the best approach in these type of cases is to praise every little sign of progress. Some people may be progressing very fast, but they may not see it and still have a very negative self talk in their head - and once the gremlin in their head turns against them, it is very hard to help them from the outside.

A lot of times, as a teacher, people may not doubt your capability to provide extraordinary results for your students, but they may doubt their own potential to achieve success. That's why it is your responsibility as a teacher to make them create a big and compelling vision for themselves and show them that they CAN and WILL get where they want to go if they follow what you tell them to do.

Most people think that teaching is just about regurgitating information. But a really good teacher goes beyond that. Students may not always need you as a teacher (as in: a person that passes on information), but they may need you as a coach or a mentor. A good teacher know when to fulfill each role and adjusts accordingly. Sometimes the student might feel blue or might lack any sense of direction. Teaching him one more scale shape on the guitar won't help him progress on his musical journey. Addressing the issue at hand will.