Hello, this is an entry in response to Eugene's post on looking at practice in a very basic perspective. (Im so sorry Eugene, I always feel an obligation to respond or say something else when theres a post here - my point is, Im sorry that your post doesn't usually last long on number one spot). Ok, I've had some personal experience, I think very importantly when we practice we need to do so in a smart manner, not blindly, because the latter would only lead to a waste of time, and if you blindly practice you need to spend more time getting back on track. Yea, so as I was saying, for tan tiao etc, sometimes when we feel frustrated that we're not improving though we mug our instrument for damn long, we need to step back, take a deep breath, inspect our surroundings, mayb e have a cup of coffee or do some push-ups, look at the big picture before picking up the instrument again. Sometimes if we practice the wrong way, we'll seem to never get it right. Eg. Tan tiao, sounds complicated, with positioning of wrist hand leg etc, but most importantly tan tiao has to be natural and relaxed. Should'n feel like too stressed out, arm too aching or something, because if that happens you're probably learning the wrong way. Yeap, so if I didn't make sense, erm, doesn't matter. But I hope this helps =).

Chun Yin