DRUMMER CAFE

An appropriate portion.

I've found that working on left hand lead hasn't been a waste of time, and while I still don't feel good enough to ride with the left hand on stage, it's helped me mentally free up my left and right hands into more graciously playing different notes in a bar without feeling it dictates my sticking greater than ergonomics.

No worries.  No offense.  I love this stuff.

I understand where I have gone wrong.  The brain simply reacts to the bodies sensory input.  So it's the bodies natural alignment I should be speaking of rather than the brain.

For me, the two things that help my left hand the most are playing the ride pattern with the left and learning a new grip.

I just listen to Blues and improvise ride patterns with my left hand, using traditional grip.  I try different approaches, using wrist only, finger control only, thumb only, Moeller triplets, etc.

My trad grip still sucks.  I don't have a functional left hand ride that's coordinated with the rest of my limbs.  But when I turn the stick over and play matched, my left hand works better than ever.

I think the combination of learning a new grip and playing ride patterns has increased my "body awareness" of my left hand  a lot more than all the back-and-forth rudiments I've practiced over the years.