This week I have done shorter sessions each day, with specific focus on the movements for the pre-screen video. I made a ABCD list for each one... ideal... then down from there... Recording now in the shape they are in, next steps... I've been playing through each movement each day, trying to focus on making at least one note or passage better.
On Monday during the marathon day, I played through the second movement of the concerto and I got sobbing... missing mom... and thinking about how she took me to all my lessons... printed the list of schools offering music degrees in the US... how I couldn't tell her about the DMA journey. Missing mom has been hard the last few weeks. I miss her everyday. 
Another challenge this week was a 3 day migraine headache... and the Statement of Purpose required for the application that took me a total of 6 hours! 6! 
I had a complete meltdown on day 75 thinking that I just wasn't good enough, and no matter how much time I had put in, it just would never be enough and I wasn't as good as all the other DMA cellists... I wouldn't get accepted... just so sad... I cried hard for a few minutes then I thought about what I would say to a student:
- You can't change the past. You are right here where you are. 
- You still have time. Keep working. Don't give up on the hard spots, keep putting the rocks in the hole... again... can you figure out anything that you missed? try any new strategies? do it again? Just keep coming back to them. Add one more note of memorization... be intentional. We don't know if you will be the level of candidate they want, but you can do your best and just see what happens... When I went back and practiced again it sounded much better and I am trying to just keep returning to the hard measures, the parts I don't have memorized... the intonation... a little more and a little more and a little more.... 

I woke up before the alarm and couldn't sleep... So I did the first walk at 5AM in the dark... then yoga, improvisation with drones by candlelight... and I started my journey. I walked .3 miles on the hour which was three times around the field, or a walk in the woods. 7AM...then 8AM Gene walked with me. It was snowing a bit and wet, so I would put on an extra pair of pants, boots, hat, coat... I had snacks... and kept going... and going... I did some memorization games, listening, and lots and lots of practicing... at 2pm I drove down to Marcy Field and met my friend who was actually running a mile on the hour and we ran together and then went to the little community store and got baked goods, vegs, treats! then more walks and more practicing... 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 7pm, 8pm with Gene in the dark with headlamps... and more... at 9pm I met Dre for the final run and we did 2 miles... Fourteen walks, two jogs, about 7 miles total, and at least 7 hours of practicing... or more... SOOO tired at the end... physically, mentally... couldn't have done more without an injury in my arms or hands... 

Eating chips and nacho dip and memorizing Bach Prelude game. 

Day 67 My friend turned 100! Birthday Party! Some practicing
Day 68  Supposed to play with pianist which was cancelled so I got some good practicing in... and stacked a lot of wood! 
Day 69 Taught, Did some practicing, Rehearsal
Day 70 Performance Walton Facade SUNY Plattsburgh... Taught lessons, rested... concert!
Day 71 Rest Day and Prep for practice marathon...! 
Most of this week my practicing was productive, but didn't feel like it was enough at all... I spent about five hours on my application for Miami... was struggling to find time to do everything... On Sunday morning I freaked out about not having enough time to practice when I looked at my calendar for the week and it looked full... I spazzed and then made a plan. I moved lessons closer together, asked people to move from morning to afternoon so I could get my time in first, and I made plans to use my Monday to the fullest with the mile an hour challenge... 
It was inspired by this guy... a runner who ran a mile on the hour and did as many projects around the house as he could in between... I wanted to use the exercise time as a reset and structure for getting as much practicing done as I could... On Sunday night I prepped food, found snacks, filled my nalgene bottle, vacuumed my cello room, set out my yoga mat, made a plan, and set my alarm for 5:50AM.... 
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvT5XS7j-Dc&t=6s
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 Day 59-66 I've been practicing every day, but discouraged that it never seems enough and I'm not on top of everything. Been practicing for Facade gig so that takes away some of the focus also... but I'm slogging through. I was thinking about how its like doing 3 mile days. Not what I want but still miles... but I'll need some big mileage days if I want to meet my goal! 
Day 63 Lesson with Erika Duke Kirkpatrick, and chat about Cal-Arts. Disappointed to hear there are very few string players. It is important to me to have the sound and playing and opportunity of playing quartets again. Cal-Arts ruled out. I loved my lesson though and am sad that studying with her in person is not a possibility any more. 
Day 64 Rest Day
Day 65 3.45 hrs! RECORD DAY! Its been actually years since I practiced that much in one day. The hard thing was that I felt like I made little progress... perhaps that is true, or its just that there is so much to do I'm impatient. Either way, I put the time in! I sent short clips of myself playing from the concerto to several cello teachers/friends and asked for suggestions. Each response was unique and helpful! My main struggle right now is feeling imbalanced and tense in my bow hand. I re-focused on balancing to middle fingers, and bending my thumb... bad habits still alive and well! I go to play more that a passage and I just can't get through it. Its painful and the sound is bad, and I start to get anxious... 
Today I did some gentle weight lifting before starting my practicing and had a lot of outdoor time mixed in. It helped me feel focused and okay with sitting still so long indoors. 
Day 66 2.45 hrs! Another solid day! I practiced about 45 minutes of the Bach 6 prelude and I focused on loosening up my wrist (a suggestion from my friend Sandra) and it helped so much... the stamina... the sound... all of it felt so much more doable with that focus. 

Day 50 Rest Day
Day 51 Lesson with Alan Rafferty at CCM. He pointed out that I needed to work on hearing sixths. Not as a separate interval but the double stops moving through sixths. He is totally right. He sent me an exercise to work on and I started thinking about all the ways we use sixths and it felt like an ocean of things to work on... 
52-55 productive practicing but not enough of it. Also working on Walton Facade for gig so not all focused.
Day 56-57 Family Days... drove to Rochester to visit family... Sat-Mon. intense trip, glad I went but hard to get back into things. 
Day 58   20 min warm up with niece practicing piano, 20 minutes on music for gig 

Day 49 
Day 48   1  1/2 hours  Very productive evening session. I didn't want to stop.
Day 47    2 hours and 7 minutes 
Day 46    zero day. freezer technician, landlord... my morning busted! 
Day 45    1 hour 

Day 41 I went for a run early and then practiced. Such a physically different feeling than the night before. I felt loose and easy, even smooth. On this day I had some other crap going on in life and a lot of anger. I did quite a bit of practicing, in between texting a friend for advice and venting and ruminating and... then in the evening I talked to a professor about a prospective program. Lets just say that it did not go well and afterwards I was in tears and very discouraged. I cried and cried and cried... 
Day 42 Still upset from all the things, but also telling myself that one person at one school's opinion is not what matters. They don't know me. They have never heard me play. They don't know what's important to me... So I did practice some...    .52 minutes. 
Day 43 Rest Day
Day 44 I journaled about how I felt like I wasted a lot of time this week... being human... obsessing over things... a lot of sadness, anger, other sadness... a rough week emotionally. Just went through a piece for a concert in November and will start the audition work again tomorrow. I wrote that cello Esther is happy, but wants more hours towards the end of the week. I'm looking at my calendar and thinking TOO FULL!!! and also, that I need to be employed more... Needing to practice more time. What I worked on was productive but not enough to meet my deadlines. Its a long haul! 

37 I got 3 hours!
38 2 hours
39 1.15
DAY 40!!!  20 minutes. Man, after a long day I tried to practice and I was tense, tight; it was not working and it felt bad. The kind of bad that feels like you can hurt yourself and just waste the time. SO. I let it go. Tomorrow. 
I did work on the narrowing down the schools and emailing etc yesterday and today. That takes an unreasonable amount of energy for me. Perhaps one of the ways I am an introvert. 

Day 32 I did it but don't remember the details. haha. 
Day 33 practiced in between teaching and cleaning the house. Good practice. Maybe an hour and a half?
Day 34 I anticipated not practicing while my Dad was visiting, but he was content to read in the evening so I did! I worked on fingering the next section in Finzi first movement, reviewed what I had worked on already, practiced some of the third movement, then worked on the Allemande and a little prelude. Maybe an hour and a half?.. Also did scales with a student earlier in the day. 
Day 35 Another evening with time to practice while Dad read. Did about 45 minutes. Worked on my hard spots pages... Finzi first movement... got stuck on m.121-133. not sure about fingering but tried it several times. Reviewed everything else I'd worked on. Practiced third movement some spots... a little Fazil Say... then some Allemande and played through all of the Prelude. The prelude felt hard. Physically awkward and difficult. 
Day 36 Rest Day 
Day 37 Feldenkreis video today talked about asking at what point something becomes difficult. I practiced one page of hard spots asking myself 'Is this hard?' 'What about it is hard?' 'At what point does it become hard?' I was surprised to answer that none of these things were hard. What was hard physically was holding my arms up in thumb position. I was getting fatigued. And also pressing down in very high positions with string height... So the hard spots aren't hard, they are less familiar and the motion isn't memorized... it was a different approach.  
Today is Monday, so I'm wanting a plan for the week, but also feeling a but unmoored. I need to keep up my intentional daily memorization of the third movement and also now the first movement. Doing both simultaneously is unnerving and perhaps stupid. I need a more specific plan. And also for getting the Bach ready to perform and also the Fazil Say. 
Intentions:
Each Day:
Start practice day with Feldenkrais video, and warmup with those thoughts in mind. 
One page of thumb position exercises 2x
Some other kind of scales/technique for 5 or more minutes
Hard spots pages
fingering for another section in movement F 1 and review what I've already worked on. A lite memory challenge
F3 Something intentional for a section I have not memorized. Something intentional for the entire thing memory. Practice spots. 
Some FSay... playing through spots, practicing a measure, familiarizing with intention...
ALSO Choose some chunks of relaxed time throughout the week to focus in on Bach... plan a Bach practice retreat somewhere... 
No wasted practice time. Be intentional. Not just playing through... this is the time to address problems. be aware. fix things. practice slow and mindful. 
Also, maybe some rewards, and some deadlines, play for people...
I feel sleepy!! NO!!!!! have so much work to do!!! 

"IF YOU FEEL STRONG RESISTANCE, BACK OFF AND GO SMALLER" (Stephen Guise Mini Habits; Smaller Habits, Bigger Results)
I woke up feeling anxious, down, and discouraged about running and celloing this morning so I didn't want to get out of bed. I let myself sleep in a little, then took my supplements and started journaling. My wonderful husband brought me some caffeinated tea and made me an egg for breakfast. I have a book by my bed I started reading many months ago and picked it up today and was struck so much by this statement: "IF YOU FEEL STRONG RESISTANCE, BACK OFF AND GO SMALLER"... I read several pages in this book and it turned my attitude around completely.

Firstly, some mistakes last week... 
Another principle in the book is  "BE HAPPY WITH ALL PROGRESS". "REWARD YOURSELF OFTEN..." In my effort to motivate myself last week I put out a reward. I practiced 10 hours which was more than I had in a long time. It was huge progress. And I worked hard at specific goals and made a lot of progress! I worked hard on days I felt sick and sad and I got a lot done! But I focused on not making my goal at the end of the week instead of celebrating. I punished myself because I didn't quite get there... Gene pointed out that I needed to reward myself for all that work not just focus on the final two hours I didn't do. His friend likes to say: "ITS NOT HOW MUCH YOU DO ITS HOW MUCH YOU GET DONE". Also on this thought from Guise is the rule: "PUT EXTRA ENERGY AND AMBITION TOWARD BONUS REPS, NOT A BIGGER REQUIREMENT. IF YOU'RE ANXIOUS TO MAKE BIG PROGRESS, POUR THAT ENERGY INTO YOUR BONUS REPS. BIGGER REQUIREMENTS LOOK GOOD ON PAPER, BUT ONLY ACTION COUNTS. BE THE PERSON WITH EMBARRASSING GOALS (as in so small) AND IMPRESSIVE RESULTS INSTEAD OF ONE OF THE MANY PEOPLE WITH IMPRESSIVE GOALS AND EMBARRASSING RESULTS."  "BEING HAPPY WITH SMALL PROGRESS IS DIFFERENT FROM HAVING LOW STANDARDS".

Because I wanted to increase my time practicing and increase my productivity and commitment to my goal, I increased the requirement of time spent. This helped me to prioritize cello last week, but it also put success on time rather than getting to the instrument at all... On Saturday I would have practiced some if I had not had the two hour deficit in mind. Instead I did none. Yesterday when I did 25 minutes at the end of my day I considered it not very good instead of being happy with the good work I did that furthered my progress through the Finzi concerto, and continuing the habit so I would be ready to work today.  
Today I woke up feeling incapable, but as soon as I thought about little goals, impossibly stupidly small goals I was ready to go! Excited, even. This morning I got my cello out just to do anything and I was happy about that. A scale was my goal. What actually happened is that I jumped directly into Finzi first movement and have been practicing in a very targeted way in small steps. Only what feels attainable. "WHEN IT SOUNDS STUPID, THAT MEANS YOUR BRAIN IS GIVING THE GO-AHEAD. THESE "STUPPID SMALL" STEPS SLIDE UNDER THE BRAINS RADAR LIKE AN EXPERT JEWEL THIEF AVOIDS SECURITY CAMERAS AND TRIP SENSORS." As I go I make a list of additional small steps... even ones that feel too stupid to put on a list, so when I go back to my cello after writing this I have ideas... nothing so overwhelming as 'practice for three hours', 'learn the next page  of Finzi concerto', or 'practice well'... but precise action steps towards progress. Today I won't be keeping a timer of my minutes. I've already made my goal, its all extra reps from here!
"EVERY GIANT ACCOMPLISHMENT IS MADE UP OF VERY SMALL STEPS ANYWAY, AND TO TAKE THEM ONE AT A TIME IS NOT NOT WEAK, BUT PRECISE."