Thread: How long to get comfortable/proficient?

Its really like learning to play a musical instrument, you need to put the time into it to get the best results.

I gave a few guitar lessons when I was in Australia and something I noticed some guys doing when they were trying to develop their alternate picking was just pick as fast as possible on one string and flap their fingers around. All with the distortion on level 10 as well...!

That gets you the effect of it, but its not as good as truly accurate picking. If you listen to the really good alternate pickers, guys like John Petrucci, Al Di Meola, Michael Angelo Batio, Paul Gilbert and Rusty Cooley, they all have their coordination bang on. The plectrum hits the string at the precise moment they fret the note, and they're not drowning the note in gain either. Youtube them to see what I mean..!

So what I used to make the students do was pick up an acoustic guitar, so no gain to hide the mistakes, and play the run on that. And if they didnt get it bang on, they'd just get a load of tuneless plunks. So then they'd learn to slow things right down and get things accurate at a pace they were comfortable with before they upped the metronome to silly tempos. Because fast and uncoordinated sounds awful, but fast and coordinated can blow you away.

Its the same with straight razor shaving. You need to slow things down, take your time and not expect results overnight, but when you get comfortable with what you're doing, when you're happy with how the razor feels in your hand and on your skin, when your lather is just right and your stropping is music to your ears, you'll get the best shaves you ever had. Period.

Thats not to say learning straight razor shaving takes months (though it may take you a few weeks to get comfortable), but do be prepared to put the time into it and not get discouraged if you dont get that fabled BBS shave right off the bat..! Just keep at it and you will get there!

Good luck!