When first learning a technique, focusing on minute details actually stunts our growth!
It’s like chasing a single figure around the carnival carousel as it turns, energy and time are wasted in trying to catch every detail in a new technique.
We should instead just notice the basics, that it is a horse or a dragon, focusing on seeing the next as being a buggy or rabbit. A triangle happens when an arm is in and the other is out.
The next time around you’ll identify it faster, and this time notice if the horse or dragon is brown or white, or if the buggy or rabbit has matching wheels, pointy or floppy ears. The inside arm is across the body or our knee is against their neck.
Better to grab what you can the first time in limited fashion and expose yourself to the next, and the next, until you see the initial technique again, this time to be improved on.
We need to set aside our grinding need to fill in the details before they have the base to fill in around. Like writing or working out, sometimes less is more, and the power comes through the editing, the rest days, and biting our perfectionist tongue.
“Learning” too much of one technique is like cramming for a test. If your intention is to actually learn it, it should be over time, and alongside other technical ideas. In the extreme, imagine if we learned math up to calculus before we learned to read? Or olympic level swimming before learning to walk.
Like classical general education, each time we’re re-exposed we can learn more of each and and how they relate, and specialize along the way as it suits our changing game, our specific anthropometry and personality.