Ante Up!

Rockers!

Boy it's warm in Accokeek. The pack of gum on the desk is melting. But that's no matter!

What's up in the crazy world of guitar on a crazy hot Monday? A nifty new practice idea. Yep, more ideas from the weight room. I ran into an old buddy, and he's Mr. Super Fit. He told me of a great workout routine. You may have heard of it.

You take a deck of playing cards, and assign an exercise to each suit. Say, pull ups are spades, push ups are diamonds, hearts would denote a bench press, and clubs are suitable, signifying a few rounds on a punching bag.

Each number would represent how many of that certain exercise you're to do. You start off with 52 cards, and see how far you can get in the deck! In our example, if you flip a five of spades, you'd do five pull ups.

Let me tell you, it's a killer. And a nifty way to break up a workout.

Well, why not do this with guitar (or any other musical instrument?) Try it by assigning picking to spades, legato playing (hammer on and pull off) to Hearts, sweeping to Diamonds, and string skipping to Clubs. (Of course, feel free to vary the practice material and suit assignment!)

Instead of reps, use the value denoted on the face of the card to represent minutes. Flipping a ten of Diamonds would mean ten minutes of sweeping.

Be warned, this is a six hour plus practice routine, and most of us don't have time to complete a deck.

I think it's a fun idea, and I suggest inventing your own ways to use the paste boards to aid your quest of sonic domination.

Rock on!

(By the way! The new poodleman.com is up and running! Check it out at www.poodleman.com )