In this video I’m basically calling myself out (and yeah… you too) for all the little “weak” or annoying things we do on guitar—and why you should stop beating yourself up about them. I was thinking back to an old Guitar Player magazine article where Ty Tabor (King’s X) talked about embracing the parts of his playing he didn’t like, and how that’s where his identity showed up. That hit me hard because I’ve been doing the same dumb, idiosyncratic stuff for over 20 years, and at this point it’s just… me. I walk through a bunch of my go-to crutches: open tunings (open E, DADGAD, and on baritone stuff like open Ab/open G#), octave chords (including the easy drop-D style), “reversing” chord shapes, and those slightly uncomfortable dissonant tweaks where you move one finger a fret and suddenly it feels nastier. I also talk about note pedaling (because caveman-simple riffs are fun), and the trick of repeating something forever and then changing almost nothing—like shifting it a fret or going to an open note for impact (I straight-up stole that vibe from Lamb of God). The point: keep learning and pushing yourself, but also embrace the stuff that “sucks,” because that might be your personality on the instrument—like how you can instantly recognize players who aren’t necessarily doing the hardest thing, but they have a stamp.