a year ago i was having issues with timing... i paused slightly in a couple spots in the song i was learning. it wasn't the right hand's fault... it was my brain... specifically, the analytical part of the brain not trusting the left hand's muscle memory. the left hand was fretting fine, but my brain was second guessing the fretting and wanted to analyze the finger positions before allowing the right hand to play. this was causing a slight hiccup in the timing.

i finally made a conscious effort to "let it rip". i had to force myself to allow the right hand to keep time and trust the left hand fingering. like taking off the training wheels. most of the time i got it right, but the times the left hand was wrong, i'd stop, take a 5 to 10 second segment of the song around the transition, practice it for 5 minutes, and try again. this usually solved the issue.

my overall progress increased dramatically after that, as i no longer had timing issues, any left hand issues were exposed and subsequently corrected, and my brain was freed up to think about dynamics, tones, and other such nuances.

i suspect this is something every guitarist encounters.

did you ever have a problem trusting your left hand? and if so, how did you correct it? what advice would you give to those still second guessing their fretting hand?