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To Be like Water, Take a Nap
Metadata
- title
- To Be like Water, Take a Nap
- description
- If you want to learn a new instrument, you should start napping. In this pod, I talk about mind-body connection, forming new synapses, and how musicians and pro athletes are actually very similar. Stop brute forcing your way to music greatness, and sleep your way to success!
- status
- complete
- date
- 2026-08-18
- kind
- solo
- guestSlugs
- —
- listenUrl
- https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovemusicmore/episodes/To-Be-like-Water--Take-a-Nap-e3nfvcd
- spotifyUrl
- https://open.spotify.com/episode/7jOcxGNnAhW7S4Os2ZcOvv
- appleUrl
- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/to-be-like-water-take-a-nap/id1567355195?i=1000784003606&uo=4
- topicsDiscussed
- Drums
- Philosophy
- Guitar
- Bass
- Creativity
- Piano, synth, and keys
- Music production
- Practice and napping
- hostNote
- If you want to learn a new instrument, start napping. The episode title is the method: **be like water**, then actually sleep. I stack musicians next to professional athletes: not the hotel rooms, the drills. Drumming makes the parallel brutally obvious: four limbs, a metronome that younger players hate, and a body that will not fluidly do what the ear already knows. The secret that has helped me most is not another hour of brute force. It is **practice, nap, practice, sleep**. NFL and NBA players already live that loop; I name **LeBron** taking two or three naps a day because longevity is the point, not a grind aesthetic. Short naps count. The person who sleeps after the session usually beats the person who just kept going. **Wu Wei** is the other half: stop forcing the groove and let the water find the shape. I teed this up the week before **Go-To Patterns with TOMMASO**, same drum-body conversation, from a drummer who is better at it than I am.
- selectedMoments
- label
- Musicians and athletes, not just travel
- startSec
- 86
- note
- I set the parallel: professional musicians and athletes share the body-learning, not only the hotels.
- label
- Next week: TOMMASO on drum mechanics
- startSec
- 101
- note
- I flag the Tommaso interview as the drummer-eyed half of this practice conversation.
- label
- Why younger players hate the metronome
- startSec
- 263
- note
- I talk through four-limb drift on the kit: the metronome makes every miss public.
- label
- Drills until the body stops thinking
- startSec
- 407
- note
- I compare unthinking drum limbs to NBA footwork: fingers teaching the brain, then the reverse.
- label
- The secret is taking naps
- startSec
- 493
- note
- I name napping as the practice tool that has helped me more than extra hours of forcing.
- label
- NFL, NBA, LeBron
- startSec
- 529
- note
- I point at pro athletes' nap loops (drills, rest, drills) as the model for musical longevity.
- label
- Practice, nap, practice, sleep
- startSec
- 582
- note
- I reduce the method to a loop: encode, sleep, encode again, then a full night.
- label
- Wu Wei: be like water
- startSec
- 723
- note
- I close the craft argument: brute force fights the groove; Wu Wei lets the water find it.
- excerptQuotes
- text
- I really think that there's a lot of parallels between professional musicians and professional athletes.
- startSec
- 84
- reviewed
- true
- text
- And my biggest secret, the thing that's helped me the most, is taking naps.
- startSec
- 489
- reviewed
- true
- text
- The people that I know that take the most naps are NFL and NBA players.
- startSec
- 527
- reviewed
- true
- text
- Those naps, I think LeBron takes like two or three naps a day, but those naps are the secret to the longevity.
- startSec
- 542
- reviewed
- true
- text
- If you can practice, nap, practice, sleep, you're gonna wake up the next morning.
- startSec
- 587
- reviewed
- true
- text
- There's this thing called Wu Wei, like be like water.
- startSec
- 725
- reviewed
- true
- text
- I think that we're going to be talking with Tommaso and we'll pick up this conversation from the eyes of a drummer that's a lot better than I am.
- startSec
- 757
- reviewed
- true
- faq
- question
- Why do I say you should nap to learn an instrument?
- answer
- Because the hard part is getting the body to do what the ear already hears. I have had more luck with a focused session, a nap, then a shorter second pass than with brute-forcing the same passage. Sleep is when the pattern stops fighting you.
- question
- What do musicians and pro athletes actually share?
- answer
- Not just travel. Both live in drills until the body can run the pattern without thinking: NBA footwork, four-limb drum independence, a metronome that exposes every drift. The people who last treat rest as training, not as a break from it. I use LeBron's nap habit as the longevity version of that idea.
- question
- What does Wu Wei have to do with practice?
- answer
- Wu Wei here means stop shoving. If you only brute-force a groove, you are fighting the water. Intention and focus still matter; the other half is letting the pattern arrive after you have given the body sleep. The Tommaso episode the next week is the same argument from a drummer's chair.
- transcriptPublished
- false
- draft
- false
Content
No body content; see metadata above.