---
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
---