Can you practice relaxing?

I was playing a show a couple of nights ago in Lakin, KS and I started noticing that I kept making the same mistake in the same spots on a few songs. This night they were particularly bad. You'd have to know what my intentions were to really notice the mistakes as a listener, but for me it was starting to piss me off. Then I remembered a conversation a was having a few months ago with my friend Craig Lincoln (of the duo "Sabrina & Craig") about mistakes. He was telling me about a book (I'll post when I find out what it was) on practicing, and the author was positing that all mistakes can be boiled down to tension. I hadn't given it much thought since then, but during the show in Lakin it came back to me and seemed to make sense. On the break between sets I texted my friend Craig. I told him that I was realizing that the trick (once you know the song/lick/tune) is not to practice the song, but to practice "trying to relax". He thought that was a great idea; but posed the question "Is it possible to relax by trying to relax?" Great question. After giving it some thought I've come up with this:

"Trying to relax" may not be possible ("Do or do not. There is no try"), but you CAN become conscious of the tension, and then allow yourself to let it go.

Comments

[John Zipperer]

Thanks for the insight Luke. I honestly thought you were going to say that mistakes can be traced back to the first few times you learn a thing. For me I sometimes learn a mistake in the beginning.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with Dave Morrison after one of your shows where we were discussing your precision on the guitar, mandolin, fiddle... etc. He said "we practice something until we can play it right. Luke practices until he can't play it wrong."
This has helped me a lot and I've found that practicing something and playing it correctly not only increases the likelihood that I'll play it right under pressure, but relaxes me.
The doubt that creeps in when I haven't run through something for a while is one of my challenges.
Perhaps when I reach the level that you and Craig have confidence will be less of an issue.