I completely get what you're saying. I've achieved good enough independence with my arms and my right leg, but never really got there with my left leg. Outside

I completely get what you're saying. I've achieved good enough independence with my arms and my right leg, but never really got there with my left leg. Outside of playing quarter or eighth notes over whatever else I'm doing, I never really got there with the rest of it. If I were to try and learn something more a more syncopated left leg pattern, like a lot of latin grooves have, it would take me a lot of practice before I felt comfortable with it. That's where I really began to struggle and start noticing shortcomings in my play. When I started working through Complete Modern Drum Set, which probably increased my proficiency on the set more than any other book, is when I really started to notice how much I struggled with it. A lot of that stuff wasn't that difficult to pick up -- the linear patterns, time signature changes, playing off the beat, etc. But through in some odd hi-hat work and I just fell apart. I never really struggled with some of the other stuff you mention though. Rudiments, keeping time, understanding tempos, and how notes break down, etc. That stuff came relatively naturally. Once I understood notes break down into whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, etc., understanding things like triplets came very naturally. Interesting story about Steve Smith. I remember seeing a video of Carter Beauford struggling through odd time signature changes as well. I'm sure unless you're immersed in things like progressive music on a regular basis, things outside of standard time signatures probably are a little foreign, especially to pop drummers like Smith and Beauford.