As a guitar player, a lot of playing is muscle memory, combined with an overarching understanding of what you are trying to convey. In fact, the challenge is of

As a guitar player, a lot of playing is muscle memory, combined with an overarching understanding of what you are trying to convey. In fact, the challenge is often to break free from the muscle memory so as not to fall into the same patterns (like minor pentatonic scale) over and over. Part of practice is learning how to use muscle memory to handle the fast stuff – faster than you can process at full speed – freeing up your mind to think about the broader strokes. It's interesting to think that activities such as playing music, drawing, painting or practising sports are really a combination or interaction of fast muscle memory, slower rational/strategic thinking, and guiding emotion/intuition.