Musicians with Dystonia Bulletin Board

Yes absolutely, me too. With a tricky arpeggio (tricky for me and my FD not trick per se) I may be able to pull it off very slowly once or even twice but even at slow speeds it can be hard to maintain.

This is where a meronome can be useful as its very difficult to judge and vary tempo when you are going slow. When the above happens it means you are at the threshold of your FD trigger. By setting your metronome at this speed, then dropping it down a few notches you should be able to play that sequence without breaking the flow i.e. playing under the threshold.

If it still doesn't work, then work on your sequence in small bursts eg 1,2,3, *pause* for three seconds, 1,2,3,pause, and so on. Hope that makes sense.

"Unfortunately I tend to be hypercritical about this stuff so its sometimes hard for me to view my overall progress objectively."

Yes, very. That's why I set up a spreadsheet with a small number of exercises each week at certain tempos etc, then gradually raise the tempo (or change the exercises if it was getting me nowhere). Having a log helps you keep track of all this and its handy on those bad days to compare yourself to where you were several months back.