Perfectionist????!!??

Last night Janet was in class and we were working on Cranes solos. She gave us 20 minutes to noodle, but I haven't spent any time on Cranes solos because I never get to solo and well, I've been working on performing group stuff so much that I've kind of neglected Cranes. Anyhow, she went from person to person, helping them on their solos, and when she came to me, I didn't have anything. Nothing really. It's so hard for me to come up with something from nothing in 20 minutes. I was frustrated and I knew we would be going around doing our solos for the whole class. Frustrating! Impossible! She even pulled a drum up and played basic to force me to try to play something, but nothing came.

When we did go around and do solos individually, she asked if I wanted to skip having to do something in front of the whole class, and I said yes. Spared the torture! Hallelujah! Then she said I wasn't ready because I was a perfectionist.

Hold up.

A Perfectionist?

Me?

A perfectionist???!!

I think the reason why it stings so much, is because it's true. I am a perfectionist. She just was the one to point it out. Sigh. But it's true. I mean, just look at this blog. I have trouble sleeping because I can't play a song right. I spend my free time forcing my hands to play those ridiculous rudiments. I spent 12 hours coming up with a solo to play with any base beat of my choice for the P-group audition, and most of those 12 hours were spent crossing out the patterns I had just written down. And it was only 8 bars long! That's like not even 30 seconds!

Is it that I'm not satisfied until I can do something perfectly? Or I won't accept anything less of myself than perfection? What is wrong with me? I know I can play solos. Last weekend at the Sushi Summit, I had to play an odaiko (big, giant drum) solo, and I did fantastically! Susan thought so. Even I thought the solo was really good, and I'm a tough critic of myself. But I didn't set it, I didn't practice it, I didn't even think about playing a solo until I was actually playing it. And it was good! At work I can noodle and doodle and play really neat patterns and riffs or whatnot on my desk all day long. No problem. Sometimes I even surprise myself because of what I play on my desk.

So what is wrong with me?? Why do I have to be so hard on myself? How do I let go of that perfectionist side of me? I know I can play, and I know I'm a halfway decent player, but I hold back. How can I break through that? I mean, it's not even with just my solos, or just the cranes solo, but with everything. There are only moments of abandonment when my superpowers shine through, but I don't quite know how to tap into that. I know it's there, but where? But how? I feel like crying.