I love cold reading . . . I hate cold reading

What the f**k is going on?

I've been applying Guskin's taking-it-off-the-page technique in practicing cold reading (see How to Stop Acting), and I seem to be having less and less success. I think trying to adhere to the mechanics of this approach has been distracting me (and Guskin warns NOT to treat it as a technique). I'm not sure where my attention is as I sight-read. I know it's taking a long time for me to pick up the phases, with little to show for it . . .

However, I occasionally have breakthroughs. I'm frustrated because I don't know exactly what's going on, but there's a VERY strong correlation between the speed of picking up a phase and the interval between picking up the phase and speaking -- with both variables, the shorter, the better. What happens, I don't quite know how (or more importantly, it's not stable, not reliable), is that an impulse forms as I pick up the phase and it's there, complete, as I end. When this happens, it's like I'm a speed reader with, I think, pretty good accuracy, but I'm not really paying attention to that at all.

The trick is to learn to trust my impulses. It's like I'm thinking with my gut rather than my head, and if I do that, sight reading becomes much easier, at times shockingly fast. I think the cause and effect runs this way, i.e., forcing myself to go fast won't work, unfortunately (if it were only that easy).

Recommendations. It's all like riding a bike (I hope). Remember how remarkable it was to see this miracle of someone riding on two wheels rather than three? Remember how I just couldn't believe I could do it when my father pushed me, and how I immediately crashed to the ground. Yet I kept trying (because I wanted to ride so bad), and then, after the 4th or 5th time, out of the blue, I was riding! And as as soon I looked down in disbelief, there was a shift of attention or awareness from riding to being aware I was riding, and down again I went. That's what this cold reading is like.

Just keep practicing, get used to 'letting go' -- that was the trick to riding a two wheeler. My body seems to know what to do.