I've Been Walbertized! And it is GOOD!

I just settled back into my hotel room in Birmingham, Al. I arrived at the airport yesterday at 12:10 pm, deplaned, got my luggage, picked up a rental car and made it to Yoda's Den(Gilewitz's affectionate term for David Walbert's home studio) by 1:07pm, not too bad considering my flight was 10 minutes late as well. Sunday's session focused upon Study for Margot and Dance, both being Walbert compositions that I have been playing. He suggested new left hand fingerings in a few places on Study that help me smooth out some sections. We also worked on picking mechanics. He showed me and helped me develop some techniques that I had never tried before, including string stops, vibrato, right hand sweeping strokes, rest strokes etc. So much information flowed and it will be great if I can remember 50% and incorporate into my playing. Walbert is an absolutely fantastic teacher and it became apparent within 20 minutes why Gilewitz reveres him so much. Their approaches are similar but David's is deeply rooted in his classical roots. Richard has prepared me so well that as we finished up today's three(supposed to only be two) hour session and I told David I had only been playing since August of 2008, he was truly surprised. He assumed I had much more experience. Today's session started out on "Falling Slowly". He felt I already had a good handle on the piece so he helped me take the piece farther with the addition
vibrato, crescendo and sustain of the bass notes. From there we went onto "Spatter the Dew" an Irish piece I have struggled to sort out the timing. I think I have it now. It is a 9/8 slip jig with a few sections that tricky for me. I have some new pieces to work on as well and am anxious to get busy on those. I leave early tomorrow morning to head home. Crossed fingers that the weather won't muck up my flights.