how to practice chords without looking at it

Hi this is Santonu,

I have been in GT for over 6 months now and nearly at the end of the beginers lesson. So far has been great. I want ask someone whats the best to to practive playing chords without looking at it? is there a practive lesson that you can point me towards? aprreciate your help in advance.

I remember practicing making the chord forms with my fingers all the time, until those patterns were burned into my memory and the muscle memory of my left hand (muscle memory is the real heavy lifter in this story). I practiced at work, using my right forearm to stand in for my guitar. I did this watching TV. In fact, any time that I was idle I would practice moving from one chord pattern to another on my forearm. Soon those patterns became second nature. Then I moved them to the guitar.

Practicing thusly, I found that soon I was able to make chord changes in mid air, as I moved from one chord to the next one (which is total muscle memory) This allowed me to keep up with chord changes and not loose the rhythm. That is how I did it. Hope that is helpful.

Learning guitar is a lot like dancing, except your partner is your muscle memory. Muscle memory learns by repitition and it does so at its own pace. This is a great frustration to new players, who want to get good asap. In dancing your pay attention to your partner, in making music you dance with your muscle memory. Patient persistant practice pays.

I just stopped looking down. There were many misplaced chords, some of which actually sounded interesting, but persistence paid off. I still look at the fretboard occasionally, though, if learning something new.

Chord changes are, as snojones said, just a matter of locking them into muscle memory. Like learning to ride a bike: you have to really concentrate when first learning, then do it without thinking (but you will often have to anticipate the next chord change but, when the time comes, your fingers do it without much conscious thought).

Agree with what has already been said santonu but want to focus on what snojones said about those of us who take up guitar wanting it to happen asap. Take your time your time man. Just keep practicing as outlined and things will come together.