barney, the trick with Modern Chord Progressions is to approach it in a martial-arts way.
play the chord progression again and again and again till you can hear it in your head then play something else and watch bemusedly as your fingers simply insert the progression tastefully in a way you'd like to hear without asking you first.
(sometimes the progression is inserted in totally different keys - untransposed, but sounds utterly right, sometimes it's fragments, your ears and fingers have sorted it out without the brain getting in the way)
I used to be a big critic of muscle memory because I felt it systematised music and robbed the performer of being in the present - it's all about memory, but really all the book does is hard-wire the brain to put sounds with a group of chords. The trick is not to look at the chord names Ted gives them or try and intellectualise it at all.
From what I've heard of your playing, there's an emotional vitality I think is only found in players who react in the music - I feel the spirit this book was written with, it is intended to be a book of exercise and listening - 0% thinking, just observation.
Bruce Lee once said he'd fear a fighter who'd practised one kick a thousand times, than a fighter who'd practised a thousand kicks once. It's that kind of thing
+1 excellent advice
