Session role: focus and application blocks. Every session opens with warm-up on the current R&L Ch. 1 exercises before you work this chapter. Baseline 30-min session: ~7–8 min warm-up (Ch. 1) → ~15 min focus (one Ch. 3 exercise) → ~5–6 min application (one Ch. 3 beat or fill) → ~2 min cool-down. Full detail in Approach §6.
Second step of the 16th-note density ladder (Stage 2 in Approach §5). Where Chapter 2 taught two consecutive 16ths between the feet, this chapter drills three-note groupings—which is where footing choice starts to matter. R&L notes that the most common way to play three consecutive 16ths is RLR (strong-foot lead) or LRL (weak-foot lead), and the Ch. 3 Warm-Ups deliberately walk through alternative footings (RLL, LRR, RLR-LRL alternating, RRR-LLL alternating) so you become aware of the possibilities rather than defaulting to one.
Work the Warm-Ups first. They drill the three-note foot grouping in isolation—feet only, no hands—so you can hear evenness across the three 16ths without a groove to hide behind. Only once a Warm-Up variant feels even should you move to the Beats, which put three-16th runs inside a rock groove. Fills are reference material; dip in when your ear points at one or you want variety.
Each Warm-Up has 6 footing variants in the source. R&L prints variants 1–6 underneath each Warm-Up: RLR, LRL, RLL, LRR, RLR-LRL alternating, RRR-LLL alternating. Do not attempt every variant on every session—pick one variant, hold it for the clean pass, and rotate variants across sessions. The default is variant 1 on each Warm-Up: RLR for the front-three (Ex. 3.1), LRL for the back-three (Ex. 3.3).
The bpm defaults below come from the 16th-note beats row of Approach §4: start 50 bpm, target 110 bpm. Chapter 2’s Warm-Ups consolidated above their 110 bpm default and had their targets revised upward in that sheet (146 and 130). Ch. 3’s Warm-Up targets stay at the 110 default until real session data says otherwise.
Increment differs by exercise type. Per Approach §4, the Warm-Ups (Ex. 3.1 and Ex. 3.3) are feet-only and advance at +4 bpm per two-pass advancement; the Beats and Fills advance at +2 bpm. The +2 ladder from 50 lands on the 82 bpm Ch. 4 unlock exactly—no rounding needed. See “Moving on to Ch. 4” below.
Your first Ch. 3 session is your first session after Ex. 2.10 clears its 82 bpm unlock (two consecutive pass sessions at 82 bpm—see Chapter 2). Session shape stays the three-block template from Approach §6 that Ch. 2 established.
3.1.1 <bpm> bpm 15 min <verdict> <note> (variant 1 is RLR; the Warm-Up variant goes in the suffix per Approach §8). Update the working state per Approach §8; on this first-ever session that means a new row keyed 3.1.1 with last pass bpm ← ceiling and current bpm ← ceiling directly.3.5 <bpm> bpm 5 min <verdict> <note>. Update the working state.That is a complete first Ch. 3 session. You have not touched Ex. 3.3, Ex. 3.7 or Ex. 3.12—those come in later sessions as you rotate through the Core. The second-session choices (repeat the same pair, or rotate to a new pair) and the consistency-beats-coverage principle from the first fortnight apply here unchanged—see Chapter 2 step 7 and the paragraph that follows.
The Ch. 3 Core has five exercises but each session’s focus block holds one (two on longer days) and each session’s application block holds one. A workable pattern for the first two or three weeks, at roughly five sessions a week:
That is one session per Warm-Up every second day and one session per Beat every third day—enough to accumulate two-pass advancements on each without any single exercise sitting stale for a week.
Footing-variant rotation on the Warm-Ups. The Warm-Ups’ 6 footing variants are the whole point of the section, and session two is where the rotation starts. When Ex. 3.1 comes up for the second time, swap the variant—session A uses RLR (variant 1), session B uses RLL (variant 3), session C goes to LRR (variant 4), and so on. The clean-pass rule applies per (exercise, variant) pair, so the two-pass streak at the current bpm is only valid for the variant you worked both sessions on. Keep variant rotation separate from bpm advancement: do not raise the bpm when you change variants—let each new variant find its own ceiling. In practice this means the per-chapter working-state table carries one row per (exercise, variant) pair (see Approach §8): 3.1.1 for RLR, 3.1.2 for LRL, and so on, each with its own current / target / last-pass bpm. Rows accrete as you first touch each variant—the row for 3.1.4 first appears the session you drill variant 4. Picking a variant back up after a few sessions on others is where a one-off near is most likely.
The worked advancement examples in Chapter 2 (one-probe-per-session, multi-probe, mixed verdicts, last pass > current) apply unchanged here—the loop mechanics do not depend on which chapter the Core exercise lives in. The one addition is the variant axis above.
Your focus and application pool for this chapter. Pick one Warm-Up for the focus block and one Beat for the application block each session, rotating across sessions so all five get worked over time. For the chosen exercise, look up your current bpm in the tracking document (or use the starting bpm for the first time), set the metronome, set a timer for the block minutes, play unbroken until the timer stops, log a verdict per the clean-pass rule (Approach §4), then move on to the next block.
| Ex. | Section | Role | Start | Unlock | Target | Increment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | Warm-Ups | Three consecutive 16ths on beat + e + & of every beat, rest on a; RLR default (6 footing variants in source—track each as 3.1.1 through 3.1.6 per Approach §8) |
50 bpm | 110 bpm | +4 bpm | |
| 3.3 | Warm-Ups | Three consecutive 16ths on e + & + a of every beat, rest on the beat; LRL default (6 footing variants in source—track each as 3.3.1 through 3.3.6) |
50 bpm | 110 bpm | +4 bpm | |
| 3.5 | Beats | Rock beat, one three-16th run per bar on beat 3 + 3e + 3& plus a single strong-foot kick on beat 1, strong-foot lead | 50 bpm | 110 bpm | +2 bpm | |
| 3.7 | Beats | Rock beat, two three-16th runs per bar on beat 1 + 1e + 1& and beat 3 + 3e + 3& plus single strong-foot kicks on 2& and 4&, strong-foot lead | 50 bpm | 110 bpm | +2 bpm | |
| 3.12 | Beats | Rock beat, four three-16th runs per bar each straddling the beat boundary (& + a + next beat) plus a single strong-foot kick on beat 1, strong-foot lead | 50 bpm | 82 bpm | 110 bpm | +2 bpm |
Why these five? R&L Ch. 3 has 32 exercises but most are variations on the three-note-grouping idea. The two Core Warm-Ups isolate the two placements R&L names as “most common”: Ex. 3.1 drills the front-three (beat + e + &) with RLR footing, Ex. 3.3 drills the back-three (e + & + a) with LRL footing. Each exercise carries 6 footing variants in the source; the Core table shows variant 1 as the default. The three Core Beats carry a density ladder from one three-16th run per bar (Ex. 3.5) through two (Ex. 3.7) to four (Ex. 3.12). Ex. 3.12 sits at the top of that ladder—four runs per bar, each straddling the beat boundary—which is why it gates Ch. 4 (see “Moving on to Ch. 4”).
Once the Core is stable (say, two weeks of consistent pass verdicts across Ex. 3.1, 3.3, 3.5, 3.7 and 3.12), start dropping in a Rotation exercise. Swap it in for a Core exercise on a given session (keeping the total block count the same), or add it as a fourth block if you have session time to spare. Do not stack more than one Rotation exercise on the same day; the Core is the main path.
| Ex. | Section | Role | Start | Target | Increment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.2 | Warm-Ups | Three-note foot grouping on beat + & + a (gap at e), strong-foot lead; R_RL default (6 footing variants in source—track each as 3.2.1 through 3.2.6 per Approach §8) |
50 bpm | 110 bpm | +4 bpm |
| 3.4 | Warm-Ups | Three-note foot grouping on beat + e + a (gap at &), strong-foot lead; RL_L default (6 footing variants in source—track each as 3.4.1 through 3.4.6) |
50 bpm | 110 bpm | +4 bpm |
| 3.9 | Beats | Rock beat, three three-16th runs per bar on beats 1, 2 and 4 plus single strong-foot kicks on 3 and 3&, strong-foot lead | 50 bpm | 110 bpm | +2 bpm |
| 3.19 | Fills | One-measure fill with two three-16th foot runs on beat 2 + 2e + 2& and beat 4 + 4e + 4&, strong-foot lead | 50 bpm | 110 bpm | +2 bpm |
| 3.21 | Fills | One-measure fill with three three-16th foot runs on 1& + 1a + 2, beat 3 + 3e + 3&, and 4& + 4a + next-bar 1, strong-foot lead | 50 bpm | 110 bpm | +2 bpm |
Cadence. Aim for each Rotation exercise to get worked once every couple of weeks or so when time allows—about one Rotation slot per practice week at the ~5-days-per-week baseline. That is a target, not a rule: skip Rotation entirely on short days, and a missed fortnight is not a debt. The advancement rule still applies—two consecutive pass sessions at the same bpm earn the raise—but the two sessions accrue across weeks rather than back-to-back days.
Beats Ex. 3.6, 3.8, 3.10, 3.11, 3.13 and 3.14 are additional one-bar grooves that place a single three-16th run at various positions in the bar; dip in when your ear points at one. Beats Ex. 3.15–3.18 are two-bar phrases that combine three-16th runs with snare syncopation; treat them as phrasing examples, not drills, and hold them until the one-bar Beats hold ~90 bpm. Fills Ex. 3.20 and 3.22–3.28 are additional one-measure fill ideas with three-16th runs in various placements. Fills Ex. 3.29–3.32 are four-bar phrases R&L includes to show different fill lengths; treat them as phrasing examples, not drills. Dip into these when you want variety or when your ear picks one out—do not treat them as a checklist. If you never play them, that is fine.
(exercise, variant) pair.nears, the exercise has not advanced.Ch. 4 (four consecutive 16ths between the feet—see Approach §5) unlocks when Ex. 3.12 reaches its unlock bpm of 82 bpm—two consecutive pass sessions at 82 bpm on Ex. 3.12, per the advancement rule in Approach §4. Ex. 3.12 is a Beat and advances at +2 bpm; the +2 ladder from 50 lands on 50, 52, 54, …, 80, 82—so 82 is on the ladder and no rounding is needed.
Only one gate exercise, not three. Within-stage transitions inside the 16th-note density ladder (Ch. 2 → 3 → 4 → 5) are quantitative—denser runs of the same subdivision—rather than qualitative, so one checkpoint is enough per Approach §5 (unlock scheme, rule 2). Ex. 3.12 is the gate because it has the highest three-16th-run density per bar of any Ch. 3 Core exercise—four runs per bar, each straddling the beat boundary—and that density extends naturally to Ch. 4’s four-consecutive-16th runs.
Two things this rule is not:
When Ex. 3.12 reaches 82 bpm (two consecutive passes at 82), open Chapter 4 and add Ch. 4 to your active list per the tracking-document header format (Approach §8). What happens to Ch. 3 at that moment is a choice, not a rule:
If unsure, take the common path. Ch. 3 material is not lost by aging out; three-16th runs are present in every subsequent Stage 2 chapter and stay in play through the density ladder.
Log this chapter’s work in your tracking document (Approach §8) with the exercise number prefixed by 3.. Beats and Fills carry no variant axis, so a bare 3.5 56 bpm 5 min pass even is the full form; the Warm-Ups (Ex. 3.1–3.4) carry a variant suffix per Approach §8, so Ex. 3.1 variant 1 at 90 bpm logs as 3.1.1 90 bpm 15 min pass even. A short trailing comment is fine either way: 3.5 56 bpm 5 min pass even, weak foot solid on the run. See Approach §8 for the full tag-plus-optional-prose convention. Log only what you actually practised; there is no obligation to touch every exercise in every session.