One really fundamental aspect of my playing that has been super hard for me to break is that I am figuring out a song, I just figure out have to play without identifying the notes. That is the result of learning to play without learning the fingerboard. For the past twenty years, I have learned the notes, but when I play I revert back to my original approach, and then I to tell myself what I am playing. This has resulted in my not being economical in my hand movement, and has slowed me down when playing at faster tempos.
In my days of fingerboard ignorance, I would practice scales by learning the fingerboard diagrams instead of learning the notes, but it did help me recognize scales used for bass lines when learning songs. I have slacked off of that. Now, of course, I learn the names of notes in scales too.
The bottom line is my teacher saw a video of me playing Expansions and stated that my goal was simply to build endurance for songs with faster tempos. He learned the song, realized it was C pentatonic, told just play it in one position. Playing it in one position with a lighter touch definitely reduced hand forearm fatigue noticeably.
