I was doing great up until the Billie Jean Michael Jackson benchmark lesson in Module 4. I feel like I’m getting worse and worse now and cannot make it through the workouts. I just finished lesson 3 module 5 and now I am considering going back to the benchmark lesson and going slower through those until I can make it relatively well. Seems Josh thinks we should just keep going even when we can’t get things down but I feel like i’m getting worse and everything is more and more confusing now. Also I grew up playing saxophone so a C to me is now an A on the bass clef which is really screwing me up. need some advice. thanks.
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Just go back to it when you have more confidence and think you can do better. It is not a test. Just use it as a reference to what you think you may need help in at your pace. A lot of people get scared / worry there. Proceed to the next lesson as normal.
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Welcome to the forum!
Lots of people go over the course multiple times or repeat sections. So you are doing the right thing if you feel that would help. I had to go to the lesson video a couple of times because the slow workout was coming at me too fast. 
Did you get through the Billie Jean lesson? Because it’s famous for getting people off track ( Billie Jean is a Wicked Mistress ).
I would recommend going back to the lessons you can nail and then progress from there. That way, you can see where you can improve. Also, practicing Billie Jean endlessly will get you good at Billie Jean, but it’s not the magic lesson to all things bass. 
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I’m feeling challenged in Module 8 in a way that I haven’t before. Part is that I had a several month hiatus, and some basics like alternating plucking got weaker. So I added the Practice This 10 Minutes a Day workout into my regular practice to shore up fundamentals. That has helped.
When the Slow workout is hard for me, I slow it down, practice it in chunks, and come back to it the next day. Other than that, I march on. I figure once I’ve finished and go back through, I can keep refining.
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What you describe has happened to the vast majority of Buzzers.
Read through this thread for commiserations and, most importantly, advice about perspective in dealing with BJ.
Hint: It’s not as dire as you think.
Don’t be deflated or discouraged. Just go back a lesson or two before BJ, work through them slowly and deliberately (you’re a sax player - you know how to figure out how to play a passage or a piece).
And just relax. This is playing, after all.
You have a ton of cool stuff coming up in the course. Blow BJ off for now and have fun learning new stuff.
Just about everyone has revisited BJ after going through more modules and, you know what? Suddenly Billie Jean IS your lover. You got this. 
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yes he was clear that you don’t have to nail Billie Jean, so I understood that. It just after that lesson I couldn’t manage anything with the proficiency I had before the Billie Jean benchmark. I’m only really referencing Billie Jean as the point where things changed. I wasn’t concerned with actually nailing Billie Jean itself.
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Thank you all for the encouragement and advice! I am determined to get better and it’s good to know that this forum is so responsive and supportive!
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Keep moving forward. And welcome to BB!
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When I get stuck on a song, and the more I work on it the worse it gets, which has happened to me on several occasions, I’ll just quit and go back to songs I love playing, sometimes doing that for as long as a couple of weeks or longer. After that I’ll try that problematic song again, and all of a sudden, it clicks, where did that come from? What happened? I don’t know, maybe the song fermented into my fingers or something, whatever it is, I like it.
So now I use quitting as a positive technique, it has worked countless times for me.
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I stuck with it to get it done only because I never liked MJ. Lol. I will not go back to that, ever.
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This is quite common. I’m now three years into my bass journey and finished the B2B course 2.5 years ago. I do lots of covers and play in a crappy pub band, and still find this happen as lot. I working on a song at the moment where the structure and changes in rhythm have kept biting me in the butt, yet this morning, it kind’a flowed - I knew what was coming, where the changes were, and I was (more or less) on top of things, certainly far better than last night, or last week. I find this all the time - look at a song, have a go, walk away in disappointment, come back, have another go, and another, then it goes to sh!t, then suddenly, a week later is clicks.
Funny how the brain works!
Learning definitely ebbs and flows. Developing a skill over the long term means managing those periods where it feels like you’re just not getting it. And frankly that’s one of the toughest things to learn.
Sometimes taking a break can be an important part of learning and progressing. Just like building muscle, giving your brain a few days to rest can be a huge reset. It might even be a sign that your brain has too much other stuff occupying its attention, and you need to let those other things breathe. Just don’t let days turn into months. The last time I stopped playing for too long, it took me 25 years to pick it back up!
It happens. when it comes to your growth it won’t be incremental, most of the time it’s exponential. If one song is holding you back just skip it. It’s the skill and muscle memory building, it doesn’t come at gradual pace. Once it clicks then, Boom, like you know it all you life. Just keep at it, your next upgrade is filling the tilted barrel and once it’s filled it will tip over and pour 'em skills on to you.
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I did same thing in the first two years,
I like training myself more.
I would say this as your growth is not linear, steady improvement. You will see little improvement while stuff germinates, and then have burst of improvement once it blooms.
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I have been doing a couple of lessons a night and then before I do the next lesson I review what i did the day before. Not sure if it the best way and/or it is making me better but works for me. Getting ready to start module 3
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This is a super, super important lesson to learn.
Sometimes walking away from something for a while is by far the best option. I have had a 100% success rate with this with music (not just bass) - if you’re getting stuck, don’t keep beating your head against the wall. Shift gears to other stuff for a while and then come back to revisit at a later time. You will nearly always find that you will have progressed in other ways enough that you can take a fresh take on what was giving you trouble before and sometimes just nail it.
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I felt exactly the same way after the Billie Jean… “experience.” And I felt like the course had switched from to easy to too hard. I took Josh’s advice and kept working through. There was a longer-than-I’d-like stretch of me feeling like things were too hard, and then the lessons switched to some things that were more conceptual and less technical - and thankfully easier to play. And I found my footing again.
So I felt exactly the same way, and I kept working through it and it’s better now. And although I plan to go back and work on the harder stuff again… I’m not looking forward to it. I’m just trusting what Josh says because he really does understand his course inside and out.
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Billie Jean has whupped many a behind for those taking the course. Keep forging ahead. You will likely master something that others struggle with. Then one day you’ll go back to Billie Jean and whup her behind.
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