I've finally decided to try and put right a long-standing bad habit I have.

I'm returning to guitar and while working through fundamentals 1 & 2 I mostly ignored all the emphasis on fretting hand position when playing chords!

This was because I thought my bad habit of gripping the neck with my palm (particularly with open chords C, F and D) was too ingrained in me to change. I was being instructed to use my "opposable thumb" as Chris pointed out!

When I found the spider finger exercises I discovered correct hand position came easier - as Lisa says, it's hard to have your hand in the wrong position when doing them.

When I arrived at Rock Course 1 and started practising barre chords I also found that correct hand position sort of came naturally (albeit hard to do repetitively when my palm had been doing all the work on some open chords and taking the strain on behalf of my thumb!) But I was starting to get frustrated when switching between barre and open chords once I'd realised my arm was having to move far too much instead of mainly my fingers doing the work.

So, I'm backtracking and trying to concentrate on getting my thumb where it should be on open chords i.e. opposite somewhere between my 1st & 2nd fingers. It's going to take a while to correct such an old bad habit or at least make it better but I think it'll pay off in the long run.

My message to new players is - Guitar Instructors here know how to teach the right technique all you've got to do is listen to them and follow what they tell you!! It'll save you a lot of time later.....

So it's back to the drawing board for me! Thanks Chris & Lisa.