Do you lose your ability quickly?

In about April I started making a concerted effort to study more by watching videos here, working through the problems in Yusupovs Build of Your Chess, watching a few opening videos and a few other various things.  I don't have a great planned study regimen, but I was making good leaps in understanding...and winning a lot of games.

The last few weeks my rating has dropped over 100 points.  I know that we're not supposed to watch our ratings, but I know I've gotten weaker.  I'll drop one or two pawns at a time, an entire pieces, etc.  I just don't seem to have a knack for the game anymore, and it's frustrating.  A few weeks ago I was able to come up with great plans and make some good attacks.

This is a repeating problem for me since I started playing in 2000.  I'll spend a few weeks studying like hell two hours a day or so, then all of the sudden something else comes up and I can't put a lot of time in.  I'll do something like tactics trainer daily (a few problems) but I still seem to lose a lot of strength and understanding.  In the past when this has happened I'll just quit, only to take back up the game a few months later.

Does this happen to other people?  If so, what do you do to just maintain a level of ability during a period when you can't devote much time?

Actually it isnt bad at all if you take a break from chess due to not enough time to play.. although its bad if your gone for more then a couple weeks.

Everyone has these bad period of times where they suck at chess and just drop everything.. i would suggest you just take a couple days off from chess or just keep playing and it'll come back to you within a week or 2.

Last time i had this "slump" i played horrible for around 2 weeks and then one day it jsut came back to me and started playing great again!

Dont worry too much about it.

I think everyone who has a life outside chess has been there.

During moments of repeated fumbling / burn-out where nothing seems to feel right, I do one of 3 things:

- Bury myself in tactical puzzles that I've solved before. Reinforcing a pattern is still productive, especially when your brain feels like it is on the fritz. Remember, we're trying to "stay" as sharp as we were, not challenge ourselves to new stuff.

- Stalk stronger players on online game servers ... I often watch their blitz games  ... you'd be surprised how much you might be absorbing via osmosis.

- Document! Strangely enough, writing about something you learned or annotating a game you played and maybe even sharing it with a friend/forum is cathartic during  a chess slump.  NM Dan Heisman advocates making a Hall of Shame journal of sorts where you document all non-tactical mistakes you made in serious games and why you may have done these.

The most important thing to remember is that your brain is a stubborn bowl of pasta that doesn't like to be "rushed" or "forced"  ... getting better at chess is about pattern recognition and muscle memory and this really means feeding your noggin when it "wants" to be fed. 

 I take my hat off to you Sir, an excellent piece of advice!

Exactly what I was thinking....(great advice)