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StarTouch: Trainee Support Notes (Work in progress – under construction and thus incomplete!
kb03) Note: as you follow links here, your browser's Back Button
will retrace your steps |
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OVERVIEW |
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Introduction You are probably reading this after attending
StarTouch Training. So you will already know... we use a very unexpected approach to train
people to touch type! And it's not just the Learning that is different. The Practice techniques you must use are also very different from
what you might expect (and different from what you might naturally try to
do!) So extra support for your practice path is useful – including this web page. |
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This Web Page This web page has lots of reminders &
reinforcement for StarTouch Trainees. It will echo what you learnt on the
training event. And it may reflect things Jonathan may mention or remind you
of in his coaching emails. . It has frequent links to the Top (Main
Menu) and the start of the main sections, like this: . Your browser's Back Button can help you retrace your steps too (or try a right-click &
choose "Back") Explore this whole page as much as you can. Maybe bookmark it in your browser? The hints & tips here will help you follow a 'best practice' Practice Path... efficient & effective, with
minimal effort, trouble or delay! |
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Coaching Emails Follow up support from Jonathan is offered as part
of the course. Trainees who use the the online practice app to submit
practice to him will get frequent, in-depth comment, analysis and advice in
return - sometimes as often as once a day. Jonathan's responses will always be supportive,
positive and constructive. If you email Jonathan with questions, observations
about how your practice is going (or confessions about how it isn't!), you'll
always get an answer – along with more encouragement! This email support is included in the cost of the
training - for at least the first 4 weeks after the training event has
finished. Beyond that, further
coaching may be offered at additional cost.
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The "Practice Path" The Practice Path is the 'journey' you must take
beyond your initial StarTouch training. You must follow a continued regime of regular, frequent exercises to consolidate
your learning and gradually turn it into a habit, which will deliver as a natural by-product: speed
without loss of accuracy. Follow our advice as closely as possible while
pursuing your Practice Path. This will make for the most efficient,
achievable and sustainable way of turning Learning into Skill. Practice Frequently. Focus on Accuracy.
Frequent Accurate Reps takes you FAR. It builds Habit. And Habit
delivers Speed. |
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Practice > Habit > Speed The Practice Path is designed to give the body a steady diet of the correct experience. It's this consistent exposure to (even just little bursts) of accurate
behaviour that rapidly leads to your brain & body naturally doing what it
does best: 'cut corners' to build natural efficiency. This natural process automates behaviour (to release the brain from having to
consciously monitor & control it so much, because that consumes too much
energy and brains have evolved to build efficiency into the way they operate
the body they're in!). But the brain cannot do this corner cutting
effectively if the body is not experiencing consistent practice. So the biggest cause of unsuccessful practice
and delayed progress is when someone is content to be sometimes right and sometimes wrong! Making a selection of errors (different ones each
time) and shrugging and thinking 'Ah well, I can't be perfect. At least I'll
learn from my mistakes' is a misunderstanding of how brains and bodies
work... The problem here is that the brain has nothing to
'get used to'. So it has to stay consciously
involved in trying to operate the body in the correct way every single 'next time'. Another problem, of course, is if you are consistently & repeatedly wrong in the same way. But at least in this case, the brain will be able to
quickly & easily automate this...
into a habit. The problem is: it will be a Bad Habit! That's why you don't want to repeat your errors too
much: which is why principles discussed below, like RNT
and Outnumbering are worth really grasping. BUT... if you are consistently absolutely
Accurate, the brain will quickly and easily automate this into a GOOD
HABIT: a new dependable Skill. Typing
accurately with your eyes up will increasingly become just "what your body does". It will be automatic, instinctive and consistent –
like tying shoelaces, riding a bike or driving. So becoming automatically accurate early, and then
continuing to practice accurately, will deliver increasing speed
as a natural by-product. |
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PRINCIPLES & JARGON StarTouch uses principles, catch phrases, analogies &
words-with-a-special-meaning (Work in progress – under construction and thus incomplete!) Practice Makes... "Slumped"
& Sittage Reps |
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Practice Makes... Many people know the phrase "practice makes
perfect". But in many cases (and especially when training your
body to adopt new physical behaviour) it's Just. Not. True. Practice will not make something perfect if what you're practising is wrong! You'll simply become better at doing it wrong!
You'll become an expert at making a mistake. A better definition is the one StarTouch favours: Practice Makes Permanent! If you feed it a steady diet of the same thing, it
will get used to it. The neural pathways that are needed to replicate that
thing will become so well used that it will be easier and easier to repeat
the process without so much conscious thought. This has happened throughout human evolution. It's the
way the human 'machine' learns. And it saves us spending so much valuable
energy on THOUGHT, if we can automate useful behaviours. |
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"Accuracy is..." The most important thing StarTouch teaches is that
"Accuracy is KING!"
(...ok, one of them! For the
full list see ALL the principles!) "Accuracy is King" means it is worth your while to ensure you achieve maximum accuracy at all
costs! It's especially worth slowing
down, in order to pay more
attention to what you are thinking, feeling and are about to do – and checking your recall of any instructions about
what to do, to make sure you are going
to be as accurate as possible before
you commit.
Which will make the whole process of trying to learn very... well, very
"TRYING"! If you can ensure that as much of your practice as
possible (almost all, or ideally ALL) is 100% accurate... then because Practice Makes Permanent and you're not practising
your mistakes very much... your practice path will be really efficient: "Predominantly perfect practice will make you
permanently perfect, pretty pronto!" In other words, you'll establish a habit a lot
quicker than you might imagine, and with less frustration and upset – which is what inaccuracy tends to create! And, by the way, the formation of a habit is what will bring natural speed increase! |
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"Speed is NOTHING!" In the end, we all want to type fast! But when you are first
learning anything, speed is the enemy. If you try to go fast with something new, you'll
almost certainly go wrong. And errors will usually cause frustration,
self-recrimination and tension; not to mention delaying your progress; and
worst of all... feeding your body & brain unhelpful experience. But you don't have to be slow AND WRONG, before you
become fast & right. You can be really accurate from the get go. Especially if you R I G H T And there's a great recipe for maximising Accuracy when you approach
learning or practice... |
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A Recipe for Accuracy (Work in progress – under construction and thus incomplete!) Do you remember the "Approach" that the training day
suggested, for anything where you want to maximise the chance of being Right.
Next. Time? SLOW – slow down, if necessary to the point of
stopping, to give you time to... THINK – think everything through before acting... IMAGINE – picture yourself doing the Story Action,
for instance; say the keywords aloud. FEEL/(re)POSITION – pay attention to your sensations
and movements RELAX – breathe; smile; loosen your neck, shoulder,
wrist muscles (without slumping) TALK CHECK (and when Confident...) |
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True Confidence True confidence is not just "having a go" and seeing if you're accurate! It's knowing...
that you're going... to be accurate
...before you commit. This section may be
expanded sometime... |
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"Rule Number 1" "Eyes Front!" 'nuff said? "Keep
your Eyes-on the Hori-zon" ...because you don't need to stare straight ahead,
anywhere, left or right is fine. Even eyes-shut is fine... Just not 'down there' (where your fingers and the
keys are!) This section may be
expanded sometime... Meanwhile, if you need
more help with this, Contact
Jonathan Need more... |
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"Little & Often" This is Jonathan's Mum's Advice! But "Little..." does not mean "not very much practice
needed"! It just means you do not have to do a lot all at
once, if you are short on time. And it is also a warning: doing too much all at once can, if you're not very careful, turn into
Trying Not Training. Too much Pressure! But when you only have a little bit of time, you can do TINY bits of really effective practice. Just be prepared to make sure that you are
attentive, controlled and above all Accurate! In fact one of the best ways of doing your Non-Keyboard practice (whether overtly or covertly) is to do it "Little" (as little
as 5-10 seconds, maybe 20-30 seconds max) and "Often" (multiple times one
after the other, in a short 'session' – and if possible, multiple time a day
– even multiple times an hour if you can!). If you do a little whenever you can but you do it as
often as you can it will end up
being lots! For instance, you could choose to spend almost all
of a half-hour walk in the woods doing some significant amounts of
Non-Keyboard Practice. |
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Shorter Reps. The best practice, for most of your Practice Path,
is generally whatever results in the maximum
number of Frequent Accurate Reps,
in the minimum elapsed time... If you do 10 accurate reps a day, it may take (for
instance) 6-8 weeks to 'move house'. That same person, if they managed to do bursts of 10
accurate reps THREE times a day (thus 30 accurate reps per day), is likely to
see the same progress over a shorter calendar-time frame. One really easy way of making sure you do more reps, is doing shorter reps. In the early days of your Practice Path – indeed for
most of it... 20-30 seconds per rep
is plenty. Rather than one long rep that takes you 1 or 2
minutes to do (with increasingly gritted teeth and increasingly tense and
aching fingers and quite possibly therefore rising pressure! More of a test
of stamina than a challenge to your composure and control!)... ...it would be better to use the same amount of time to do 4 or 5 short reps, with brief breaks in
between, to shake off any tension and 'gather yourself' for the next one. Even if you're in the middle of what you planned to
type, half way through a story drill, a list of words or a phrase... Practice is not meant for producing complete, corrected & tidied
text. ...unfinished? |
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Old House / New House Briefly (this will
probably be expanded later)... the Old House / New House concept is: The StarTouch approach
urges you to do your practice (all the exercises at the different stages of
your Mountain) "when the pressure's off". And not only does StarTouch permit...
it actually recommends, or even INSISTS that you use your old typing style
for a while longer to help you manage your daily workload as before, while
like a hobby, you build your new skill in your spare time. If you've got typing to
do, then for some time, you should continue as before: Business As Usual.
With no attempt to alter, improve or adjust your old typing. Just 'live in
the Old House'. But make as much
time as possible, as soon as possible, and as often as
possible, to 'visit the building site' and keep working on (practising) the
New House... so the building project doesn't drag on too long (to the point
where you might give up on the new property and resign yourself to continuing
to live in your rotten Old House!) If you want any further
help with this concept, contact
Jonathan. |
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"Go as Slow as necessary..." ...to be as Accurate as possible. That way you give yourself more time to do the
things which can help you become 99-100% accurate. Those things are described
in the section on the ideal recipe for practice... This section may be
expanded sometime. Meanwhile, if you need
more help with this, Contact
Jonathan |
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"Practise When the Pressure's Off" Pressure is anything that might threatens to
distract you from doing the best practice possible. This may include: . An urgency to get done quickly; . Preoccupation with other commitments and
responsibilities; . A growing awareness of discomfort in your wrists
or fingers; . Self-critical thoughts or rising tension in your
body and mind... If you find yourself aware of these sort of things –
or if you are making more mistakes than you'd like – consider taking a short
break from practice and/or doing something to slow yourself down or focus
calmly... Remember for instance, the ideal recipe for
practice. "If you Perceive Pressure, pause your Practice" ...and on the physical side of things
(aching wrists or fingers)... "If you feel an ache, take a break and give a
shake!" |
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The Power of "Yet" We often get stuck focusing on the Present and the
Past. And especially (because we're humans) on the
negative aspects of the Present and Past. And we tend to talk about it too. Often in ways which sound very 'absolute', almost
resigning ourselves to the thought that the Future will inevitably be the
same... We say thinks like: "I can't do it"; "it's not
working"; "my little finger can't move properly" (about the present
situation) Or we say: "I've not been getting it right"; "I've
never been able to..."; "I've always been bad at..."; "I've forgotten..." (about
the past) Very often, we may even be describing the world
accurately. Maybe you CAN'T do it (right now); maybe that finger
isn't moving independently; maybe you have never been able to do that thing. The trouble is, in focusing on the problem, we're
thinking of the rumble strips we're hitting or the ones
we've hit (repeatedly?) in the past. And we're not
focusing therefore on the road ahead; on what we can do to avoid them in future. It's almost as if we've given up and are defining
the future as being the same as the past. Well I've got news for you. The future doesn't have
to be the same as the present or the past. We can change. We can learn. We
can improve. We can develop. It's far more helpful if you can boost your sense of
the possibility that things can
be different in the future. And that's where "YET" comes in. Added to the end of any of the negative assessments
of the present and the past, it can totally flip the feelings those words might cause us to have. It can
shift the direction of thought. Open up the possibilities of the future.
Emphasise the fact that we may be right in the middle of the process of
CHANGE. Get used to expecting, looking out for and intercepting
your own negative "past/present" phrases (and other peoples'... your children
or partner perhaps?) and build the habit of simply adding "...yet". Ideally
with a smile and raised eyebrow – in the mirror, if it's a message to
yourself! As if to say "So, negative thoughts - I know how to
deal with you now. You've met your match! You've lost your hold on me and I
will resist your evil influence on me from this point onwards...!
Mwah-ha-ha-ha-hahhhh!!" (although laughing like that at the end may make you
sound like the evil one, so that bit's optional!) Just check out these examples (try saying them aloud
– with the knowing smile perhaps? – and substituting example 'inabilities' of
your own... See if you feel more positive about things because of the addition
of "...yet"): "I can't do X...
yet!" "X isn't working... yet!" "My finger (feet,
serving arm, wrist... etc) can't move properly... yet!" "I've not been getting X right... yet!" "I've never been able to do X... yet!" ...and: instead of: "I've always been bad at X..." try: "I'm not good at X... yet!" instead of: "I've forgotten X..." try: "I
haven't remembered it... yet!" * (* using "...yet" is one way of dealing with the panic
or resignation of thinking you've "lost" a memory. Smiling and adding "...yet"
can help you relax and become more positive and expectant about searching
for, and salvaging, your Memory Boats!) |
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Memory Boats Fuller description coming soon... but in brief: Memory Boats are the vessels we make (usually inexpertly)
from the 'wood' that we get when we come across some new information, eg
someone's name. We make a boat and stick it on our Memory 'Sea' – but our
boat is full of holes! So it immediately starts sinking. Next time we look,
we think the information has gone. But it hasn't – it's just below the
surface. If we don't panic and just 'feel around' in the water, we often find
it. Even if it's been sinking for some time and is quite deep. And sometimes
Boats drift to the surface again unbidden, by the (often subconscious)
currents that swirl around when we're sleeping or thinking of something else,
or just not TRYING too hard to remember! Want any more information
on this? Contact
Jonathan |
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Rumble Strips "Rumble
strips" is what StarTouch calls failures
or errors. For instance: making mistakes when practising; not
practising enough; practising the wrong thing, or in the wrong way; or
'forgetting' things we feel we are supposed to have learnt... These are all things which all too easily make us
feel bad about ourselves! And being preoccupied by them often causes more
problems, errors and failures! So the concept of rumble strips is meant to help you
gain perspective and not see errors in such an unhelpful light! The basic idea is that we should not focus on the rumble strips we have hit (which are
now behind us); instead we should watch
the road ahead and simple do what we need to, to avoid rumble strips in
the future. In terms of StarTouch practice this means minimising
Pressure and aiming to get things Right Next Time (RNT).
One way that helps achieve this most is to use the "approach" taught in our
training events (Slow down, Think more, Imagine anything that helps, Feel
and Reposition your body; Relax; Talk to yourself (to remind yourself of the knowledge you need to
act on) and Check (or Double Check
or Triple-Check or even more if necessary!) to ensure maximum Confidence... before you Commit to any action!
Why
the concept of "Rumble Strips"? |
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Overt vs Covert Practice Coming soon – if you've got questions about this: contact
Jonathan |
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Reps Coming soon – if you've got questions
about this: contact
Jonathan |
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Training not Trying Coming soon – including "The Wrong sort of
Oomph"!
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Brute Repetition Many people think that practice (especially keyboard
practice) means repeating things 'for the sake of repeating them' eg: Stage 6: yhn yhn yhn yhn yhn ujm ujm ujm... Stage 7: up up up up... or hat cup hat cup hat cup hat cup... Stage 8: in the end, in the end, in the
end... But this
is like 'hammering away' at something as if you're trying to force it
to behave! And in most cases it will rapidly become repetition "ad nauseum".
In other words, sooner or later you'll get sick of it! You'll start to feel
it's like a chore; a necessary evil; even a punishmen. This is not the best type of practice at all. We
call it Brute Repetition. It's mindless, slavish, boring. And it
will therefore likely be counter-productive. Raising your distraction levels,
lowering your mental engagement, possibly building a sense of begrudging the
whole thing. And even risking a false impression of mastery. Also, it's unrealistic; how often in real life do we
immediately and repeatedly type the same thing (same thing same thing same
thing same thing?!?) So it's usually best if you do not type the same
thing repeatedly in succession. Instead always seek to type something new, next! If something you type (anything: part of a story
drill, a word, a phrase) is "Right First Time" (RFT)... then rather than type
it again, straight away, type something new... This
helps your brain to stay very fully involved. Because you have to keep
thinking about building deliberate variety
and randomness into all your
practice (whilst at the same time finding ways to repeat any 'target'
behaviour as much as possible... but just not in a regular, repeated, patterned
way!) So avoid Brute Repetition. It's much better to do Smart
Repetition. Want to
read some more reinforcement points about Brute Repetition? Read on... 4 reasons
why Brute Repetition not good: . 1. Brute
Repetition is unrealistic. How often do we type the same thing more than once
in a row in the 'real world'? Very very rarely (see what I did there?) We certainly rarely type something 3 or more times
together. So why practise it that way? . 2. Brute
Repetition switches your brain off and doesn't build dependable 'muscle
memory'. The body has a sort of 'short-term' muscle memory
autopilot. It can relatively easily 'take over' some simple
REPEATED physical activity and maintain reasonable accuracy while letting
your mind wander a bit – in the short term. But it's not persistent and readily-accessible
'programming'. It only works while it works. If you do something different this 'memory' gets overwritten. You won't be able to call on it with any particular
hope of it being fast and accurate 'out of the blue'. . 3. Brute Repetition creates a false sense of
progress. Because you're not challenging your body (or mind)
to do anything different, it's possible for your typing of a repeated word or
phrase to speed up significantly and maintain unrepresentative accuracy. This
is partly linked with the finger drift mentioned under (4) below... These higher speeds and accuracy are not easy to
maintain when you start 'real' typing (where each new word is generally
different from the last!) . 4 Brute Repetition may cause your uninvolved
fingers to drift from their Home Position. See this demonstration: www.vimeo.com/startouch/drift
NOTE:
So for instance, you might do/say "Releasing Funny
Vapour" You must avoid this being Brute Repetition though by
ensuring you don't do it mindlessly. This is easy if you
occupy your eyes and mind with something else which is associated!
My favourite game is to be in a room with lots of
visible words – posters, book spines on a shelf, newspapers etc – and to use
my eyes to spot the relevant letters (in this case R, F and V) while
you're repeating the phrase and actions many, many times... and maybe emphasising
the relevant Keyword in the phrase each time, depending on which letter you've
spotted... |
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Smart Repetition If you are "Right First Time" (RFT) ... type something
new next! Or better, still: the same but different... Eg: variations on a theme (coming soon); remedial reps; Mind you, if you make a mistake ('rumble strip')
then you might consider a small amount of controlled
immediate repetition... but only a little! Read up on getting things
"Right Next Time": RNT |
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No Editing If, when practising typing, you make a mistake (hit
a rumble strip), do not correct it! Correcting errors when we make them is a natural
tendency. It's what we often have to do in real life: To cover our tracks! To remove evidence for fear it will incriminate us. To pretend it never happened. However, if you do this with your practice, you're
ignoring the chance to store up valuable insight into how you're not getting
everything right (...yet!) ... which means you're missing the
chance to adjust your practice helpfully as you continue. You're hiding and ignoring the information which
directs you to what needs more attention... It's far better to do ZERO editing when you're practising. None whatsoever. . No mouse-use to fix something a few words back. . No backspacing. . Just Keep. Going. FORWARDS. Leave it messy Leave your errors on display. Rather than hiding the
problem (which might let you forget it and prevents Jonathan seeing it when
you submit your practice online... ) instead: leave it all on show and simply
aim to get it RNT. |
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RNT
(Right Next Time) When people get something wrong (hit a rumble strip)
they often do one of two (unhelpful) things: Unhelpful thing 1) They backspace
to correct the error - like reversing on the motorway to 'try that bit of
rumble strip again'. (We don't
recommend this. We suggest you do No Editing) Unhelpful thing
2) They leave the error on show but move on to
the next thing they want to type. Like this: THIS THUS THAT THEB THAT THEY... Better than these unhelpful behaviours, we recommend that you: . Stop and breathe . Do No Editing (leave your error on display – don't cover up your mistakes; don't
hide the evidence! Keeping a record of what when wrong means you'll have an
idea of what you need to work on in future practice sessions; in other words,
you'll have 'recorded it for training purposes'!) . Immediately have another go at the thing you got wrong. Do the whole word, or story 'phrase' (eg EDC) – not
just the one keystroke you got wrong. or THE SKU SKY
IS It's helpful if your
body's most recent experience is always the right behaviour.
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Outnumbering your Errors Imagine getting something
wrong
while
you're practising. Rare, I know
(because your focus is on Accuracy! He-he....) But
imagine it. Especially with keyboard practice (though the principle holds for
non-keyboard practice too). So anyway, you make a
mistake. And you notice it. So (I hope) you
immediately have another go to get it RNT (Right Next
Time). ...for instance: QAZ WSX EDC RFV TGV TGB YHN UJM... But if you leave it like this & move on
to other things... then you've got it wrong once and right
once.
That's like a score between two teams of "1-1". A tie. Instead of this, we recommend you always
take the opportunity to beat the opposition! You just have to get one more correct than you got
wrong. In other words, make the score "2-1" to Accuracy!
But we recommend not to do 3,
or 4, or more in a row! Because this will raise the danger that you're doing
brute repetition. |
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Remedial Reps Pay attention to any and all errors you
make. But not just in order to fix them (RNT
/ Outnumbering). Notice whether any of them keep happening. Are there some regular rumble strips that you keep
hitting? Because if there are, you would be foolish not to
pay particular attention to getting those fingers and better practised
at those
letters... pretty soon. One of the best ways of doing this is not brute repetition as you might be tempted to do, but rather: thoughtful, self-prescribed 'remedial' exercises. In other words, it's best if YOU think up some
exercises which are going to challenge your body to successfully operate
particularly the finger(s) that just went wrong, or effectively
distinguish between the letters which have repeatedly got mixed up... For instance... ...you may notice that your right little finger
seems to be repeatedly slipping up on Story Drilling (stage 6). Maybe you're
doing a number of perfect 100% accurate reps – but amongst them you
repeatedly get reps that end like this: ...OL. ;P;/ # or ... IK, OL.
[[P;/ ' or ...OL. P;. [P;/# If you notice this, you should realise: you would
benefit from lots of (relaxed, thoughtful, challenging and varied)
practice of the little finger doing ITS 'phase': PEACE (dit dit)
DIT DAH (questions) SLASHED – slowly, carefully,
deliberately. It would be important to be deliberate and not
'mindless' (no brute repetition) So it might be good to alternate at random the
finger/letters you want to do extra practice on, with other fingers/letters
that you know are more under control. Maybe some Stage 6.5 (mixed up story drills) which
feature P;/ more than most phrases from the story. Like this: TGB P;/ WSX P;/ ' UJM P;/ QAZ P;/ ' TGB P;/ WSX P;/ UJM UJM ' OL. P;/ OL. P;/ UJM P;/ ' You may spot similar 'trend' errors cropping up in
Stage 7 or Stage 8 practice... For instance: GIID
GI GOOD BAD FII FOOD Or HE WIOULD
NOT BE In either of these instances, it would be good to do
some remedial work on distinguishing accurately between typing I(nviting) and
O(ffering). This may be a good time to remember that the STORY
KEYWORDS (from the bottom of the Mountain) are still very much part of the
StarTouch method. It really helps if you remember (and if necessary
re-perform) the Actions, to confirm you have the correct FINGER in
mind... (and if it's an index finger, also whether or not to get into No Man's
Land first!)... and remember (and ideally, speak aloud) the Key Phrases,
to ensure you are thinking of the correct movements to make with that finger
(Forward, Middle, Back). So, to help you distinguish between I(nviting) and
O(ffering) it might be worth doing some: RFV IK,
P;/ OL. WSX OL. EDC IK, . and some Stage 7 practice on words containing Is
and Os like this: WOOL
WILL TILL TOOL TOIL RIO VOID |
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"The Mountain"
Lower
Slopes Middle
Mountain Upper
Slopes |
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Overview of the Mountain This overview is to be developed in due
course. Suffice it to say for now: The Mountain is a metaphor for the
learning/practice approach StarTouch uses. The larger 'half' of the mountain (the Bottom) is
the non-keyboard learning & practice. The smaller 'half' (the Top) is the keyboard
exercises that consolidate, implement and improve the non-keyboard
learning as a visible, 'finished product' skill over an extended (but not
necessarily very long) period. From a few weeks to a few months – depending
on the trainee! In addition to the
two 'halves'...
The Middle Mountain (Stages 4 & 5) train you to
establish and get total precision control over your typing position (your
posture and hands' Home Position on the keyboard) The Upper Slopes (Stages 6-8) train you to combine the
correct instructions to the correct fingers with the total control of those
fingers to ensure consistent, reliable accuracy in the execution of the new
skill! The Mountain represents the
overall approach to learning AND practising touch typing the "StarTouch" way. The bottom of the mountain
(first four stages) represent NON-KEYBOARD learning & practice. The top
represents various KEYBOARD-based practice activities. The CLOUDS (not shown
here) are several advanced aspects of keyboard skill which need not be
practised until the basic control of the alphabet is mastered. In parallel with the 2-half
structure, the mountain is also divided into three sections, each focused on
a different area of the trainee's learning. The Structure / Non KB vs. KB / Brain
Connections Body Control Both Combined ...Unfinished |
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Lower Slopes (Brain Connections) General tips Stage 1 – Story Performing Stage 2 – Spell Acting Stage 3 – Spider Tapping |
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Top / Mountain Lower
Slopes - General Tips Trainees should get on with non-keyboard practice
as soon as possible. Ideally, straight
away after the training event. That same evening – better still on the way home
from the training. The longer the gaps between practices, the more your
memory boats will sink. Non-Keyboard Practice, which is best done away from a keyboard, is the quickest & easiest way for your subconscious brain to get "programmed" consistently to operate your body,
arms, hands & fingers correctly and automatically without you having
to think (or watch) when you ARE at a keyboard, later! As long as you focus on Accuracy and you practise
Often then surprisingly quickly, your brain's motor cortex can have
established the ability to instinctively
"answer" two important "questions" when you want to type a specific letter or
symbol: 2) Which Movement to make? (Stage 3 programmes the
answers to this) Your subconscious brain needs to be able to send the
correct movement instructions to the correct finger in something like a
millionth of a second, for any letter of the alphabet and the main
punctuation marks, to result in you being a competent new touch typist! As strange as it seems, the more non-keyboard
practice you do in the very early days of your Practice Path (24-72 hours
after training), the sooner this 'programming of your wiring': the neural
pathways between your brain and your fingers will be securely complete. General
guidance: Until you know you can
trust yourself not to be thinking about
keyboards, or their layout ("where the letters are"), it will be best to
do all your Lower Slopes practice AWAY from computers, keyboards and probably
also away from your desk and workload (the "Pressures"!) Work hard to remind
yourself to remember to practise. So set alarms, choose some regular
activities and decide to associate them with non-keyboard practice (eg
"whenever I make a hot drink..."; "whenever I climb stairs..."); get people like
family, friends or work colleagues to hold you to account ("have you
practised much today?") They don't need to understand what you're practising
and why, just that they are part of your 'conscience-system'! |
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Stage 1:
Story Performing
Practice
Resources: Reminder Quizzes / Stage 1: BASICS When/Where
to do this? Do this practice as OFTEN as you can: anytime,
anywhere (except perhaps at a keyboard!) Ideally multiple times a day in the
early stages of your Practice Path. Why do
it? It reinforces & builds the essential instinctive
'body knowledge' (where your body just 'knows', and can show, which finger is
for which letter/symbol). How do
you do it? You can programme your body in this way through
repeated performance of the noisy, active, 'slick' experience of doing
("performing") the all-important ACTIONS & saying (aloud!) the STORY
KEYWORDS in the correct story sequence. When to
STOP doing Stage 1? In one sense you need never stop doing it! There's
no reason to stop 'checking' that you still know the things you learnt ages
ago (colours of the rainbow, the alphabet, German verbs that take the
accusative...) But you will certainly find that as you do more and
more practice, you will 'secure' your knowledge more and more permanently
(Practice makes...!) Which means you'll find you don't need the Story so
much as your fingers demonstrate that they 'know' which of them is on duty
and how they should move for any letter/symbol you've programmed into them. WARNING: don't give up on the story too easily. The
danger is, that if you make a mistake (hit a rumble strip) you might go
straight back to quickly 'trying to remember where the keys are' and just
stabbing in the dark (pressing fingers in the right sort of area until you
hit the correct key by chance). Instead it's useful to be able to call on the Story
straight away. Slow down (to the point of stopping) while you replay in your
mind's eye & ear the relevant Keyword / Key Phrase / Action – and thus
answer for yourself without doubt "Which finger?" – and if it's an Index
finger then double check if the Action tells you to stay OUTSIDE or slip
sideways INTO to the No Man's Land
– and finally check what the Story Phrase tells you about moving that finger
Forwards (to the left), Middle or Back (to the right) (in other words, you've
checked the answer to the question: "Which movements to make?" And THEN make
those moves. |
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Mountain / Main Menu What is Spell Acting? How
to do it? Keep your Eyes Front. Go slowly enough to be 100%
Accurate. And as Slick as you can. For each letter or symbol... DO the story
Action while you SAY the Keyword Aloud (be 100% Accurate - as Slickly as you
can) When/Where? Like Stage 1, this type of practice is
also best done AWAY from the keyboard. Why? It helps to improve the ease & speed with
which you identify & make a physical connection to the correct finger for
any random letter or symbol. It helps you depend less and less on 'running
through' the Story to 'find' the correct finger. It builds instinctiveness. Note: you can be doing a bit of Sittage and Home
Position in parallel if you wish. Mountain / Main Menu |
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When & Where
can/should you do it? Like the other "Lower Slopes" work (Stages 1 &
2) the real value of Spider Tapping is that it's designed to be something you
can do ANYWHERE, ANYTIME – and potentially hundreds of times a day (in the
tiny micro-gaps between your real life activities!) But perhaps it's best
when you're NOT at a keyboard. Why do Spider Tapping? Where Stages 1 & 2 get you increasingly
automatic with 'selecting' the correct finger for each letter/symbol, Spider
Tapping adds an additional essential element of Body Knowledge: it trains
your body to know (increasingly automatically) which direction(s) to move the
chosen finger in. How to Spider Tap
properly? Any time you have a few moments spare and think
about it: just put your hands palm-down (but not necessarily in front of you)
in a RELAXED 'spider' shape. Do big, over-the-top movements (or if you're in
'public view', small mini-movements). Do them in mid-air or against a surface
(lap, table, arm of sofa etc). |
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Mountain / Main Menu Unfinished... ......Stage
4 – Sittage (NON-keyboard) Stage 4
(tba) Stage 5
(tba) ...Unfinished Mountain / Main Menu |
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Mountain / Main Menu General Tips for Upper Slopes Upper slopes tips... Upper slopes
tips... Upper slopes tips... |
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Upper Slopes General
Tips for Upper Slopes Stage 6 Stage 6.5 Stage 7 Stage 8 |
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Mountain / Main Menu Stage 6 – Story Drilling What is Story Drilling? Story Drilling is where you sit
at a keyboard/screen Where/When? |
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Stage 6.5 – Mixed Up Story Drills Go back It's a variant of the Story Drill
which helps you fine-tune-to-perfection the precision of your finger
moves while you jump around the
keyboard at random – more like you'll be doing at Stage 7 (Word Drills) Watch a VIDEO to explain Stage 6.5 Or read
the following explanation... |
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Stage 6.5 – Explanation Stage 6.5 is Mixed Up Story Drills.
They are like normal Story Drills, except you don't move from left to right
through the normal story sequence. So rather than doing the normal
drill like this: QAZ WSX EDC RFV... etc Instead, you jump around at
random between the fingers like this: IK, WSX P;/ RFV YHN... or EDC QAZ UJM P;/ EDC ... or OL. YHN IK, QAZ RFV P;/... Of course, ideally you should still be speaking the
relevant story phrases aloud at exactly the same time each finger types its
column. |
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Stage 6.5 - EXTRA TIPS "Jumping around" doesn't mean going fast! In fact "Slow as necessary to be
as Accurate as possible" is as important as ever. Ideally go slow enough to decide
'on the fly' which finger to jump to next. In other words, as you finish one
phrase, you're choosing the next finger to jump to... which requires your brain
to quickly think of the right Story Keywords to say in sync with that next
finger's movements. Should I use ALL my fingers in EACH rep? No need.... don't worry about
keeping track of which fingers you've done in an attempt to always do ALL of
them equally. Trust that enough repetition and
'randomness' will cover all of them. (You'll probably KNOW if you've
been neglecting any fingers/columns over time) Do I always have to choose fingers at RANDOM? No, you can choose a pattern if
you like (eg little fingers first, left
and right: QAZ P;/ then ring fingers: WSX OL. and so
on...) ...but don't repeat the SAME
pattern too much (or at all). Can I take the randomisation further? No. Keep each Phrase intact. In other words: always Forward,
Middle, then Back in that order. Never reverse the Phrases (eg "Morsels
Jelly Uncover" and typing MJU) This would give your conscious
brain too much work to do. Should I STOP doing normal Stage 6 Story Drills? No. Probably not. Yet. You're never really finished with Stage 6 - in the same way that a world-class
professional pianist will not have 'given up' practising scales. Nor would a
Premier League footballer have gone 'beyond' basic fitness drills like
sprints and press-ups. You can certainly do less Stage 6
once you've proven you can be Slick 'n' Quick and Cannot. Get. It. Wrong. If you can do a full Story Drill
in, say 10 seconds or less, with not a flicker of a rumble strip – and maybe
even while you're no longer reciting the story words, but are looking at, and
chatting with, someone else. About football, or the weather, or something! Perhaps you can "keep your hand in" by doing Story
Drills from time to time (maybe a few before, and after, your Stage 7 and
Stage 8 practice – like warming up and cooling down exercises before and
after some serious exercise)? |
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Busola's
Game There is a version of Mixed up
Story Drills (stage 6.5) which we call Busola's Game (named after the trainee who thought up this
approach)... You
pick a shortish word that you can see (from a book title or mag or sign or
poster?). Maybe between 5 & 8 letters long? And
for each letter, you drill the finger/phrase from the story with that
letter in it. It's
even better if you speak out what I call a 'stressed' phrase (ie
stress the word relating to the letter in question MORE than the other words) For
instance... imagine you choose the word LATCH. for
"L" you'd type "OL." and say "offering LOVE full
stop" for
"A" you'd type "QAZ" and say "quiz AGENT zero" for
"T" you'd type "TGB" and say "TURNING guns blue" for "C"
you'd type "EDC" and say "entered digital CODES" for
"H" you'd type "YHN" and say "yellow HOODED
ninjas" Thus
your rep would look like this: OL.
QAZ TGB EDC YHN And
of course: be prepared to take your time. If
the speed goes DOWN, that's no problem in the early stages... (if it means the
accuracy goes up and stays there!!) Busola's
Game keeps you following a more focused path, than when you're just trying to
"pick the next finger to use at random". But
it keeps you on Stage 6.5 which helps you to internalise the choice of finger
AND the 'navigational moves' for each keyword/letter (ie addressing
the questions: "which finger, and which movement/s?") And
yet it trains you in a way that links nicely with what you do at Stage 7
(ie when you're only pressing the ONE key you want, not the whole column) |
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......Stage 7 – Word Drilling Coming soon... |
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......Stage 8 – Phrases etc. Coming soon... |
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The
following sections are "works in progress" How Much Practice? Why no
reference 'handout' with the Actions & Keywords? How much
progress can I expect? Is it
normal to find the right hand story harder to remember / more 'awkward'? Is it
normal to find the right hand 'story' physically easier to type? Yep – many
find the right hand easier. Not, as
some might think, due to right-handedness. But
rather, I think, due to the anatomical alignment of
"elbow-to-wrist-to-knuckles-to-finger-tips" with the diagonal
"Forward-to-the-Left & Back-to-the-Right" columns! And the
need to compensate for your left arm/fingers pointing the wrong way! Other FAQ Other FAQ Other FAQ |
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Impossible to specify or
quantify. So how much practice? My usual answer is... |
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Progress You can't make much
progress if you only do a little
practice. And you can't expect rapid
progress if you practise rarely
(or even only occasionally) But if you do SOME practice – mindful, careful, and steady
– and you do it OFTEN (even if it's only a little, but especially if
sometimes it's more-than-a-little,
or even occasionally a lot...) then
it quickly adds up over time, to make LOTS I find that "Little + Often (Thoughtful Steps)" = LOTS and
this is also a very good idea for most people to adopt why not? Little, Often, Accurate, Deliberate, Steady... = LOADS Frequent, Little, Often, Word = FLOW And that will bring progress. Steady, manageable progress... You can't
hurry the process. But you can
avoid delaying it! Get on
with it!! |
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Why "Rumble Strips"? The term comes from the ridged (and usually painted) lines at the edges
of motorways. If when driving you don't steer well, or maybe you drop off to sleep
for an instant, then (if you're lucky and you don't swerve into other
traffic!) then: . you will drive over these ridges; . the car will shake; . the tyres will make a rumbling sound; . and (again with luck!) you'll wake up and rectify the situation. Pretty Promptly!
That would be madness! What you naturally do (fuelled by the adrenaline which would now be
rushing through your body and brain!) is: . slow
down . adjust your position (steer back onto the road) to get back on track . generally pay more attention to everything (open
your eyes wide and check your mirrors, the other traffic and especially the
road ahead of you!) . think ...just enough. Not
not too much. To work out what happened and maybe what caused the problem
(being tired: falling asleep), and plan how not to do it again (drink the rest of your
coffee; turn the music up; open the windows for a blast of fresh air; get
your passenger to engage you in scintillating conversation) and maybe come
off the motorway soon at a junction to take a break... In other words, you'll keep going forwards, and ensure you become correct ASAP – and plan how to not make that mistake
again. And yet 'turning to focus on the rumble strip' is the equivalent of
what we often do when we make mistakes or reflect on our failings. Many (most?) humans have a tendency to focus on the negative. We may
not realise it but we do. We tend to 'latch on' in our heads to what is, or has gone, wrong (eg
we notice when we make a mistake; we regret when we've failed in some
discipline like a diet or exercise regime; we grumble about our bad track
records in remembering birthdays, or controlling our anger; but we often
don't notice so readily, or to the same extent, when something goes ok; it's
the bad news gets our attention!); We also tend to broadcast the problem – to ourselves and others (eg we
mutter to ourselves, or even say out loud what's not going well, or what
hasn't happened; or – even worse – we
proclaim it as absolute, invariable state: what has 'never happened' or
always goes wrong'... we say things like: "I'm so stupid"; "doh, I've
forgotten"; "aargh, I'm always getting that wrong!"; "oops I did it again!");
And we tend to keep giving air time to the problem. We build a habit of
cursing ourselves time and time again for the same errors, reinforcing the
mental focus we spend on those problems; we even start predicting the future
in pessimistic ways: "I'll never be any good at..."; "I bet I fluff it again,
just watch me...";
This tends to make us anxious, self-critical doom-mongers. It raises
all sorts of negative feelings inside us. And these are very likely to affect
how we get on when we try (try, try) to fix the problem... the tension we feel
about our mistakes is often the very thing which leads us to make them again.
And before long we're practising two terrible things: we're practising
our mistakes; and we're practising agonising about them. And that makes for a
very effective vicious circle! |
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