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Principles & Jargon
You are probably reading this after attending StarTouch Training.
So you will already know… we use a very unexpected approach to help people learn to touch type!
And it’s not just the Learning that is different.
The Practice techniques we recommend you use are also very different
- different from what you might expect
- and so, different from what you might naturally try to do
So you may find some extra support and guidance for your Practice Path is useful.
That’s the reason for this web page
This web page has lots of reminders & reinforcement for StarTouch Trainees.
It will echo (and maybe even build on) what you learnt during your training.
And it may reflect things Jonathan may mention or remind you of in his coaching emails.
This page is designed to be easy to navigate & easy to read…
It has frequent links to the start of the main sections, and to the very top (Main Menu)…
…like this:
Your browser’s Back Button can help you retrace your steps too.
Explore this whole page as much as you can.
Revisit it frequently.
Read (and re-read) as often as necessary.
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!
Follow up support from Jonathan is offered as part of the course.
Trainees who use the the online practice app can submit practice to him.
This will result in 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.
The aim is to help trainees “keep on, keeping on” following your Practice Path.
You can email Jonathan with questions, observations about how your practice is going.
You can email him about what’s not going well or you’re finding hard.
You’ll always get an answer – along with more encouragement!
At least 4 weeks of email support is usually included in the cost of any training.
Beyond that, further coaching may be offered at additional cost.
The Practice Path is the activity you must do (the ‘journey’ you must take) beyond your initial StarTouch training.
You must continue to take steps upon the best route to the Summit.
You must continue to lay bricks, to help you build your the New House of your dreams!
In other words, you must follow a continued regime of regular, frequent & accurate exercises to consolidate your learning and gradually turn it into a Habit, which will deliver as a natural by-product: Speed. And Speed, by the way, without loss of Accuracy (the only type of Speed worth achieving!)
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.
Practise Frequently.
Focus on Accuracy.
Rack up the ‘Reps’.
Frequent Accurate Reps take you FAR.
They build (Accurate) Habit.
And (Accurate) Habit delivers (Accurate) 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!
If someone makes a selection of errors (different ones each time) it’s wrong for them to shrug and think ‘Ah well, I can’t be perfect. At least I’ll learn from my mistakes’. That’s 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 greater problem, of course, is if you are consistently & repeatedly wrong in the same way.
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 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.
And once the conscious brain is no longer getting involved trying to control things… continuing repeated practice will start to build speed very quickly, since there’s no ‘slow thought’ getting in the way and minimal error interrupting and disrupting performance.
So becoming automatically accurate early, and then continuing to practice accurately, will deliver increasing speed as a natural by-product.
Rumble Strips
Overt vs Covert Practice
Old House / New House
The power of YET
Attention / Retention
Memory Boats
Training Not Trying
Brute Repetition
RNT
Outnumbering
Remedial Reps
4A
typeforlongeritis
Explanations of the many principles, catch phrases, analogies & words-with-a-special-meaning that StarTouch uses. NB: this is a Work-in-Progress – continually under construction and so some sections are not complete (…yet!)
Many people know the phrase “practice makes perfect”.
But often (and especially when training your body in new 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.
It will have become ingrained, established, cemented. A habit. But a Bad One!
A better definition is the one StarTouch favours: Practice Makes Permanent!
This is because your body & brain will get used to what it experiences most.
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.
Accuracy is…
The most important thing StarTouch teaches is that:
“Accuracy is KING!”
It’s The. Most. Important. Thing.
(…ok, one of them! For the full list see ALL the 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.
The more mixed the experience your practice path involves (sometimes right and sometimes wrong), the less easily your body and brain will get used to what it needs to get used to. And that will delay the formation of a habit.
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!
Speed is…
“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.
Which is why (as with babies toddling, and toddlers cycling, and adults learning to drive)… you have to be slow before you’re fast.
But you don’t have to be slow AND WRONG, before you become fast & right.
You can be really accurate from the get go.
You can in fact to Perfect Practice pretty easily.
Especially if you
S.L.O.W…
R I G H T
D O W N…
In fact our advice is that you go As Slow as Necessary to be as Accurate as Possible.
And there’s a great recipe for maximising your chance of achieving 100% Accuracy when you approach learning or practice…
A Recipe for Accuracy
(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!
(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…)
COMMIT
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…
Meanwhile, if you need more help with this, Contact Jonathan
Rule No.1
“Eyes Front!”
‘nuff said?
If you need more, how about this:
“Keep your Eyes-on the Hori-zon”
(…because in fact you need not stare straight in front. Anywhere, to left or right is fine)
Even eyes-shut is fine…
Just not ‘down there’ (where your fingers and the keys are!)
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!
Having said that… if you are in control of your Pressures and can spot, and take, a good chunk of time, there’s no reason not to do quite a lot of practice!
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!
And as I say above, there’s no rule against doing more than a little, or even a lot, if you have the time and opportunity.
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.
Short Reps = More Reps
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…
…if it’s going on for 40, 50 or 60 seconds or more…
…just press Enter to BANK that rep and give yourself a breather!
Practice is not meant for producing complete, corrected & tidied text.
Rather: it’s for seeing what you can (or do) do… so you can see how that informs how you should continue practising.
Old House / New House
Old House / New House
Briefly (this will probably be expanded later)… the Old House / New House concept is:
You don’t need to move OUT of your ‘Old House’ (ie: stop using your old typing skill for most or all of your real, pressurised work) just because you’ve started building your ‘New House’ (ie: you’ve learnt how to touch type and are practising that new approach to build Habit and Skill, ie: complete the build!).
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.
Go as Slow as Necessary…
“Go as Slow as necessary…”
…to be as Accurate as possible.
If you’re making mistakes (hitting rumble strips)… then keep practising but SLOW DOWN.
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
Practise when the Pressure’s OFF
“Practise When the Pressure’s Off”
Pressure is anything that might threatens to distract you from doing the best practice possible.
If it takes your Attention away from doing Perfect Practice, it’s a Pressure.
This may include:
- Embarrassment if people are watching you;
- 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……and many more.
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!”
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!)
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
Rumble Strips
“Don’t agonise about the past… organise the future!” – Jonathan Stevens
“Rumble strips” is what StarTouch calls failures or errors.”
For instance:
- making mistakes when practising;
- not practising enough or not practising at all for a period of time;
- practising the wrong thing, or in the wrong way;
- or ‘forgetting’ things we feel we are supposed to have learnt by now… (see ‘forgetting‘)
These things easily make us feel bad about ourselves!
And if we get preoccupied by them, it 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:
- avoid focusing on the rumble strips we have hit (which are now behind us);
- instead, “watch the road ahead” and focus on what we must do to avoid those rumble strips in the future.
In other words, in terms of StarTouch practice this means: minimising Pressure and aiming to get things “Right Next Time” (RNT).
One way to achieve this would be using the Recipe for Accuracy introduced in our training events!
“Rumble Strips” are the ridged (and usually painted) lines along the edges of motorways.
Test row with ‘bookmark’ identifer
If, when driving, you don’t steer well, or maybe you drop off to sleep for an instant… then (with luck, and if you don’t swerve into other traffic!) the following may happen:
- you will drive over these ridges;
- the tyres will make a rumbling sound;
- the car will shake;
- you’ll wake up and rectify the situation. Pretty Promptly!
What you’re not likely to do (whilst still moving forward at 50 or 60 mph, heading for the ditch) is:
- turn around to look at the rumble strip you ran over, which is now behind you;
- or focus on it, and contemplate it at length
- or spend much time talking to yourself or your passengers about it
(“Oh, look. I hit that rumble strip; that’s terrible; I shouldn’t do that; I often do that and I really must stop; I’ve done it a couple of times this trip already, and here I go again, doing it once more; sorry about that…”)
Those responses would be madness!
And yet many people spend exactly this sort of excessive focus on the mistakes they make, rather than turn all their attention to not repeating it!
So what would you do when you hit a rumble strip? What’s the natural human response?
Well, most likely (fuelled by the adrenaline which would now be rushing through your body and brain!) you would:
- 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 too much. Maybe work out what happened and 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.
You want to avoid making that mistake again. (Because if you start repeating it, then you’re practising a mistake. And Practice Makes Permanent )
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!
Why call them "Rumble Strips"...?
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 tyres will make a rumbling sound;
- the car will shake;
- and (again with luck!) you’ll wake up and rectify the situation. Pretty Promptly!
What a driver is not likely to do (whilst still moving forward at 50 or 60 mph, heading for the ditch) is:
- turn around to look at the rumble strip you ran over, which is now behind you;
- nor would you focus on it, and contemplate it at length
- nor would you spend much time talking to yourself or your passengers about it (“Oh, look. I hit that rumble strip; that’s terrible; I shouldn’t do that; I often do that and I really must stop; I’ve done it a couple of times this trip already, and here I go again, doing it once more; sorry about that…”)
Those responses would be madness!
And yet many people spend exactly this sort of excessive focus on the mistakes they make, rather than turn all their attention to not repeating it!
So what would you do when you hit a rumble strip? What’s the natural human response?
Well, most likely (fuelled by the adrenaline which would now be rushing through your body and brain!) you would:
- 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 too much. Maybe work out what happened and 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.
You want to avoid making that mistake again. (Because if you start repeating it, then you’re practising a mistake. And Practice Makes Permanent )
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!
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...
NOTE:
It may be of some value to Perform parts of the Story (Stage 1 of the mountain) repeatedly, in a fashion that’s a bit like Brute Repetition, because it’s a great way to rapidly get your lips, ears and fingers really used to the sound and actions. Which will make the words and actions more familiar.
So for instance, you might do/say “Releasing Funny Vapour” again and again and again and again (though do consider changing your voice a little to avoid monotony!)
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…
Thus: you spot the V in ‘hoover’ and say “releasing funny VAPOUR” …by which time you’ve spotted the R at the end of ‘hoover’ and so your next repetition is “RELEASING funny vapour” …and then you see F in ‘fire exit’ and so say “releasing FUNNY vapour” (doing the Action every time, with slickness)
Training not Trying
Coming soon – including “The Wrong sort of Oomph”!
If you’ve got questions about this: contact Jonathan
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
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.
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)
OR
Unhelpful thing 2) They leave the error on show but move on to the next thing they want to type.
Like this: THIS THUS THEN THEB THAT THEY…
Better than these unhelpful behaviours, we recommend that you:
. Stop and breathe
(stay calm and in control – no panic, or impulse action, it’s just a rumble strip; no one’s crashed; no one’s died…; if you let a negative reaction take hold, it will put you under pressure…)
. 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.
In other words, try the same thing again, and aim to get it Right. Next. Time.
Do the whole word, or story ‘phrase’ (eg EDC) – not just the one keystroke you got wrong.
Like this:
YHN UJM IK, OL. ];/ P;/
or THE SKU SKY IS
Why RNT?
It’s helpful if your body’s most recent experience is always the right behaviour.
In fact, getting it RNT twice in a row will help your body learn from its experiences even more effectively (see Outnumbering.)
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”.
Quits.
A tie.
No winner.
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!
Like this: QAZ WSX EDC RFV TGV TGB TGB YHN UJM…
or: RED BLY BLUE BLUE GREEN…
Why just ONE more?
You may feel like doing more than one extra correct version.
Maybe make the score “3-1” or more…?
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.
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;/
or
QAZ P;/ ‘ TGB P;/ WSX P;/ UJM
or
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:
. Stage 6.5 practice including lots of IK, and OL. like this:
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
Remaining Content
Lower Slopes (Brain Connections)
General tips
Stage 1 – Story Performing
Stage 2 – Spell Acting
Stage 3 – Spider Tapping
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:
1) Which Finger to select? (Stages 1 & 2 programme the answers to this)
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’!
Stage 1: Story Performing
Basics: What is it? When/where to do it? Why do it? How to do it well? When to stop/move on?
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.
Stage 2: Spell Acting
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.
Stage 3 – Spider Tapping
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).
Middle Mountain
Unfinished…
……Stage 4 – Sittage (NON-keyboard)
……Stage 5 – Home Position (Keyboard)
Middle Mountain (tba)
Stage 4 (tba)
Stage 5 (tba)
…Unfinished
General Tips for Upper Slopes
Upper slopes tips… Upper slopes tips…
Upper slopes tips…
Upper slopes tips…
Upper Slopes
General Tips for Upper Slopes
Stage 6
Stage 6.5
Stage 7
Stage 8
Clouds
Stage 6 – Story Drilling
What is Story Drilling?
Story Drilling is where you sit at a keyboard/screen
Where/When?
When you’re at a physical keyboard + screen.
When you have some time when the Pressure’s Off.
It could be as little as 20-30 seconds, though a minute or more is great.
And if you have 2-3 minutes, there’s scope for you to do enough reps to maybe see some great short term progress…
Stage 6.5 – Mixed Up Story Drills
If your Stage 6 practice is becoming “4A”: Almost Always Absolutely Accurate (ie on average 99-100%?) – and maybe you’re getting a bit bored with ‘normal’ Stage 6, it might be time for you to experiment with Stage 6.5.
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…
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
- 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.
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?
What about going UP the columns?
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)?
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:
- 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)
……Stage 7 – Word Drilling
Coming soon…
……Stage 8 – Phrases etc.
Coming soon…
Other Practice FAQs
The following sections are “works in progress”
and/or coming soon …
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
How Much Practice?
Impossible to specify or quantify.
Different for every person.
It may be dependent on background levels of (for instance) finger dexterity: people who already play piano or flute may have a head start on those whose fine motor skills aren’t already pre-trained.
So how much practice?
My usual answer is…
“More than you’ve done;
more than you wish you had to do;
more than you’re naturally inclined to do;
and therefore more than you’d be likely to do …
…unless you apply a degree of intention, determination and discipline.
But nowhere near as much as you might fear you’ll have to do.
Just get on with it. And get on with it soon!
And do more soon again after that.
Which will result in you practising often.
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?
And that will bring progress.
Steady, manageable progress…
You can’t hurry the process.
But you can avoid delaying it!
Get on with it!!