|
It is very necessary for you to understand
the learning processes involved in correct typing. Typing
requires the use of sensory motor patterns,
of which you may not have been aware.
We are all accustomed to learning that
involves taking in information either by hearing it or by
reading it. When we come to use such information, we
usually speak or write it. To do this, thought processes
are involved that filter the information we have stored in
the brain.
Typing is different. It involves
taking information - either reading, hearing, or from within
your own memory store - through your thinking process.
You then need to translate that information into stimuli to
activate specific fingers to type and produce specific letters.
Your goal must be to touch type well enough
so that you do not need to think about finger movements, so
that typing will not interrupt, but rather facilitate your
thinking processes. You want to have the whole of your
mind free as you type.
That is why you need to go through this
program very carefully to enable you to touch type in your
near conscious. This is not quite as
deep as your subconscious, an in-between state of consciousness
where you do not use full thought processors but operate in
the near conscious.
To make it possible for your fingers to
find the correct keys without conscious direction, you need
to do enough practice to develop what are called neuro-muscular
pathways. These will allow messages from the processor
within your brain to pass to, and activate the fingers.
Probably the closest analogy to this process
is driving a car. If you drive, you may remember how
difficult it was to learn to synchronize the movements required
for steering, especially if you learned on a manual transmission
and needed to shift gears - to move the foot on the clutch,
the hand on the stick shift, and control the foot pressure
on the accelerator. Once you learned to make these movements
easily, you could concentrate on taking in traffic information
and use hands and feet almost without thinking about them.
In fact, all experienced drivers manipulate controls in the
near conscious. This allows for full concentration to
be given to taking in and responding to traffic information.
We want to call on those same learning
processes so that you can rely on your fingers to press the
correct keys in response to words you read, just as you now
rely on your hands and feet to move correctly while you are
driving.
Learning to type is a bit nore difficult
than learning to drive because you need to learn to use all
your fingers independently. It's not quite as harrowing
though - the worst accident that you can have is to jumble
the letters!
Let's consider another analogy. If
you decided that you wanted to become a weightlifter, you'd
exercise regularly, and you'd see the evidence of the muscles
in your body actually growing. This is because the exercise
is strenuous and repetitive, and the muscle outlines become
clear. This same process goes on as you practice typing.
Since neuro-muscular pathways are involved,
you can't see the growth. It does occur, however, as
messages from your brain to fingertips flow along, developing
neuro-muscular pathways.
What has just been described is a two part
process.
Developing neuro-muscular pathways in response
to sensory input is one part, and the other is sending messages
down these pathways. Here is a quick exercise you can
do to experience neuro-muscular pathways:
Strumming: the running
or tapping finger movements that some people make on a desk
when they are impatient. Just try it - here's how.
With one hand on a desk or flat surface,
strum your fingers as if you were impatient.
Got the idea?
While strumming, watch the direction that
the strum goes. Do you strum inwards - from the little
finger in towards the thumb, or outwards - from the thumb
to the little finger?
50% of people strum one way, 50% strum
the other - it does not really matter. The fact that
you can strum shows that you have pathways developed to each
finger to take your message to strum.
Now reverse the direction. Can you
feel a difference? Unless you play a musical instrument,
it is almost always more difficult to strum in the reverse
direction. Relax!
What strumming demonstrates is that you
have the neuro-muscular pathways to your fingers developed
enough to accept your message to strum one way but the message
sending is not sufficiently developed to take the message
to strum in the reverse direction. To be able to touch
type well, you need to develop both the pathways and the message
sending so that your fingers will take messages to type correct
sequences in any direction.
We have designed this program to make it
possible for you to adopt the movements and routines used
by typists who type well and have never had RSI (Repetitive
Strain Injury).
They always use small mini movements.
From the screen, you'll type finger exercises,
words, phrases and sentences so repetitively that taking in
the meaning of the words through your left brain will cease,
and only the right brain will take the repetitive stimuli.
This is best for the development of the sensory motor pathways.
Left brain analysis of the meaning of the
words and phrases that you are typing interferes with the
right brain reactions. Concentration through the eyes
into the right brain mode is what all these techniques are
designed to achieve.
|
