LLTT Newsletter - August 2026 - The Return Is The Skill
LLTT Newsletter - August 2026
The Return Is the Skill
Has anyone experienced this scenario before?
You open up your notebook and realise that it’s been several weeks since your last practice session. And your first thought isn’t where you left off. It’s whether you should bother continuing at all.
If you have broken a streak, or perhaps more than once, then the perceived cost of breaking it again drops further. So instead of looking into your habits and routines to see if a change in how you approach your studies could help, you stop entirely.
But we are here to say everybody, yes, everybody, experiences some version of this along the path to 100. In other words: nobody reaches 100 wpm without a gap or two in between.
Every Teeliner who achieves their goal has started. Then stopped, likely more than once, for reasons that have nothing to do with shorthand itself. Life gets in the way for all of us.
But life doesn’t show up in the records. Only the result does. In order to get to where you want to go, you should realise that your path must survive the gaps, indeed, perhaps anticipate them.
If you were to interview one hundred people who had achieved 100 wpm, you would find one thing in common. It wouldn’t be an unbroken streak of hard work that got them there. Rather, you’d find it was their ability to pick themselves up after a break. THAT is the actual skill, and it’s one every successful writer must learn more than once.
Knowing what a gap ‘costs’ you can be helpful. Shorthand is both a mental pursuit as well as a physical one. Speed tends to erode first. After a break, your hand will need a few sessions to find its rhythm. Generally, your theory knowledge, assuming you once had a solid grasp, returns fairly quickly, or is easily refreshed. If you remember that recognising something takes less effort than physically producing it, you’re well on your way to understanding that you can usually recall what an outline is (or means) before you can write it at your former speed. And this is OK.
The good news here is that it is only your timing (speed) and not the Teeline knowledge itself that needs to be reinvigorated.
The ‘Return’ is, therefore, a technique, and one you can learn.
If you find yourself wading back into those Teeline waters after a break, then don’t try to go back in at the last speed you remember holding. Frankly, too much is made of speed most of the time. Be kind to yourself. This isn’t a race with anyone other than yourself.
Try reading some shorthand before you write it. Work a small portion of a lesson. Don’t try to close a gap in one sitting. One 15-minute session that gives you a small win is worth more than an unfulfilled ‘plan’ to make up for all the lost time.
The writers who reach 100 are not the ones who never stopped. They’re simply the ones who never let stopping become the whole story.
And if you have stopped, for any reason, believe us when we say there is no reason you cannot pick up your favourite pen and begin again.
It simply doesn’t matter how long it takes to get there. It only matters that you want to.
As always, if you have suggestions or topics you'd like to see covered in future newsletters, please contact us:
https://www.letsloveteelinetogether.com/contact-us
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A Parting Thought
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Looking to build speed, sharpen your reading skills, and improve your Teeline shorthand without hours of aimless dictation practice?
Here's what LLTT+ can do for you:
Spend less time practising and make more progress — because every session is focussed, not accidental
See outlines you've been avoiding finally click into place, so you stop hesitating at the exact moments it matters most
Build reading fluency alongside writing speed — the most overlooked skill in shorthand, and the one that holds most learners back
Experience greater confidence walking into a dictation knowing you've genuinely prepared, and not just hoped for the best
Master word groupings and special outlines that experienced writers use
Stop wasting time on material you've already mastered; work instead on the specific outlines that are slowing you down
Identify your bottlenecks — because your overall speed is only as fast as your slowest outlines
Develop the kind of automatic, fluent responses that come from practising the right things, not just practising more
LLTT+ grows alongside you, from early stages through to exam standards and beyond.
Find out more at letsloveteelinetogether.com/llttplus
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