LLTT Newsletter - October 2025 - Stop Chasing Speed (Part II)
LLTT Newsletter - October 2025
Stop Chasing Speed - Part II: Why your Teeline progress depends on deliberate slow practice
There really is no secret to learning shorthand, although this never stops people from trying to discover one. Take speed, for instance. Students searching for that elusive "formula" that will somehow propel them past their current plateau often overlook one of the most powerful tools in their practice arsenal: the strategic use of slower speeds.
Editor's Note: In the February 2024 issue, we touched on the idea that slowing down is essential for speed development. In this month's issue, let's expand on that and provide some practical ideas for your consideration.
If you're struggling to break through a speed plateau in Teeline, the advice you're probably getting might be incomplete.
"Practise more dictations."
"Listen to faster passages."
"Push yourself harder."
These aren't wrong - pushing speed boundaries is absolutely essential. You cannot reach 100wpm without regularly practising at speeds that challenge you. But what's often missing from this advice is the equally important counterbalance: slow practice that addresses the technical weaknesses preventing you from handling those higher speeds effectively.
This isn't just feel-good advice. It's a fundamental principle of skill acquisition that most Teeline students miss entirely: you must practise at challenging speeds to build stamina and push boundaries, but you also need regular slow practice to identify and fix the technical issues that create your speed ceiling in the first place.
The Speed Trap
Here's what happens to many Teeline students: You learn the alphabet, practise some basic outlines, and then immediately start chasing speed targets. You're doing 40wpm dictations — trying to get to 60wpm. Then 60wpm — trying to get to 80wpm. So far, so good - this is what you should be doing.
But sooner or later, you hit a wall and can't seem to break through, no matter how many dictations you attempt. You keep pushing at the same speed, hoping that repetition alone will somehow unlock the next level.
Does this sound familiar? You've fallen into the speed trap: the belief that practising exclusively at (or near) your target speed will get you there and beyond. But speed without technique becomes chaos. If you only ever practise at your maximum capability, you're reinforcing whatever habits - good or bad - you currently have, with no time to diagnose and correct the problems.
What's Really Happening
When you're stuck at a particular speed, it's not because your hand can't physically move faster. It's because your shorthand technique has flaws that get exposed and magnified at those greater speeds. These might include:
Inconsistent stroke formation: Your outlines look different every time you write them, forcing your brain to work harder to recognise your own writing.
Poor letter connections: You're lifting your pen unnecessarily or creating awkward joins that slow down your flow.
Size inconsistency: Your outlines vary wildly in size, making them harder to read back and less efficient to write.
Hesitation patterns: You pause at certain letter or grouping combinations because you haven't automated the movements.
Compensatory shortcuts: You've tried to develop your own workarounds and/or groupings for difficult combinations that might work at slow speeds, but break down under pressure.
At high speeds, these problems compound. Your brain is working overtime just to keep up, making it nearly impossible to identify, let alone fix, what's actually going wrong.
The Power of Deliberate Slow Practice
Here's a simple truth: whilst you absolutely need to push yourself at challenging speeds to build stamina and capability, regularly dropping down to a slower speed when your goal is much higher is NOT going backwards - it's diagnostic work.
At slower speeds, you can:
Perfect your stroke mechanics: Every letter can be formed with precision, creating muscle memory for clean, consistent outlines.
Smooth out connections: You have time to work on your joins between letters without the pressure of keeping up.
Identify problem patterns: Those tricky letter combinations that trip you up at speed become obvious and fixable.
Build confidence: Clean, readable shorthand at any speed is better than unreadable scrawl at higher speeds.
Think of it this way:
Slow practice is where you identify and correct problems;
Speed practice is where you test whether those corrections hold up under pressure.
You need both.
Practical Strategies for Balanced Practice
Whatever speed you're currently comfortable at, spend at least some of your practice time at speeds 20-30wpm below that level. If you can manage 70wpm dictations with some errors, you might spend half your practice time on 40-50wpm material with zero errors allowed, and the other half pushing at 70-80wpm to build speed.
The exact split will vary based on your circumstances, but the principle remains: balance technique-building (slow practice) with capacity-building (speed practice).
The Clean Sheet Test
Practise writing common word groupings and phrases at slower speeds until you can produce a full page that looks as though it could be printed in a textbook —particularly if they are new to you. Aim to eliminate messy joins, size variations and unclear outlines. This isn't about showing off - it's about training your hand and brain to default to good technique which you can maintain as speeds increase.
The Problem Hunt
Take a dictation passage you've struggled with at higher speeds and write it out at 30-40wpm, focusing entirely on identifying every moment where your pen hesitates or where you don’t know the outline and/or grouping cold. These are your specific technical problems to solve. Once identified, drill these problem areas slowly until they're smooth, then gradually increase speed.
The Speed Push-Pull Cycle
Consider this weekly pattern:
Days 1-3: 60% slow practice (technique refinement), 40% speed pushing
Days 4-5: 40% slow practice, 60% speed pushing
Days 6-7: 30% slow practice, 70% speed pushing or exam-speed dictations
This ensures you're both building technical excellence and pushing your speed boundaries, not choosing one at the expense of the other.
The Read-Back Challenge
After both slow and fast practice sessions, test whether you can read back your own writing immediately and again after a day or two.
If you can't read your slow shorthand perfectly, your fundamentals need work.
If you can't read your fast shorthand at all, you're pushing speed at the expense of legibility - slow down and rebuild.
Reframing Your Practice Sessions
Instead of thinking "I need to write faster" (which leads to speed-only practice), think:
"I need to write efficiently at all speeds" - Perfect technique slowly, then gradually increase speed whilst maintaining quality.
"I need to write consistently" - Every outline should look essentially the same whether you're writing at 40wpm or 80wpm.
"I need to write smoothly" - Your pen should flow continuously without hesitation, which requires both slow practice to establish the pattern and fast practice to maintain it under pressure.
"I need to write clearly" - You should be able to read back everything you write, at any speed.
These qualities require a balanced approach: slow practice develops them, speed practice tests them, and the combination makes them permanent.
The Maintenance Principle
Even after you achieve your speed goals, slow practice isn't something you graduate from - it's maintenance. Professional shorthand writers regularly practise at speeds well below their capabilities specifically to maintain clean technique. It's like a pianist practising scales or a surgeon practising sutures: fundamental skills need regular attention at manageable speeds, even when you're capable of much more. But they also continue to push their speed boundaries occasionally, ensuring their maximum capability doesn't atrophy. It's always both.
Overcoming the Psychological Resistance
The hardest part of incorporating slow practice isn't technical - it's psychological. When you're desperate to reach 100wpm, spending time at 40wpm feels like going backwards. It feels boring. It feels like you're wasting precious practice time.
But consider this: Would you rather spend six months doing nothing but 80wpm dictations and never improve, or spend less time mixing slow technical work with speed building and actually reach 100wpm?
The students who consistently reach professional speeds aren't the ones who practise exclusively at high speeds, nor are they the ones who only practise slowly. They're the ones who practise smartly at all speeds - slow enough to perfect technique and fast enough to build capacity. And more importantly? To know when each approach is needed.
The Long Game
Sustainable speed in Teeline isn't about pushing your limits every single day. It's about building such solid fundamentals that high speeds feel controlled rather than frantic, then pushing those high speeds until they become your new comfortable baseline. The shorthand writers who maintain their skills over decades aren't the ones who learned to write fast quickly; they're the ones who learned to write well first, then built speed on that foundation.
Your plateau isn't a wall to break through with pure force. It's a signal that you need a more balanced approach. Sometimes you need to slow down and clean up your technique. Sometimes you need to push harder at speed. But you almost certainly need both.
The speed will come. But first, build technique worth speeding up. Then test it at higher speeds. Then refine it slowly again. Then push even faster. This cycle - not speed alone, not slow practice alone - is what creates sustainable progress.
The goal isn't to always practise slowly. The goal is to practise wisely - and that means using both slow technical work and challenging speed work in strategic combination. Don't abandon speed building. Just don't abandon technique building either.
A Final Note: Don't Confuse Slow Practice with Copying
Before we wrap up, let's address a common misunderstanding. When we talk about slow practice, we mean slow dictation - listening to speech and writing it down at reduced speeds. This is not the same as copying shorthand from books or printed materials.
Some students spend hours carefully copying perfect outlines from textbooks, thinking this will improve their speed. It won't. Copying is useful when you're first learning the alphabet and familiarising yourself with letter shapes, but beyond that initial stage, it's actually counterproductive for speed building.
Why? Because shorthand serves the spoken word. The skill you need to develop is hearing speech and converting it instantly into outlines. Copying develops neither your listening skills nor your ability to think in shorthand whilst someone is speaking. You're training the wrong muscle, so to speak. By all means, you should read printed shorthand to strengthen recognition, but your active practice - whether slow or fast - should always incorporate dictation.
That's where the real skill develops.
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If you’re looking for Teeline reading practice, Skill Building Through Reading 📗 - is available for purchase online.
Much work (and ❤️!) has gone into this 48 page, 6x9 softcover book:
Five 5️⃣ carefully selected passages: Improve your sight 👁️ recognition of outlines and word groupings.
Dual Format: Each passage includes both printed Teeline and the longhand ✍️ transcription.
Proven Learning Approach: Reading printed 🖨️ shorthand is a method long-favoured by skilled practitioners.
Whether you're a student, journalist, or professional seeking to improve your note-taking, this book will be a valuable addition to your Teeline learning resources.
To order, please visit the book’s landing page or respond to this email with any questions.
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A Parting Thought
