I received a letter from a student who finds herself in a very common predicament.

Theory and the first speed classes were not a problem. She was writing well and
had few problems.

Now the kid gloves have been taken off. The material is much harder than it was
in previous classes, and the teachers are constantly drilling on tough material
or fast material.

She lost her rhythm and her clarity. At times, her hands shook and/or they froze up.
It wasn't fun in StenoLand.

Here is the basic answer that I gave her.

Your situation is that you are faced with dictation that is too
difficult because of speed and/or density. This is very common.
The answer lies in how you handle the material. Above
everything else, you must always write clearly. If you can
do that, then you work on ensuring that you hands do not
stop at any time. Forget how fast they are moving. Just
make sure that they never stop.

If you can write clean and if you can always keep your hands
moving, then you work on the number of words that you trail
the speaker. A person with poor control will experience
drops of five or more words on the average test. This is
unacceptable. You should not trail the speaker so much that
you must drop a five-word block of words.

A person who knows how to drop properly will drop only the
small number of tough words that show up on a dictation. If
the speed or the density of the material increases, the
student should (1) continue to write clearly, (2) continue
to keep the hands moving at all times -- even if they move
slowly (3) continue to drop words in order to stay up with
the speaker.

The only change that occurs between writing easy material
and writing fast or thick material is that the number of
times that the student drops will increase. The size of
each drop must remain small, but because the dictation is
harder, the amount of drops will increase.

So your success depends on writing clearly, keeping your
hands moving, and keeping your drops small.

Don't worry about writing fast enough. Don't worry about
how many times you have to drop in order to keep up with the
dictation. Don't worry about how fast your hands move as
long as they are moving. And last, but not least, don't be
a spaz. Chill out. You are fighting yourself. Calm down
and write the way you were writing before.

If you do these things, you will be writing like a
professional. Your strokes will be clear. Your hands will
be producing as much as they can. You won't be forcing the
strokes. And your speed will naturally increase week by
week by week.

Take care.

Steve Shastay
Steno Rebel
CourtReportingHelp.com and StenoDrills.com