Case studies in rapid habit eradication

Old Way New Way^® is a learning tool that is especially well suited to changing entrenched habits of thought, word and deed.

It is a generic change methodology that is widely applicable to many different learning and training situations where people have to change over to new ways of thinking, behaving and performing.

The following case studies and published research articles illustrate just how useful and effective Old Way New Way^® is and how it makes a person so much more adaptable and flexible in the face of life's ever changing demands and challenges.

Management training and development

The Education Boom. Jarek Czechowicz. Management Today. November-December 2000. Pages 12 and 13. Australian Institute of Management.

Knowledge is an enterprise's greatest resource. Online management development is fast and cheap. By 2002, more than half of all training will be technology based, with the remainder taking place in the classroom.

This article discusses the proactive habit interference mechanism that slows down change and continuous improvement in knowledge and skills. The solution, Old Way New Way^®, accelerates human learning and allows the rapid uptake of new knowledge and skills.

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Physiotherapy

Andrew had a walking problem. His gait was unusual in that he normally threw his right foot toe-outwards on a forward step, instead of pointing it straight forward.

To an uninformed person that might not seem so drastic but the problems that it caused for Andrew, now in middle age, meant that his personalised walking style had to change and change quickly.

His physiotherapist had diagnosed the cause of his swollen achilles tendon, his tight calf muscle and his persistent lower back pain as all due to his unfortunate walking style. The prescribed treatment was that Andrew actively concentrate and practise a new way of walking. Instead of throwing his right foot out to the side he now had to point it straight forward when walking. In fact, he had to learn how to walk all over again.

The prognosis was dubious at best. Given a lot of effort and sufficient time, Andrew might re-learn how to walk in 6 months, or perhaps longer, or maybe never. He was somewhat pessimistic about his own chances of making the change. Having had the problem for so many years the injurious walking style was deeply ingrained.

Fortunately, Andrew was conversant with Old Way / New Way and sought the assistance of the PBS facilitator. A session was scheduled for the next day.

Andrew had paid close attention to his physiotherapist's explanation of the problem and could give the facilitator a detailed description of the problem. After this Andrew spent some 15 minutes walking back and forth in a room, with his shoes on and at other times with them off, and sometimes with his eyes open and at other times with them closed, all the while speaking aloud of his sensations while he was walking in his usual way with his foot thrown outwards.

While walking in his own way he described the sensation of feeling the back of his right heel strike the floor first, followed by a "foot roll" or something he later described as a "rocking motion." He said that there appeared to be a two-stage impact. When asked to walk in his new way he described the sensation of feeling less heel strike, making a flatter impact, having more bend in the foot and in the centre of the foot and feeling more lift-off from the ball of the foot and from the toes. His foot seemed to be "working harder," he added thoughtfully. Andrew also mentioned that he could feel his right knee "working" to keep the foot pointed straight ahead when he walked.

The remaining part of the half-hour session was taken up by Andrew comparing his old and new ways of walking, followed by a short practice session where he walked in his new way. He was given a simple procedure for self-correcting his walking whenever he detected he was walking in his old way and was reminded that his progress would be reviewed in two weeks.

In an informal discussion a few days later Andrew said that the metacognitive treatment appeared to be working and that he had been able to successfully apply the self-correction procedure a few times. He also complained of a new pain in his right knee. The facilitator suggested that he should mention this to his physiotherapist on his next visit that evening and also asked him to explain to the physiotherapist that the Old Way / New Way process had now enabled Andrew to exert more conscious control over his walking such that he was actually walking more often in his new way and consequently using his right knee more to maintain the new direction of his right foot. Andrew agreed that this was a likely explanation of the knee pain and said that he would mention this to his physiotherapist.

2 Weeks Later. The knee pain has gone and Andrew's walk is now much improved. He has noticed the improvement himself and so has his physiotherapist. Altogether, its been a very positive outcome for all concerned.

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Work skills

In 1985 the Commonwealth Department of Education employed the services of Personal Best Systems on behalf of several Aboriginal students. In a letter of referral dated February 5, 1986, the Education Officer stated that,

"Most of the cases were with secondary level students where the intervention techniques with English and mathematics problems proved most beneficial to all the students. Further to this, the techniques proved remarkable in the case of a young adult who had previously been struggling to hold a position in the Public Service, This young person has now assumed increasingly more difficult and complicated tasks and aspires to permanent employment and promotion. I would recommend the programme highly on the results I have seen in only one year."

Our case notes tell the following story about this highly personal transformation.

"Jennifer was referred to Personal Best Systems by the Department of Education. A 25-year old counter officer employed by the Department of Social Security, she was experiencing the following difficulties at work.

Her poor spelling was preventing her from dealing efficiently with the completion of a wide variety of required forms.
Her perceived need to conceal her spelling disability from her clients led her to adopt various strategies designed to hide the form from clients as she worked. Her clients became suspicious and resentful and would make negative comments.
She was very slow in processing clients, sometimes managing to deal with only 6 or 7 during a morning period. This also generated comments from clients as well as co-workers.
She would select the simplest cases to deal with, leaving the more difficult work to other counter officers.
To alleviate some of her difficulties, she would frequently call on other counter officers for assistance. This interrupted their own duties and created resentment.
She would find ways to avoid having to deal with clients and would try to appear pre-occupied with other tasks.
Her growing dissatisfaction with her work and the belief that the situation would never improve led her to seriously consider resigning. There was the clear possibility that if she did not resign her employment would be terminated.

Jennifer underwent an intensive period of occupational training and spelling remediation. She completed 29 hours of work, with the following outcomes.

Her vocabulary of words required for her work increased greatly. Many long established spelling errors were corrected and she was taught a method for learning new words quickly. This made her self-monitoring and self-correcting in spelling.
Her tendency to hide forms from clients as she completed them was eliminated by a series of direct interventions. This was achieved even before there was a noticeable improvement in her spelling. As a result, her relationships with clients greatly improved, to the extent that she perceived them as friendly and cooperative rather than unsympathetic and hostile.
Her efficiency in processing clients greatly improved and she now handles in excess of 50 clients in a morning's work. Its is no longer necessary to recall clients to amend forms or get additional information. She gets all she needs from them the first time and in an atmosphere of cooperative friendliness.
She now selects clients from the board, in turn, just like other counter officers, regardless of the amount and difficulty of the work involved.
She faced initial resistance from other counter officers at being granted time away from work to attend PBS. Because her productivity was so low they begrudged her two afternoons a week at PBS since they were then required to carry her work load at a time when the Department was very busy. However, she improved her work performance and her productivity so quickly that fellow staff were soon taking it upon themselves to remind her of her appointments at PBS. She no longer relied on them to provide assistance with procedures.
As a direct result of her increased competence, her job satisfaction improved out of sight, as did her self-confidence and self-esteem and her sense of independence. In her own words, "Now I know I can be what I always thought I could. I suspected I had the raw material to be good at my job: now I know I am!"

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Musician's performance anxiety

In 1982 an examiner from the Australian Music Examination Board (AMEB) commented in his examination report that Christopher had a problem in the way he raised his shoulders. Whenever a stressful passage was attempted he would unconsciously tense his shoulder muscles causing his shoulders to lift which adversely affected his playing.

His music teacher over the next three years from time to time used a method of tapping him on his shoulders in order to get him to relax and release the tension in his shoulders. However, in 1985 a different AMEB examiner again made a comment in his report about his raised shoulders. It appeared that the raised shoulders had now become habitual and had become a permanent part of his playing style.

Worse than that, his music teacher pointed out that this persistent habit would stop Christopher becoming the really good pianist that he was capable of being, unless it was eradicated. The problem was a great concern not only to Christopher but also to his parents.

Christopher's home and talked through the problem with him and his parents in detail.

Paul explained to Christopher and his parents why the raised shoulders had proved so difficult to correct, followed by a brief outline of how this problem would now be corrected using Old Way / New Way.

Christopher then took part in a 20-minute session during which Paul helped him recognise when he was actually raising his shoulders while playing and then replaced this habit with a new habit - relaxed shoulders while playing.

After this brief treatment Paul explained that Christopher could now be expected to play with relaxed shoulders 80% of the time, or better. Furthermore, on those 20% of occasions when he would fall back into his raised shoulders style he would detect this by himself, without needing outside assistance, 95% of the time it happened.

Christopher and his parents, who quietly observed the entire treatment, were then given a simple follow-up routine to deal with those 20% of occasions when Christopher would revert to his old way of playing. His parents monitored Christopher's playing during the next three weeks and whenever a lapse occured took him through the prescribed brief routine.

In a letter dated October 21, 1985, Christopher's parents were happy to report that,
"We would like to express our sincere thanks for what you did in helping Chris overcome a postural problem in his piano playing. Your solution to his problem seemed so simple, yet two months after your intervention treatment the problem appears to be permanently 'fixed'. The proof to us of a permanent solution came recently when he played to a public audience and there was no sign of a recurrence of the problem."

Christopher subsequently went on to complete his music degree and also won the university piano prize.

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Workplace safety at ALCOA

Kobe Alcoa Aluminium Limited Training Coordinator, Graham Weaver, liked what he saw and heard at the Australian National Training Authority Research Advisory Council National Conference in Melbourne on November 3, 1996.

He was particularly intrigued by a presentation by a group of three researchers from Queensland and South Australia. They presented the results of a controlled experimental trial of an innovative training method that appeared to be far superior to any other training method he knew.

Graham met and talked with the presenters afterwards and invited them to visit the KAAL aluminium production plant in Geelong and present their research results to a group of trainers and managers.

On the morning of Tuesday 15 July, after seeing the presentation, the management and trainers at KAAL agreed to a workplace trial at their plant. For the rest of the day the presenter met with a wide range of staff including safety officers, production coordinators, trainers and management to discuss the kinds of safety issues that might be suitable targets for a workplace trial.

The topic selected was the appropriate disposal of Synthetic Mineral Fibres (SMF). This material is used as part of the Casting Process for Aluminium and under a particular set of circumstances can be considered as having the potential to be detrimental to health. When this material was introduced as a replacement for more hazardous material, the Company set up proper disposal procedures which were never wholly accepted by the work force who typically tended to dispose of this product in a somewhat ad-hoc manner. Numerous Company initiatives to improve this practice had resulted in short term improvement at best and no improvement at worst.

The workplace trial was scheduled for November 10 and the eight members of pit Crew C in the ingot mill were chosen to participate.

The hazardous nature of the casting pit precluded the running of a hands-on mediation session where crew members would have practised their actual old and new ways of SMF disposal. Neither was there the time to set up a simulation. Instead the "training room exercise" was used although it was understood that this had significantly less power than the full scale practice.

The re-training session lasted 90 minutes and included a psychological explanation of why established work skills are hard to change; a demonstration of the mental mechanism responsible for protecting skills; a demonstration of the Old Way New Way^® training method; a discussion of the existing problem with SMF disposal including why it is so hazardous if not handled properly; a brainstorming session where crew members explored alternative feasible ways of properly disposing of SMF; and finally a conceptual mediation process where each crew member described what his old way of disposing of SMF was, what his new way would be and what difference there was between those two ways

Crew members were then told that this Old Way New Way^® process would make them self-monitoring and self-correcting.

The Operators were left to their own devices for a six day period, after which the Training Coordinator spent a total of 5 minutes with each of them informally asking how the new program was going. The responses were more positive than he had ever dared to hope for.

'After doing the program I can't 'not think' about how I dispose of synthetic mineral fibres' - Casting Pit Operator A.
You would have got even better results with a project the crew actually WANT to do' - Casting Pit Operator B.
We don't get any complaints from the crew who takes over from us' - Casting Pit Operator C.
'The casting pit is significantly different on 'C' shift in terms of the amount of synthetic mineral fibres left in the bath pans and around the pit itself. There is a significant and noticeable improvement' - 'C' crew Team Leader.
'When can you work with my team?' - the Team Leader of a different area - 'I can't wait until we deal with my golf swing. If it works in the casting pit when I'm only part interested, it should be great on the golf course'.
'It was a most interesting training program, not boring like a lot of the stuff we have to do here' - Casting Pit Operator A.
'I went into the training room only because I had to. I had little interest in the program at the beginning. But it got me interested and I left the meeting committed to giving it a go' - Casting Pit Operator B.
'You can tell the difference when we take over from another shift. You have to give the other shifts the same training to bring them up to our level' - Casting Pit Operator C.
Unfortunately the crews rotate regularly, so only a couple of people who did the training are actually still working in the pit, but they are influencing the people around them who have not done the training to clean up the SMFs properly. That says a lot about the program' - Team Leader 'C' crew.
'It sounds like a really interesting training program, when do I get to do it' - Operator who was not involved in the initial training program.

Given the restricted program that was used and given the limited amount of time spent with the crew, Graham Weaver said that these initial results speak well of the program. He is looking forwards to having the Old Way / New Way facilitators back at the Plant to deliver the next round of training and to discuss further options for the use of this innovative training method.

24 Days Later. I asked Graham how the program was going now that just over 3 weeks had passed since the Old Way / New Way re-training session. "It's now just over 3 weeks since we did the program so I thought that further feedback would be interesting," he commented.

"Of the six operators I spoke with, four of them remain optimistic or very optimistic about the effect of the program, one is somewhat non-committal and one is not terribly impressed," he explained.

"Their Team Leader said that this crew now always dispose of the fibres properly when he was around but couldn't be sure what happens when he is not around. I tend to interpret this view as positive as I believe that most times our operators are consistent in their behaviour, it's either good or not so good." "What sort of feedback have you been getting, then?" I asked. "Some of the comments I got from them today were:

'I get fed up with the crews we take over from as they don't care about how they dispose of SMFs. They always leave fibres in the bath pans'
'What was said during the training program has really stuck in my mind'
'We make sure that new people in the pit dispose of SMFs properly'
'The program has had a profound effect'
'You've tried a number of programs to manage SMFs and this is the only one which has had any effect on me'
'I don't even use SMFs as floats for the hooks anymore, I've developed a system where we don't need to use any fibres at all'
'It's a pity we only did the shortened version of the program, imagine how we would be with the full version' "

He added, "The non-committal person says that he always disposes of the fibres properly anyway, even before the training program was run."

"One person was a bit negative about the impact of the program - but I don't see this response as being solely for the program. I suspect that this is possibly his normal way of being. When pushed a little he was a little bit supportive of the program, perhaps due to the golf lessons we talked about."

"So, how would you evaluate the program at this stage?" I asked.

"Overall I think that this is positive feedback, and when I asked if they would like to have a repeat of the program the answer was universally in the affirmative." Graham concluded.

"Well, Graham, where do we go from here?" I prompted.

"We have set a completion date of the first week in February for this trial. By then the program will have run for 13 weeks and we'll be able to say with certainty to what extent it has been a success", Graham explained.

92 Days Later.Graham informally interviewed various members of 'C' shift. Their feedback was as follows, without names on who said what:

'It's easy to tell who has done the program and who has not'
'I cannot help myself, I have to pick up SMFs wherever I see them'. This statement was accompanied by laughter from colleagues, then more quietly, 'It's true, I just have to pick it up'
'It works with some people but not with others'. After questioning it turns out that the people it 'works' for are the ones who have done the training, and the people it doesn't work for are those who have not done the training
'Most times I properly dispose of SMFs, though there are a few times when I don't'
'I'm really glad I did the program. Why don't you give it to everyone then the problem with SMF would be well on the way to being fixed'
'I'm looking forwards to having my slice cured!'

Three months after the initial training the Ingot Mill ran their own audit of SMF disposal practices in the Plant. Here are the comments of the Production Supervisor who also attended the initial training program with the crew:

After discussions with the Team Leader, I've come to the conclusion that the training program has been very effective in changing the work habits of those that attended the training session for handling SMFs in the DC pit
While carrying out process and safety audits the Team Leader has been easily able to identify those who completed the training against those who didn't
For this reason, I would recommend that we investigate the possibility of expanding the use of the program with the intent of covering a number of safety related work habit issues that exist in the Ingot Mill

"I don't think you will get a clearer or more positive response than this from an Operating person!" said Graham.

Graham went on. "The Area Electrical Engineer also took part in the initial training just out of curiosity. He is now completely sold on the program and his view is that this program has the potential to save our industry 'thousands and thousands of dollars over time'. Without doubt, he sees the value of this program."

"We are presently negotiating to have the presenter return to our Plant to give the program on handling SMFs to the other three crews so that this particular problem can be fixed properly once and for all. After that we would be in a better position to start negotiations for the purchase of the program."

Graham concluded, "It works! I am sold on this program and am delighted that we have had the first opportunity for industry to trial the program."

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Aviation safety—rotor stall recovery

Accident avoidance using Old Way New Way^® was one of the learning innovations introduced in the three-day Robinson R22 helicopter pilot safety awareness course conducted at the Ant Hill Hotel in Mareeba, North Queensland, during January 1998.

Over 30 mustering pilots learnt how to use Old Way New Way^® to correct a potentially fatal emergency situation known in the trade as "rotor stall."

The Robinson R22 helicopter has an excellent safety record. However, like any aircraft, if it is allowed to stray outside its safe flight envelope and immediate and appropriate corrective action is not applied, a situation can develop that can have serious and even fatal consequences.

In 1994 the Board of Air Safety Investigation Asia-Pacific Air Safety Journal stated that the R22 is subject to main rotor blade stall resulting from an initial state of low indicated air speed combined with low rotor rpm. A pilot who is aware of this danger can take steps to prevent it and, even if it starts to develop, can take immediate action to prevent the rapid onset of rotor stall with its potentially fatal results. Theoretically, any rotor can stall but the lightweight, low energy rotor fitted to the R22 reacts very quickly to changes in power or angle of attack, rendering the R22 more susceptible to this problem than other small piston-engined helicopters.

The sequence of events leading to rotor stall is described graphically in this example from the International Aviation Safety College Robinson Helicopter Safety Course Manual.

The aircraft is cruising at 80 kts indicated air speed (IAS) at 500 ft above ground level.
The pilot decides to slow the aircraft to permit better observation of a ground feature. The pilot applies aft cyclic to reduce IAS. As the aircraft flares, rotor rpm increases. The pilot therefore decides not to increase power. IAS reduces to 53 kts, the speed for minimum power in level flight but the pilot decides to continue to slow the aircraft.
As IAS reduces below 53 kts, more power is required to maintain level flight. As the pilot has not increased collective, the aircraft begins to descend. At this point the rpm may also have reduced, depending upon the circumstances.
The pilot notices the reduced rpm and lowers the collective lever in an attempt to restore rpm. However, the very effective mechanical link between the collective and throttle system responds to the lowered collective and operates to also reduce throttle setting. This reduces engine power output while not increasing rotor rpm. IAS remains low, the descent steepens, thereby increasing the angle of attack of the main rotor blades and further increasing the stalled areas that exist on the innermost sections of the main rotor. The rate of descent increases even further as rotor efficiency is reduced.
IAS continues to reduce, requiring even more engine power. As power is unchanged, the descent continues to steepen and, as the stall progresses outward along the rotor blades, the rate of descent increases. Due to the increased drag on the stalled sections of the rotor, rotor rpm further reduces to a dangerous level, often in a matter of seconds.
The pilot becomes alarmed and again lowers collective in an attempt to restore rotor rpm. Again the collective throttle mechanical link operates to reduce throttle setting. The descent steepens again, rotor rpm does not increase, rotor angle of attack further increases and the stall moves rapidly outwards along the rotor blades.
The pilot observes the ground rushing upowards, panics, opens the throttle fully and raises the collective. The main rotor angle of attack increases in response to the raised collective and drag on the already stalled rotor increases substantially. The engine cannot overcome the rapid increase in load and becomes ineffective. The rotor stops. The engine has now stalled. The aircraft pitches to a vertical nose-down attitude and impacts the ground.
The sequence of events from 3 onwards can take place in less that 5 seconds.

The remedy is to prevent engine power reducing and rotor angle of attack increasing to the point at which it is impossible to recover rotor rpm. That is, if rotor rpm is low at low IAS (as indicated by the low rotor rpm warning horn), lower the collective while simultaneously increasing throttle.

Even if rotor rpm is further reducing, power will be available to recover rotor rpm as collective is lowered. Clearly, the pilot must carefully monitor the rotor rpm recovery to ensure that the rotor is not oversped. At the higher power setting, the collective throttle mechanical link will operate to maintain rotor rpm as the pilot raises the collective to stop any descent that may be developed.

Robinson Helicopter Company has been aware of this risk for some time and describes it fully to all students on safety courses. U.S. experience has shown that the pilots who are most vulnerable to this danger are:

students in early solo, especially if sent solo with less than 20 hours R22 experience
middle-aged pilots (those who had problems in training are most at risk)
pilots with significant fixed-wing experience but limited helicopter experience
pilots carrying out their first flight with a passenger, and
pilots distracted by events outside the aircraft

To reduce the risk of the low IAS low rotor rpm situation developing, the aircraft manufacturer recommends a minimum speed of 60 kts for normal flight and to avoid unecessary flying at low level, especially under 500 ft AGL.

The third high-risk group, fixed wing pilots, when faced with a low IAS low rotor rpm situation, are very likely to experience interference that can arise from old automated skill routines when they interfere with the learning of a new skill ("old habits die hard"). This "habit interference" (sometimes called "negative transfer") is one of the major causes of technique problems in experienced operators as well as novices.

Low IAS/low RRPM accidents in fixed wing pilots are caused by the automatic application of an incorrect recovery attempt (the learned skill and automatic reaction that is transferred from a previous and different ship where it may have been appropriate). As stated in Robinson Safety Notice SN-29:

the ingrained reactions of an experienced airplane pilot can be deadly when flying a helicopter
the airplane pilot may fly the helicopter well when doing normal maneuvers under ordinary conditions when there is time to think about the proper control response. But when required to react suddenly under unexpected circumstances, he may revert to his airplane reactions and commit a fatal error
under those conditions his hands and feet move purely by reaction without conscious thought. Those reactions may well be based on his greater experience, i.e., the reactions developed flying airplanes

Conventional wisdom says that it takes time to overcome old habits and change established skills. To continue the above example, the safety notice correctly recommends that:

the experienced airplane pilot must devote considerable time and effort to developing safe helicopter reactions
the helicopter reactions must be stronger and take precedence over the pilot's airplane reactions because everything happens faster in a helicopter. The pilot does not have time to realise he made the wrong move, think about it and then correct it
to develop safe helicopter reactions, the airplane pilot must practice each procedure over and over again with a competent instructor until his hands and feet will always make the right move without requiring conscious thought

It is generally accepted that emergency procedures in airplanes require that a pilot has instilled in him certain automatic reactions. Learning these reactions can take a considerable time, especially when what is required to be learned is different from or conflicts with a previously learned reaction or response to a particular situation. Changes in routine or in equipment or control configuration can present persistent obstacles to learning progress. Research studies of skill development indicate that under conventional instruction and re-training it can take up to 2,000 repetitions of the correct reaction before a skilled operator really learns (to automatic or instinctive response stage) a new skill that conflicts with a previously learned skill.

In an ideal world a pilot would undertake such extended training until it had the desired effect but all too often the pressures of earning a living preclude completion of all but the bare minimum training requirements.

A common reaction of experienced pilots and instructors to this habit interference problem that so often occurs with conventional skill training methods is to say that this is not a "training problem', in other words, that re-training will not fix it. This mistaken belief is based on the fact that:

the pilot has already been re-trained (using conventional methods)
he knows what he is doing that is incorrect
he knows what he should be doing
he is highly motivated to change because his livelihood and reputation depend on it
during training and when under supervision he can do it; and
so, its now up to him to put in the required effort.

Old Way-New Way offers a new way of looking at pilot training and re-training. Instead of blaming lack of learning progress on the instructor or on the pilot undergoing instruction, or on both, this methodology instead attributes poor learning performance and poor transfer to proactive inhibition, a well-researched brain mechanism that has been substantiated in the psychological literature for some 80 years. "Proactive inhibition" takes place whenever old learning interferes or conflicts with new learning.

For example, explaining to a helicopter pilot that his reaction to the low rpm warning horn is incorrect and hazardous, then showing him what he should be doing and then getting him to practice that over and over does little to help him change - it simply arouses proactive inhibition in his brain which then interferes with (i.e., causes a high rate of forgettingof ) the new technique the pilot is trying to learn. Under conventional methods of technique correction the pilot may even appear to improve during training sessions and can perform satisfactorily under the watchful eye of the instructor, but he typically reverts to his old incorrect technique (the previously learned automated skill routine) in the absence of supervision and in the stress of unexpected or emergency situations.

The use of proactive inhibition, a fully-researched and validated brain mechanism, as an alternative explanation of such learning difficulties takes a lot of the "heat" out of the re-training situation and is one of the reasons for the high acceptance of the method with both instructors and trainees.

Old Way / New Way is the only skill correction method that effectively deals with such interference problems and offers quick and permanent correction and transfer of skills.

The method respects the pilot's existing skills, even though some of these may cause problems, and takes him through a systematic comparison and differentiation of his "old" (incorrect) and the "new" (correct) way.

The method is based on the premise that in order to reach the future you have to first revisit the past. Notably, because it is a metacognitive approach that makes the pilot able to self-detect and self-correct errors, the method is able to achieve the rapid transfer of learning that is so elusive under more conventional skill correction techniques. At the same time, it is user friendly and easily incorporated into what pilots and instructors normally do. Old Way-New Way is ideally suited to training using flight simulators.

Unlike other skill correction methods, with Old Way-New Way there is no temporary drop in performance while the pilot is adjusting to the new technique - improvement is almost immediate. And unlike behaviour modification or operant approaches to training, Old Way-New Way does not involve cumbersome manipulation of behavioural consequences nor does it require intensive monitoring.

All this makes Old Way New Way^® very cost-effective.

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Education case studies

Year 7 mathematics improves with Old Way New Way^®

Kingston State Primary School teacher Karen Parkinson was faced with a problem early in 1987 common to Year 7 teachers.

In her class was Vince, a boy with learning problems that would make his entry to high school next year difficult because his areas of weakness were in basic mathematics procedures and he consistently failed mathematics operations.

Karen recalls, "I was desperate because I knew Vince could be helped but that I hadn't done much helping so far."

She decided to try something new. "I decided to try Old Way New Way^®, a method suggested for spelling by our lecturer Dr Paul Baxter at Mt Gravatt College of Advanced Education (now a campus of Griffith University). He said it had broad applications to other curriculum areas, too. The result was stunning. Vince learned to multiply correctly in one lesson."

"That instant success surprised me but it did wonders for Vince because he saw himself doing things that gave him the right answer straight off. Even better, he continues to get the right answer."

Note. The fact that Vince continued to get the right answer shows that not only did he learn a new way of doing his calculations but from then on he also understood what he was doing.

Adult spelling

Many tutors working in adult literacy programmes are often faced with learners who are showing limited progress despite everyone's best efforts. In all other respects the learner is normal, well motivated and capable of learning. In respect of spelling problems however such learners are common in adult literacy.

Not surprising then to discover that in many cases despite years of learning and the exposure to a variety of different tutors discouragement slowly begins to pervade the effort, as nothing appears to work.

All of the 'tried and true' techniques have been used, look and say, phonics, word patterns, and morphographs all without any apparent measurable degree of success.

This was the case of Jonathan, a mature learner in Galway when Frank Monaghan, a literacy organiser in Galway, Ireland, introduced him to the Old Way New Way^® technique.

Following a few brief workshops with Jonathan he was immediately experiencing success and able to self-correct.

Now after a few months and just over the summer holiday period Jonathan has been able to confirm that the OldWay NewWay method works for him.

Jonathan is now able to remember the spelling of words months after being learned, which previously would have been forgotten in hours.

More importantly it shifts the locus of control to himself so that with very little help from a tutor he can work on his own spellings allowing him to focus on writing poetry which he enjoys so much.

It is with a degree of pleasure that Frank, through the evidence of the learner Jonathan, recommends the Old Way New Way^® system to other literacy programmes.

Reversals in young children

Jo Baker was feeling depressed about the number of children with spelling problems in her Grade 3 class.

She was aware that many children go through a period where they reverse letters and numerals like "b's", "d's" and "3's", but some children like Susan never seemed to grow out of it despite her best efforts and the support of parents at home.

When she mentioned the problem to the visiting lecturer who was supervising novice teachers, he suggested that she try a new method called Old Way New Way^®. Jo was intrigued though somewhat sceptical but nevertheless consented to a demonstration being arranged for the following day.

With Jo observing every step, the lecturer (also the PBS facilitator) sat down and chatted informally with Susan and asked her to show him some of her written work. He then asked her to write some words that he knew would reveal any reversals she might have. Susan's spelling efforts showed several consistent misspellings including several letter reversals. This confirmed the teacher's impressions and the evidence from the child's prior written work.

This initial error diagnosis was followed by a typical Old Way New Way^® correction for several of the letter reversals, all with positive results. Jo was perplexed by the speed with which Susan appeared to overcome her problem with these letters and the apparent simplicity of the correction method.

Somewhat sceptical that the correction would endure, she was pleased to report two weeks later that Susan no longer reversed those particular letters. Jo said she would like very much to learn more about Old Way New Way^® and she subsequently attended a training workshop designed for practising teachers.

Correcting misconceptions in science and maths

Roger Henderson, Principal of the all-new William Light R-12 School in Adelaide, South Australia, is in the middle of shortlisting an impressive list of applicants for senior positions but he still has time to talk to me about Old Way New Way^® and its derivative, the Conceptual Mediation Program (CMP).

"Its working very well here. We use it in Years 8, 9 and 10 to teach mathematics, chemistry and physics. In fact, I'm so convinced of its effectiveness that in this new school which is still being constructed all our Year 8 teachers will receive professional development in the CMP. Eventually we'll put it through the entire school," he explains enthusiastically.

He goes on, "Harry Lyndon was a great source of information and inspiration during the three years when we were introducing the CMP at Plympton High School. We learned a lot about the subtleties of effectively using such a powerful learning method."

"Why don't you go and see Old Way New Way^® and the CMP in action in one of our classrooms?" he offers. "David Wilkinson has a Year 9 mathematics class after the break and I'm sure he'd be happy to have you sit in and see how its done."

David meets me in the staff room and tells me how he's using Old Way New Way^® to help his son, a player for the Under 15 Redbacks cricket team, improve his batting and bowling. We walk together to his classroom and he introduces me to the students. Its 30 degrees Celcius, there's no breeze and everyone is feeling the heat.

While the class is settling down David shows me a list of six misconceptions revealed in a pre-test of students' understanding of the mathematical meaning of "area" that he will deal with in today's lesson.

Once David has got every student's attention, he starts the lesson by asking several students to read the mathematical definition of "area" that is written up on the blackboard. After pointing out the key features of this definition and discussing them, he then asks them to learn the definition using the "look, say, cover, write, check times five" procedure.

This involves students in writing down the definition, saying it out loud to themselves, covering it with their hand, writing it from memory and then checking to see if they were correct. This five-step sequence is then repeated another four times, making five repeats in all.

Some of the students complain about the heat and suggest that it would be good to have the rest of the day off, but they perservere with the task and eventually complete it. David explains to me that while students find 5LSCWC somewhat boring it is a very effective method for quickly committing new knowledge into memory.

While students are working David goes on to explain that even though his students have not received prior instruction in the concept of "area" this year, they nevertheless have formed their own ideas on what "area" is. Some of these ideas are in fact misconceptions and have to be corrected so that subsequent learning is based on a correct rather than an incorrect knowledge base.

The prevalence of basic misconceptions is widespread in many students despite careful teaching to try to ensure that they "get it right" the first time. Inattention, lapses of concentration, personal problems, lack of motivation and other preoccupations are just some of the reasons why initial learning does not always "take", leaving many students with a raft of misconceptions throughout their school years and even into tertiary studies.

Misconceptions are found among students of all ability levels. These misconceptions in their understanding of fundamental concepts interfere with their subsequent learning progress. Any attempt to teach a new correct idea over the top of a misconception results in the accelerated forgetting of the new idea.

David continues the lesson by uncovering a list on the blackboard that lists the six main misconceptions of the mathematical meaning of "area." He explains to the class that these are some of their own ideas on what "area" means. I note that he does not tell them that they are "wrong." "Lets look at this first definition," he says. "Patricia, you said that 'area' was 'the space inside something'. Some others also had that definition. Take a look at our original definition of "area" and read it to us, please?"

"Area is the amount of surface enclosed within certain boundaries," reads Patricia. "Its measured in square units - square centimetres, square metres, hectares." "How does that differ from your own definition of 'area', Patricia?" asks David. She hesitates a while. "Read your own definition again," suggests David. "Area is the space inside something," says Patricia. "And now read out the other definition," asks David. Patricia reads the definition. "Now, what's the difference between your definition and the other definition of area," asks David. "My definition is about space and the other is about surface,' she volunteers. "That's right! And what do you mean by 'space' inside something?" asks David. "Its got to do with the contents of something," explains Patricia. "Yes. And 'area' is not about content but about surfaces," offers David.

David continues, "Now, read your own definition of area again to us, Patricia." "Area is the space inside something," reads Patricia. "Now read the other definition again," asks David. "Area is the amount of surface area within certain boundaries. Its measured in square units - square centimetres, square metres, hectares," says Patricia. So, what's the difference between your old definition and this new definition of area? asks David again.

I think I'm starting to get the idea of how a whole-class Old Way New Way^® mathematics lesson goes. David continues by asking another student to read their own definition of 'area' which is, "the distance between an enclosed object." Like Patricia's incorrect notion of 'area', this new misconception is also shared by a number of other students and is handled in the same way. Other misunderstandings about 'area' include, "the inside of a square", "the amount of space inside a shape", "the amount of room in an enclosed shape", and "the amount of space around something." Eventually, each of these six shared misconceptions of 'area' is dealt with in turn by having students repeatedly compare their own definition with the correct mathematical definition.

In this way, students' misconceptions become their "old ways" and they are offered a "new way" of understanding the concept of "area." When the differences between their old and new way become clear they are asked to practise using their new definition of "area" and relate it to their other knowledge by writing six different sentences using their new meaning of "area." This completes the lesson.

I ask David what advantages this method has over conventional re-teaching to correct students' errors and misconceptions. "There are a number of important advantages over conventional re-teaching," he explains. "First, while we cover less content initially, because students understand the material better first time we subsequently have to spend less time going over old ground so we end up covering more content in the long run."

"Second, their level of conceptual understanding ends up being so much higher than with conventional teaching and re-teaching. In Year 9 we are handling concepts that are normally not introduced until Year 12 and the kids are coping well with it. On average they score around 80% to 90% on their summative tests." "What kind of testing do you do?" I ask, thinking that perhaps this involves less demanding testing like simpler recognition tests. "We test for understanding and application and not just for recognition and ability to recall information," he explains.

"The third advantage of Old Way New Way^® is that, because their understanding is so much better, their interest levels are maintained for much longer and we can develop a particular topic over an extended period. For example, after three months teaching about "forces" we were able to take them to a very advanced level of understanding; under conventional teaching students get confused which makes them easily distracted and disruptive after only two or three weeks on that topic."

He adds, "The fourth advantage is that students are less disruptive in class. Because they understand the material being taught, or at least have the means by which they can address their confusions, they are able to concentrate longer on their work and actually work harder. And because they achieve better grades they feel that the extra effort that this involves is justified. All students want to learn - that's why they are at school. Old Way New Way^® enables to them to do just that and do it better. A students' disruptiveness is very often simply an indication of their confusion and frustration in the learning process. They are protesting their lack of success and their inability to understand."

"What about parents - how do they feel about this program" I ask. "We have excellent parental support for the program. Parents see that their children are achieving consistently better so they are 100% behind the program," David explains.

My next question is, "What about the students themselves? What do they say about Old Way New Way^® and the CMP?" "We've collected student comments about the program and they all say that the effort required to use Old Way New Way^® is worth it because it helps them learn much better and they will therefore continue to use it. The point is that Old Way New Way^® requires them to think. Thinking is hard work. The difference with this method is that when students make the effort they can be sure to get good results, whereas with conventional re-teaching they still have to expend the effort but it will take them very much longer to get results and even then you can't be sure it will work."

My last question is, "What about you, David? Old Way New Way^® and the CMP are so radically different from conventional re-teaching styles. What did you have to do to change your own teaching style to something so different from how you used to teach? Don't they say that old habits die hard?" David explains, "Yes, I had to use Old Way New Way^® to change my own teaching style. Twenty-eight years of teaching tend to produce some fairly ingrained teaching skills and although I knew that I had to change and what I wanted to do, I always slipped back into my old teaching style every time I walked into a classroom. That is, until I mediated my old and new ways of teaching."

"Where do you go from here, David?" I asked. "Because Old Way New Way^® and the CMP are so successful we would like to become a Best Practice School or a Centre of Excellence school for the method. Plans are underway to prepare a school-based professional development course for other teachers interested in learning about Old Way New Way^® and the CMP. There's a long way still to go but we've certainly got a successful track record without equal anywhere and that's a good foundation to build on."

Update, August 1998. A Year 11 class of students who have studied science using Old Way New Way^® are now so far advanced in their level of understanding that they will be permitted to take the year 12 examinations this year.

Teaching spelling and maths: Reducing teacher stress

April, 1985. Cheryl Wilsdon teaches grades R-2. Her pupils are 5 - 7.5 years of age. Old Way New Way^® has made a tremendous difference to her professionally and to the children in her care. She tells her story in her own words. "When using Old Way New Way^® I see myself performing the ideal role of the teacher, that is, as a facilitator of learning."

"I see myself as a powerful facilitator. I see and know that I'm effective because Old Way New Way^® is. That gives me, as a person and as a teacher, a great positive charge. When I get this great positive charge the kids feel it, see it, know it and they are also 'infected'. This makes for a good relationship and good feeling between us all. I'm seeing that when kids feel good about themselves and what they're doing, they offer more."

"It's so simple! The kids catch on to the method easily. They like doing it. Young children don't find the procedure boring, even though adults might think that they would get bored with it. The feeling of complete control, competence and the sense of achievement overcomes boredom."

"If I tell them, 'I want to test you on spelling', that arouses no anxiety anymore. 'Test' has become a comfortable word for the children. This is because I don't judge them anymore. There is no 'failure'. 'Right-wrong', 'correct-incorrect' don't exist in the class. Its just Old Way and New Way and both are positive."

"The more you do it, the more you want to do it, because you see that it works."

"I started using Old Way New Way^® with the whole class straight away. I spent one lesson just teaching them the procedure. After some initial supervision the children soon became self-administering. Now older children help the younger ones, to check that they follow the procedure correctly."

"I'm doing Old Way New Way^® with lists of words most commonly used by children in their writing. I test 25 words, compile lists of which children have what words as Old Ways, then begin trials."

"Initially I wondered how I'd keep track of recording when I'd done an Old Way New Way^® trial and when to do subsequent trials. It all looked like an impossible task. However, because of the simplicity of the method and its guaranteed results, I no longer use the problem of recording trials as an excuse for neglecting Old Way New Way^®."

"The greatest thing about Old Way New Way^® is the self-correction children do. Its such an amazing thing to say to a kid,'can you see any Old Ways? ... Now, can you do the New Way for me?' and then they select their Old Way and do the New Way all by themselves without me doing a thing except ask those two questions."

"Old Way New Way^® is so much less stressful for teachers. I no longer get frustrated when some children have so many errors to correct. The notion of a 'dumb child' disappears and instead you know that they simply have more resistant Old Ways."

Correcting errors of an entire class, all at once

August, 1982. Old Way New Way^® is used on a trial basis with a whole class.

A class of 20 Year 5 and 6 pupils were given the Westwood Spelling Test. Five words misspelt by the whole class were selected for correction. The words were, 'beautiful', 'orchestra', 'equally','appreciate' and 'familiar'.

An additional 3 words were chosen from the class list of words misspelt by the majority of the class. These words were, 'through', 'usual' and 'statue'.

One Old Way New Way^® trial was conducted on each of these words and pupils were retested for recall at intervals of one week, two weeks and eight weeks post-trial.

No practice of the selected words was conducted by the teacher and the students were not informed of the intended reviews. The three reviews were conducted without prior notification to the pupils that a test was to be given on any particular day.

The results were most encouraging. After one week without practice the modal score (most frequent score) was 7 out of 8. The distribution was as follows:

8 8 8
7 7 7 7 7 7 7
6 6 6 6 6 6
5
3 3

After two weeks the mode was still 7 out of 8, with the following distribution:

8 8
7 7 7 7 7 7 7
6 6 6
5 5
4 4 4
3
2

After a further six weeks, which included the September school holiday period, the mode was 5 and the distribution was as follows:

8
7 7
6 6 6 6 6
5 5 5 5 5 5
4 4
3
2

These results are especially noteworthy because they were obtained after only one Old Way New Way^® correction session per word with a whole class lasting no longer than 5 to 10 minutes.

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Sports coaching case studies

Rapid technique correction using Old Way New Way^®: Two case studies with Olympic athletes

Abstract of a paper published in The Sport Psychologist, 2002, 16, 79-99.
Yuri Hanin, Research Institute for Olympic Sports, Finland.
Tapio Korjus and Petteri Jouste, Finnish Sports Association, Finland;
Paul Baxter, personalbest.com.au, Brisbane.

"Exploratory studies examine the effectiveness of Old Way New Way^®, an innovative meta-cognitive learning strategy initially developed in education settings, in the rapid and permanent correction of established technique difficulties experienced by two Olympic athletes in javelin and sprinting. Individualized interventions included video-assisted error analysis, step-wise enhancement of kinesthetic awareness, re-activation of the error memory, discrimination and generalization of the correct movement pattern. Self-reports, coach's ratings and video recordings were used as measures of technique improvement. A single learning trial produced immediate and permanent technique improvement (80% or higher correct action) and full transfer of learning, without the need for the customary adaptation period. Findings are consistent with the performance enhancement effects of Old Way New Way^® demonstrated experimentally in non-sport settings."

Cricket coaching: Old Way New Way^® speeds up recovery from a performance slump

How Australian Test Cricket pace bowler Jason Gillespie (real name) overcame technical difficulties (as reported by Neil Cross in The Advertiser, Adelaide, on 13 November 1997 (reproduced here with permission), on 20 November and on 21 November by David Burtenshaw and on 26 August 1998 by Trevor Marshallsea in Dublin)

Australian Test paceman Jason Gillespie could make a surprise return to the first-class arena before Christmas.

Gillespie's recovery from stress fractures in his back has been faster than expected but there is universal agreement that he will not be rushed into a premature return to the field.

South Australian coach Andrew Sincock, who has overseen the rehabilitation process, said Gillespie appeared to have overcome the technical difficulties which were pinpointed as the cause of his stress fractures.

"I'm reticent to predict an actual time for his SA comeback but it could be before Christmas," Sincock said. "What we will do is wait until he is ready and then wait another week."

Gillespie had been bowling consistently off 6-7 paces at South Australian training in the past two weeks and in private sessions has even attempted his long run.

Sincock will supervise the paceman during an internal trial match next Wednesday and Thursday. Gillespie is expected to bowl exclusively off the shortened approach for three spells of three overs.

Like his coaches, he does not want to speculate on when he will be ready to again lead an attack.

"Our intention in this is that he will bowl faster with a better line and more swing control than before and in a way which will reduce the stress on his body," Sincock said.

Gillespie has been working hard on rectifying the problems with his action. Two months ago a group of experts, including Australian coach Geoff Marsh, Australian team physiotherapist Errol Alcott, fast bowling great Dennis Lillee and Sincock set down a program of strengthening and conditioning for Gillespie. It was felt he would take up to six month to return to bowling at first class level.

But Lillee said yesterday the improvement in his action was "quite phenomenal".

"He is looking very, very grooved in getting the action right over six or seven paces," he said. "There is no pain at when he bowls which is the first time in many years and proves what he is doing is correct."

"He will be off his long run in the next week or two. As long as he keeps those good lines I see no reason he should not be playing Shield cricket very soon."

South Australia will play three more Sheffield Shield games before Christmas. Gillespie obviously won't start in the match against Western Australia which begins at the Adelaide Oval tomorrow but there is a chance he will be passed fit for the clash with Victoria in Melbourne at the end of the month or the home clash with New South Wales which starts on December 19.

The Redbacks selectors might also be tempted to include Gillespie in the one-day line-up for the December 12 match with Western Australia in Perth.

Lillee said that it is important for Gillespie to be satisfied that he was ready and not just have a go. "I would hate it if he came back too soon," he said. "I have seen him and I think at this stage, at six or seven paces, he is very much on the right track."

But Lillee cautioned the real test for Gillespie would be his reaction to a long day in the field and being asked to bowl long spells in the heat. "As I have warned him, its a monitoring process all the way. It took me 18 months to get back in the right groove and even then I was not happy with the first action," Lillee said.

Gillespie has worked diligently with Sincock and educational psychologist Harry Lyndon in a bid to bring forward the date of his return to the bowling crease.

Lyndon, who works in the field of skill correction and accelerated learning, has been working on Gillespie's ability to recognise when he strays from the new action that is required.

"We are trying to modify the old action and create a new way of delivering the ball," Sincock said. "In due course, we will eradicate the old way."

Gillespie has been playing club cricket as a batsman in the lower grades so far this season with frustratingly limited success. It is clear he would like a return to bowling as a means of filling in long days in the field as much as anything else. (The Advertiser, 13 November 1997)

New Look Gillespie Off Leash. The Advertiser, 21 November 1997.

The main aim of Jason Gillespie's revised bowling action is to correct a minor fault - the incorrect landing of his front foot on arrival at the crease.

By pushing his left leg too far to the right in his delivery stride and twisting his torso, Gillespie compounded the strain on his lower back.

At the end of his new run-up he focuses on planting the left boot straighter down the wicket, staying upright at the point of delivery and then following through in the same direction.

Faull Finds Form. The Advertiser. 20 November 1997.

A call of the coin yesterday postponed Jason Gillespie's next step in his recovery process from back problems.

The big paceman was expected to bowl during the opening day of a South Australian State Squad trial on Adelaide No.2 but his side, led by Martin Faull, won the toss and chose to bat.

Gillespie instead worked out for about 30 minutes in the nets, ecouragingly off close to his full run and at near full pace. He was closely monitored by Redback's coach Andrew Sincock, who has been responsible for the technical changes to the paceman's action since he broke down on the Ashes tour, and educational psychologist Harry Lyndon, who has been working on Gillespie's recognition and self-correction of his old habits.

Sincock said he had been encouraged by the pace Gillespie was generating while Lyndon made it clear that there was no reason for the Australian quick not to play first-class cricket again before Christmas.

Update 1 Because of an injury he sustained to his heel, Jason's return to first class cricket has unfortunately been delayed.

Update 2, 26 August 1998 On tour in Ireland, Gillespie has recovered from his heel problems. His new bowling action has reduced the pressure on his lower back.

His progress has given Australian cricket good grounds for optimism that he will soon take his rightful place among world-class bowlers against England this Ashes summer.

According to Trevor Marshallsea's report, Gillespie said, "It's pretty hard to change your bowling action totally but it seems to be working well."

Gillespie has, "straightenened up at the point of delivery to stop his front foot crossing in front of his right and to better control his leading arm. "It's putting less strain on my back and I've noticed a difference."

Gillespie scored 3/49 from 12 overs in the first innings of Australia's 150 run win against Ireland.

Update 3, 6 September 1999 On tour in Sri Lanka, Gillespie achieved a personal best ....

Soccer coaching: Old Way New Way^® empowers an elite soccer player to take personal control of change

Unsolicited comments on Old Way New Way^® from a member of the South Australian National Women's Soccer League Team (National Champions 1999; Runner Up 1998, 1997).

For the first time, I felt like I was in charge, not the ball! I could control where the ball went or predict where it would go.

There was so much less guesswork involved. Instead of relying on various tricks that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't, I knew that if I got my foot next to the ball, kept my head down and followed straight through that the ball would go straight ahead. I was in charge, not the coach.

For the first time, I don't feel like kicking is something that I can only do well when a coach who I understand is watching over my kicks and correcting poor technique.

Now I don't only understand good technique in theory; I understand how my body needs to move to put it into practice. (I never found it very easy to learn kicking technique from [coach's name], for whatever reasons. And I didn't know how to improve the technique on my own. Now I know how to do that.)

It is a different kind of understanding or knowing than I had before.

Old Way New Way^® has been great because I practice kicking less often and it improves significantly more that it used to!! That is, it helps me work smart instead of just hard. The "return" from Old Way New Way^®, i.e, the benefit gained for the time put in, is excellent.

For the first time, I have seen real improvement in my kicking during games as well as during training. I think this is because I know the technique well enough in my own mind that I can do it under pressure and quickly.

My coach can see the improvement. This time, when I finally said to [....], after he told me how bad my kicking was that I thought my kicking was much more accurate, the kicking didn't let me down in the following game and even [....] said that it was great! Miracles will never cease!

It is a technique that I can use to obtain further improvements in kicking and in other areas of my game.

I feel so much better about my kicking and am so much more confident in myself about it. Now, at club, players that I respect want me to cross the ball to them instead of someone else because I can cross a decent ball.

I am sure that the confidence I feel with kicking is impacting on other areas of my game, for example, people are telling me I have really good "vision" and I think it is because I can finally put a ball where I want to put it.

Why was Old Way New Way^® so helpful? What makes it work well? In my opinion, the presence of both sports psychologist and coach is critical, particularly in a situation where a coach has (possibly justifiable) preconceptions about the inability of the player concerned to execute the relevant technique.

For me, with respect to kicking, I think Old Way New Way^® taught me to focus on one thing at a time and to focus on direction rather than other aspects of kicking technique such as whether it was good strike or went the distance, or whatever. A successful kick was one that went straight, even if it felt terrible to kick and went along the ground instead of going in the air. Once I was able to kick consistently and strike a ball so that it went straight ahead, it was easy to make it go in the air and get more distance.

As a result of doing Old Way New Way^® I now think that the way to work at increasing distance is not so much to practice long kicks but to practice kicking technique over a shorter distance. Once that is right it seems to me to be much easier to get the distance.

The Old Way New Way^® sessions were the first time, I think, that I had ever had a coach actually work through with me in one session all the different things needed for good kicking technique. Most of what we talked about I had heard before, e.g., foot next to the ball, head down, follow through, toe down, etc., but never all at the same time and in a way that helped me put all of them together into one kicking technique. It was really important to build up a "new way" from all of those little things.

As well as learning a "new way", I learned how to trigger it - that there were a few things that if I got right the rest would follow.

Golf coaching: Golf pro uses Old Way New Way^® to overcome an established technique problem

Roger Stephens, the golf pro at South Lakes Golf Club, Goolwa, South Australia, used Old Way New Way^® to quickly eradicate a flaw in his downswing that had resisted correction for 15 years.

Golf professional Roger Stephens (real name) had always been taught from an early age that the power in your downswing comes from the knees and legs.

So, to give your swing more power you had to drive your right knee towards the ball. However, this movement started a sequence of events that led to the development of a flaw in his downswing.

In his own words, "First, my head would move away from the ball to counter balance my body. This would force forward the swing path of the club head so that it traveled left of target. Furthermore, as my right knee moved towards the ball the downswing path was blocked by my right knee. As a result I would lose 'space' and 'width.' "

"Since the downswing takes only 0.25 second I couldn't 'feel' anything to help me make the required changes to what I was doing wrong."

Roger said he had been trying to correct this technique difficulty for some 15 or more years, without success.

In 1997 Roger heard about a new method for overcoming technique difficulties when he met Harry Lyndon, the developer of Old Way New Way^®, a new method for accelerating skill correction. Harry's interest in golf and Roger's wealth of professional experience combined to help Roger decide to try Old Way New Way^® on the long-standing problem with his downswing.

Old Way New Way^® quickly helped Roger make two important changes in his downswing. The first change was that Roger came to "feel" what his right knee was doing during the downswing. This was something he was unable to be aware of before, despite many attempts at correction.

The second important change Roger experienced was that he was able, through the Old Way New Way^® procedure, to make his body quickly change from the "old" habitual swing to a "new" swing in which the knee did not get in the way of the balI and his head did not shift position.

"I was able to feel the old swing flaw as never before and then make the change to my preferred new way with a new right knee action and was able to 'feel' my new way as never before, making the change quickly", Roger explained.

Remarkably, these improvements took only 20 minutes to accomplish.

Furthermore, there was no period of adjustment required with the new swing, as you would expect with more conventional skill correction methods and even more importantly the new improved downswing remained a permanent part of Roger's game.

Golf coaching: Young aspiring golfer learns how to manage anger with Old Way New Way^®

Eddie, aged 15 with a handicap of 5 after two years playing golf, is a rising star but things look bleak because he finds he cannot control his angry outbursts when he plays a bad shot, so he loses both his concentration and the game.

Sports psychologists teach athletes and players useful mental skills and how these can be used to improve sports performance.

As useful as these skills are, it usually takes quite a bit of prolonged, effortful practice to acquire mental skills, especially if you are not used to playing that way. In other words, before you can learn new mental skills you have to change your own, established, habitual ways of playing the "mental" part of the game.

Since old habits die hard we now know that simply "practising over and over" a mental (or physical) skill will not help you learn it quickly. In fact, it can take you up to 2,000 repetitions (practices) of the new way before it becomes an established part of your game.

Instead of just practice, we need to use Old Way New Way^® to quickly change our old ways into new and better ways.

An example will illustrate how Old Way New Way^® can be used to help a player overcome a problem with "anger". The problem I describe and the solution we used applies equally to all sports.

Eddie is a young golfer with excellent potential. After playing only two years he has a handicap of five. At the age of 15 he has been singled out for special advanced coaching and is expected to, "make it big", one day not too far away.

However, this rising star has a serious problem. Whenever he makes a bad mistake in competitive play he "loses it" in a grand way. His language is formidable and while he does not actually throw clubs he pretty well does everything else.

His anger, of course, is directed at himself. His frustration at not being able to perform as he feels he should gets the better of him and explodes into uncontrollable outbursts.

The down side of all this is that Eddie's concentration is affected by his angry outbursts. After such an explosion the rest of his game is in tatters and he is unable to recover.

Eddie has come to believe that he cannot change himself and that the situation is completely beyond his control. His coach and his father who is also his best supporter have tried everything and told him not to be so hard on himself, all without success.

His coach and his father say that he will eventually "grow out of it" but it has got to the stage it is seriously affecting his game and is retarding his progress. Clearly, Eddie knows what he is doing wrong (getting angry); he knows what he should be doing instead (not getting angry and concentrating on his game); but he cannot make the change.

Having failed to control his anger early on and thereby allowing it to happen over and over, he inadvertently "practiced" getting upset and angry. Whatever you practice you will learn, so it soon became a habit pattern.

Eddie is now the prisoner of habit. It will take him quite some time, frustration and expense before he gets over this problem.
Eddie's father called me in to help with this problem and we spent two hours finding out why Eddie gets so angry and then helping him quickly learn some mental skills that would give him more control.

Psychology helps explain how your beliefs about your abilities lead to certain expectations about your performance and, when these are frustrated, how your emotions are aroused to an extent where your concentration suffers and your game falls apart.

Eddie's predicament is a good example of how the "mental side of the game", namely personal beliefs, expectations and emotions all interact to influence physical performance in sport.

During the session it became clear that Eddie believes in his golfing ability. Deep down, he knows he is good; he believes that one day he will be a great golfer. These are all quite realistic beliefs, based on his phenomenal progress to date and the constant reminders from his coach and his father that he will surely make it to the top. They believe in him and it shows, and this reinforces his own beliefs.

These beliefs lead Eddie to have certain expectations about his level of performance. For example, he expects that he should not make serious mistakes. To Eddie, making mistakes means "failure". Mistakes threaten his fast track to success. Mistakes are totally inconsistent with his abilities and general performance. Mistakes are "bad".

Whenever Eddie plays a bad stroke in an important match he sets off this string of negative self talk that triggers his emotions and produces his uncontrolled angry outbursts. His anger then gets the better of him, makes him lose concentration and then his game falls apart.

The fact that his self expectations are totally unrealistic is the crux of Eddie's problem.

Despite the best advice and assistance, he is unable to shake these ingrained misconceptions.

Having identified the problem, we spent the second hour changing Eddie's deep-seated ideas about his "mistakes".
Eddie's (incorrect) "own ways" were identified as:

"I should not be making a mistake"
"Mistakes are bad"
"If I make a mistake I'll lose this game"
I can't recover from a mistake."

These beliefs and expectations were then labeled, "old ways" of thinking about mistakes.

We then offered Eddie some "new ways" of thinking about mistakes and how to handle them:

"mistakes happen; it's no big deal";
"you are supposed to make mistakes - it's part of the learning process and you're still learning";
"you can recover from a mistake - you know what to do";
"concentrate on the next thing to do, not on what you just did."

We then developed Eddie's awareness of how he usually responds to a mistake (his old way) by repeatedly having him deliberately mishit from the tee and helping him focus on how this feels.

Using Old Way New Way^®, we then exchanged Eddie's old ways for new ways. His negative self talk was changed to positive self talk and his unrealistic beliefs and expectations changed to a much more realistic self assessment.

We also taught Eddie some simple, useful techniques for releasing himself from a state of high emotional arousal (anger). He could use this technique whenever he found himself getting too upset about a mistake.

Finally, we taught Eddie how to self-correct on those odd (up to 20% of occasions) when he finds himself doing an "old Way", i.e, getting angry.

Two weeks and several competitions later Eddie's father reported that his son was doing quite well. There had definitely been an improvement. He had achieved the 80% change we predicted, after one session.

It took just one extra session lasting an hour and the problem was completely fixed.

The important things to note from this example are:

we did not change Eddie - he changed himself. He was empowered by Old Way New Way^® to change himself.
this change occurred very quickly - much faster than by conventional coaching methods which do little more than tell the person to "practice, practice, practice" the new way
after just one short session, Eddie had improved by 80%. After two sessions he had improved 100%
the change process involved a team effort - to diagnose the problem, to come up with acceptable solutions and to enable the changes to occur
the change methodology did not require incentives (rewards or punishments) and was uncomplicated and easy to administer
Eddie has now acquired a learning method he can use any time from now on to improve his technique as well as his mental skills
finally, Eddie is a much happier player now. He is more confident, much less easily thrown off his game and very much in control.
Eddie is back on track and his handicap has gone down to 3. His future looks rosy.

Football coaching: Ball handling skills

Palm Beach Currumbin High School's Sports Excellence - Australian Football program employs skill correction.

Football coach Neil Mackay runs the Palm Beach Currumbin High School Sports Excellence - Australian Football program. In this program talented students spend a lot of time learning about and playing Australian football, a game that has been described by some as the fastest football game on earth.

Neil had spent several months during 1996 working with two of his prize players to correct technique errors they were experiencing with hand ball and marking, two of the key skills of the game. What appeared to be well established faults were still resistant to correction after all this time.

Another football coach had attended a coaching seminar where Neil presented a paper on skill correction and the challenge this presented for all coaches, and this coach contacted Personal Best Systems. A meeting was subsequently arranged and a plan of attack was developed.

The PBS facilitator worked with both players and the coach for 20 minutes, improving the players' self-awareness of their technique error and then re-programming their old technique with a new, correct, method of marking and hand balling.

Both players and the coach were taught a simple method for self-correcting on those 20% (or less) occasions when the error was expected to resurface. The players were told to get as much practice of their new techniques as possible and a follow-up session was scheduled.

When the follow-up check was done 2 weeks later, the coach reported that he had monitored the errors both during practice and in competition and after several applications of the simple post-treatment correction method, the technique problems had not resurfaced.

Foot ball coaching: Kicking technique correction

Mark Woolnough corrects his kicking technique and makes the All Australian Team.

Mark Woolnough lives and breathes Australian football. He was a star player in the State under-18 team and has a bright future in the game.

One evening in early May 1997 Personal Best Systems was called in to help correct a resistant technique problem Mark was having with his kicking.

Despite being highly motivated to improve and with all the encouragement from his coach, Mark was unable to make much progress with this habitual problem with his kicking.

While Mark could kick as well as the best of his team mates, quite often he would kick too high, sending the ball up into the air rugby style instead of giving it a flat and faster trajectory. The resultant delay waiting for the ball to come down to earth gave opposition players plenty of time to intercept the ball before the receiving player could get possession.

The PBA facilitator first diagnosed the problem with the coach and with Mark, and then put forward a plan to correct the problem. When all were agreed on the plan they went back out on the oval and started work on the problem.

With input from Mark and his coach, Mark's error was diagnosed as being due to excessive backward lean while kicking. This leaning backward meant the ball when kicked went up high and came down slower, instead of travelling low, flat and faster.

This body posture problem was corrected in 20 minutes using an Old Way New Way^® procedure. Mark's coach confirmed 6 weeks later that the problem had not required any additional correction and had not resurfaced.

However, another interesting development had occurred. Mark had developed a new, completely unrelated, bad habit with his kicking.

Being a talented footballer, Mark was always in the thick of the action and often had possession of the ball. While his kicking trajectory was now mostly flawless, the point at which he often aimed the ball was unfortunately not the best.

Quite often, when he kicked the ball to another running player that player was often tackled and lost possession.

Error diagnosis revealed that this was because, instead of kicking the ball to a point ahead of the receiving player so that player would have to keep running to catch the ball and by running fast could keep clear of opposition players, Mark would kick short of this point, so that the player either had to slow down or even come to a complete stop to mark the ball and was therefore easily tackled by opposition players.

Further discussion with the coach suggested that part of the problem was incorrect body orientation - Mark was facing the wrong way when he kicked and this caused the ball to go in the wrong direction. Now that the "wrong" and "right" ways had been identified, the road to correction was clear.

Mark then completed an Old Way New Way^® skill correction session. A week later he went to Melbourne for the national competition where he was selected for the All Australian Team.

Update Mark was selected for the Geelong team.

Running coaching: Professional runner improves starting technique with Old Way New Way^®

Pat, a professional runner, improved his starting technique.

Pat Henderson, a professional runner in his early twenties, had just completed his 20 minute warmup and stretching routine and was ready to set up his starting blocks.

A teacher by trade, Pat had heard of a new method for quickly overcoming technique faults and agreed to take part in a demonstration of the power of Old Way New Way^® to change what for him had been a major obstacle to improving his competitive performance, his starting technique.

Bob Spencer, a top South Australian running coach had been trying for 7 years to get Pat to change his starting technique, without success.

Pat knew what the problem was, alright. Instead of pushing off the blocks hard with both legs, he was supposed to push off with only the left leg and simultaneously lift his right knee up into his middle. The required action was similar to the karate exponent who pulls his left fist back while executing a standing forward punch with his right fist, in an equal and opposite reaction.

No amount of encouragement from his coach nor the fact that he was a highly motivated professional runner had enabled Pat to break what for him had become an ingrained habit.

The PBS facilitator in Adelaide, Harry Lyndon, spent 20 minutes with Pat, improving his awareness of his technique problem and then overcoming the learning block caused by the interference from the old habit.

By the end of this brief session Pat was amazed to report that after only 20 minutes his new technique now felt so much more comfortable than his old method. "If this new method feels so right for me now, why has it been so difficult for me to change over during the last seven years?" he pondered.

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Spelling program user feedback

Lincoln gets ten out of ten every week

"Prior to Lincoln starting to use Personal Best Spelling, he was getting on average, only two out of ten words right in his weekly spelling test at school. Within one week of using Personal Best Spelling, Lincoln got ten out of ten in his weekly spelling test and he has continued to get ten out of ten, each and every week."

It's like the teacher I never had

"I left school at 15 not knowing how to spell simple words like 'any', 'there', 'their', 'dancing', 'colour', 'become', 'because', 'believe', 'open', 'once', 'days of the week or month'. Since I’ve been working with Personal Best Spelling improvement in my spelling has been unbelievable. At 47 years old I thought I was just thick as two planks. Not the case. I have a learning brain and I am enjoying it. It's like a teacher I never had."

Your program gave Marian confidence and method

"Your program gave Marian the confidence and the method of how to learn and remember her spelling words. This in turn greatly improved her reading ability. Marian's confidence in herself has helped her to believe in herself."

100% on his weekly tests

"After beginning to use the Personal Best Spelling program, my son has successfully gotten 100% results on his weekly tests. I have recommended your product to others and hope that they find the success that my son has."

The only tutor (including human) that has helped him

"I wanted to take a minute to let you know how much your program has helped our son. He is 11 and in the 5th grade. He has struggled with spelling since at least 3rd grade. Your program is the only tutor (including human) that has helped him."

Jonathan immediately experienced success

"Many tutors working in adult literacy programmes are often faced with learners who are showing limited progress despite everyone's best efforts .... This was the case of Jonathan, a mature learner in Galway, Ireland. Following a few brief Old Way New Way^® workshops with Jonathan he was immediately experiencing success and able to self-correct. Jonathan is now able to remember the spelling of words months after being learned, which previously would have been forgotten in hours."

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March 11, 2008

	Personal Best Academy	driving	reading	music performance	sports coaching	swimming	manual handling	flight instruction
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Page content

Workplace learning

Aviation

Music Performance

Teaching

Sports coaching

Published research

Ordering

Case studies in rapid habit eradication

Management training and development

Physiotherapy

Work skills

Musician's performance anxiety

Workplace safety at ALCOA

Aviation safety—rotor stall recovery

Education case studies

Year 7 mathematics improves with Old Way New Way^®

Adult spelling

Reversals in young children

Correcting misconceptions in science and maths

Teaching spelling and maths: Reducing teacher stress

Correcting errors of an entire class, all at once

Sports coaching case studies

Rapid technique correction using Old Way New Way^®: Two case studies with Olympic athletes

Cricket coaching: Old Way New Way^® speeds up recovery from a performance slump

Soccer coaching: Old Way New Way^® empowers an elite soccer player to take personal control of change

Golf coaching: Golf pro uses Old Way New Way^® to overcome an established technique problem

Golf coaching: Young aspiring golfer learns how to manage anger with Old Way New Way^®

Football coaching: Ball handling skills

Foot ball coaching: Kicking technique correction

Running coaching: Professional runner improves starting technique with Old Way New Way^®

Spelling program user feedback

Lincoln gets ten out of ten every week

It's like the teacher I never had

Your program gave Marian confidence and method

100% on his weekly tests

The only tutor (including human) that has helped him

Jonathan immediately experienced success

Nail biting habits die hard

		NAIL BITING: Kick the habit quickly and permanently with Old Way New Way^® Learning
		Stopping nail biting Home page Contact Legals Orders Why old habits die hard Habit patterns Habit pattern errors Habit patterns disable learning Force of habit explained Habit quotes Quickly unlearn old habits Stopping nail biting program Published research Old Way New Way Learning Rapid habit correction Who's using it Case studies Orders Order form

Page content

Workplace learning

Aviation

Music Performance

Teaching

Sports coaching

Published research

Ordering

Case studies in rapid habit eradication

Management training and development

Physiotherapy

Work skills

Musician's performance anxiety

Workplace safety at ALCOA

Aviation safety—rotor stall recovery

Education case studies

Year 7 mathematics improves with Old Way New Way®

Adult spelling

Reversals in young children

Correcting misconceptions in science and maths

Teaching spelling and maths: Reducing teacher stress

Correcting errors of an entire class, all at once

Sports coaching case studies

Rapid technique correction using Old Way New Way®: Two case studies with Olympic athletes

Cricket coaching: Old Way New Way® speeds up recovery from a performance slump

Soccer coaching: Old Way New Way® empowers an elite soccer player to take personal control of change

Golf coaching: Golf pro uses Old Way New Way® to overcome an established technique problem

Golf coaching: Young aspiring golfer learns how to manage anger with Old Way New Way®

Football coaching: Ball handling skills

Foot ball coaching: Kicking technique correction

Running coaching: Professional runner improves starting technique with Old Way New Way®

Spelling program user feedback

Lincoln gets ten out of ten every week

It's like the teacher I never had

Your program gave Marian confidence and method

100% on his weekly tests

The only tutor (including human) that has helped him

Jonathan immediately experienced success

Nail biting habits die hard

Year 7 mathematics improves with Old Way New Way^®

Rapid technique correction using Old Way New Way^®: Two case studies with Olympic athletes

Cricket coaching: Old Way New Way^® speeds up recovery from a performance slump

Soccer coaching: Old Way New Way^® empowers an elite soccer player to take personal control of change

Golf coaching: Golf pro uses Old Way New Way^® to overcome an established technique problem

Golf coaching: Young aspiring golfer learns how to manage anger with Old Way New Way^®

Running coaching: Professional runner improves starting technique with Old Way New Way^®