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EFT for Motor Skills

By Dr. Patricia Carrington

ï¿½Gary Craig's Introduction:

This article by Dr. Patricia Carrington has wide reaching implications.

Its focus is on a seemingly narrow application--learning to drive.ï¿½ However, the same approach that is used for driving skills can also be used for sports, music and other performance improvements.ï¿½ The uses are endless and the beauty of it is that you can use EFT to enhance a given skill and GET INSTANT FEEDBACK on your progress.

This is obvious for everything from a singer reaching a higher note to a tennis player improving his or her backhand.ï¿½ It can be used by coaches all the way from Little League to The Super Bowl.

Pat uses these techniques elegantly, a fact which will be evident as she unfolds for you not only the use of EFT for improving motor skills but also some of the challenges that can occur when applying EFT to a relative..

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I have often wondered just how EFT might best be employed in the educational process.ï¿½ Aside from its obvious use to reduce anxiety in students and thereby improve performance, it always seemed to me that there may be a more direct application of EFT to the learning process, which has not yet been explored.

Recently, I hadn't an interesting opportunity to test this concept out with my niece, Daisy Carrington, who has just graduated from college and who received as a graduation gift a compact used car with a stick shift.ï¿½ She had taken several driversï¿½ ed courses in school as well as private lessons at a driving school where she learned to drive with an automatic shift and managed to pass her driverï¿½s test and obtain her license.ï¿½ But she was scarcely a confident driver when she began to handle the new car in real-life situations

Since she is planning to live and work in an area where she will be required to drive extensively. All of her family members have been trying to help her gain confidence when driving the little car, so that she will acquire proper skill and command of the road.

However, when riding with her I soon discovered that she was still anxious when driving and this made it extremely difficult for her to acquire the ease necessary to truly drive safely.ï¿½ It was at this point that I suggested that she and I use EFT to help out with this problem.

My experience doing so illustrates several things:

ï¿½? It is clearly possible to use EFT on the spot to facilitate the learning of a motor skill such as driving.ï¿½

ï¿½? It may be necessary to handle difficulties encountered with properly assessing the role that EFT plays in the results obtained, when the Apex effect (the tendency to discount the impact of EFT on outcome) is present in the person doing the tapping for such a skill.

ï¿½? There is a special challenge involved in applying EFT to a relative, particularly if, she does not recognize many of the problems that are evident to others in the application of her skills, as in this case.

I would like to comment first on the challenge facing those doing EFT with relatives, because of many of you have used EFT, or will use in the future, with family members or close friends.

There is a great difference between having a client seek your professional help, and you suggest they use EFT for their problems, and having to ï¿½sellï¿½ a relative or friend on its use, especially when your help may not have been solicited.

In a professional situation, you and your client enter into an agreement with one another. That person wants to become less anxious or be rid of some other troubling symptom, or to improve their performance, or increase their confidence, or whatever.ï¿½ Because of this, the individual agrees to cooperate with you and do whatever is necessary (including EFT) to obtain the results they want.ï¿½

However, this is not exactly the case with a relative or friend or anyone else close to us with whom we plan to use EFT.ï¿½ Here we may have to suggest the procedure out of the blue, so to speak, and may even have to convince the other party that it is necessary to use any procedure whatsoever for a particular problem which they themselves barely perceive.ï¿½

In my case, having driven with Daisy at the wheel during the initial stages of her experience on the road, I became concerned for her safety and therefore bypassed my usual reticence at suggesting EFT when a person has not indicated any need for it.ï¿½ It was evident to me that she was experiencing a good deal of ï¿½nervousnessï¿½ as she drove the car and that her handling of it was very uneven.ï¿½ I felt it necessary in order to avert possible danger to her in the future, that she become more at ease and masterful in her driving.

Therefore, I suggested to her that she try EFT to improve her driving.ï¿½ Daisy is very familiar with EFT.ï¿½ In fact, she modeled the various acupoints very nicely for my new EFT Beginnerï¿½s videotape.ï¿½ But I could sense reluctance in her to use it for her driving because she did not perceive any real difficulty with her driving ï¿½ only the rest of us in the car did.ï¿½ This was an awkward situation.

However, since Daisy knew she would soon have to drive her car alone, with no-one else with her (something she had not yet done) she was aware of her anxiety about this and so agreed to apply EFT to her fear of causing an accident, as she had seen graphically illustrated in the videotapes shown in her Driverï¿½s Education class, which had left an indelible impression upon her.

The set up phrase that we formulated to handle this was:

"Even though I'm afraid of causing an accident, I choose to take my time and make a safe decision."

Together, we worked out this particular Choice.ï¿½ She was not sure what a viable alternative to her fear would be, so I had to help her with this. You will notice that the word ï¿½safetyï¿½ was used in this set up phrase and in every other one that I suggested she use for her driving problem.ï¿½ This is because I think it extremely important to introduce that word into the EFT set-up, when helping someone master a skill that truly does involve a safety factor.ï¿½ It seems unwise to encourage someone to simply accept themselves if they feel anxious at intersections on a highway for example, or to ask them to be calm and confident on the road, despite their anxiety.ï¿½ Confidence can be misapplied, as can self-acceptance at times, but safety is safe, and I felt this to be our major goal; one to be emphasized in our EFT work.

Daisy tapped on this issue and when she had reduced her initial SUDS rating (her rating of distress on a zero to ten point scale) from an 8 to a negligible number (2 or less), she then identified another aspect of this problem which needed to be dealt with.ï¿½ She said she found it extremely upsetting when other drivers on the road were impatient or angry at her.

We now changed the set up phrase and took a new SUDS rating for this aspect.ï¿½ It was an 8 to start with. The new set-up phrase was:

ï¿½Even though I'm afraid of causing an accident, I choose to take my time and be safe no matter what anyone else thinks.ï¿½

This phrase was extremely useful for her.ï¿½ She found herself relaxing nicely when I tested her out after using it by vividly describing other drivers honking impatiently at her or yelling at her from their cars.ï¿½ Following the tapping, she no longer felt pressured and confused when she imagined these people becoming impatient.

At that point, yet another problem surfaced.ï¿½ She was unsure of her right-away at intersections and this made her anxious and hesitant when she reached them.ï¿½ The two set up phrases she formulated went as follows:

ï¿½Even though I'm not sure of my right-away at intersections, I choose to be calm and levelheaded and make safe decisions.ï¿½ And;

ï¿½Even though I'm anxious when drivers get impatient with me, I choose to be calm and levelheaded and know what to do.ï¿½

This last phrase turned out to be extremely important for her because knowing what to do even though other people were impatient with her, had not formerly been in her repertoire.

This was all we did in this first session dealing with her driving.ï¿½ Fortunately we were able to test out of the results right away.ï¿½ After she finished the tapping, she drove her Dad drove 50 miles to New York City on the throughway.

According to the report her Dad gave me afterwards, there was a marked change in Daisy's handling of the car after her first EFT session.ï¿½ She was, he said, much calmer and more collected on the road during the whole trip. Once, when she was slowing down to get off the highway and someone else began to honk impatiently, she was even able to say out loud, "Oh, let them honk!ï¿½ unruffled as she made her turn.ï¿½ He identified a definite and immediate improvement in her ease on the road.

But this is not all we had to do.ï¿½ Before our next session I was in the awkward position of riding with Daisy as she drove.ï¿½ I noticed something that actually made me concerned for my own safety as well as hers.ï¿½ She had a tendency to brake too rapidly and come to an abrupt stop too close (within about 3 feet of) the car in front of her.ï¿½ The abruptness with which she did this was not only uncomfortable; it felt as though she did not have proper control of the car.ï¿½ The wonderful ease and gauging of distance that experienced drivers have, something that most of us to take for granted when at the wheel, was absent.

When I commented on this (as diplomatically as I could) her father indicated that he had previously advised her not to brake too slowly, because she had been braking a half a half block before an intersection, causing much consternation on the road.ï¿½ After that advice, Daisy apparently changed her action and began braking too rapidly, which was quite unnerving for passengers in the car.ï¿½

Therefore, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of being the one who identified this problem for her and I suggested she might want to tap on it.ï¿½ Not an easy task, because this is not the usual EFT trainerï¿½s stance. We do not usually accompany our clients around and make suggestions as to what they might improve in their lives. But here, safety considerations demanded I abandon the objective stance and express my thoughts that a skill needed to be acquired for safety purposes, and that perhaps EFT could help her acquire it.

I readily obtained Daisyï¿½s agreement to work on this problem and we chose a place to conduct an actual driving lesson aided by EFT.ï¿½ We selected a parking lot for her practice.ï¿½ It was a spot where cars came in and out at intervals, slowly, and where there was some open space to practice in.

Before we started tapping, I talked with her about what I consider to be the ideal way to use the brakes, taking the role of teacher.ï¿½ I think this is important to note because I discovered that by doing this a skill such as driving can be taught by using EFT as an important addition to the regular training, and that this can bring about some remarkable results.

I pointed out to Daisy in glowing and appealing terms, how easy it is and how good it feels to be able to bring the car to a stop almost effortlessly and with such ease that you barely know you're stopping.ï¿½ Although she didn't seem to know what I meant, having never experienced it, the idea did appeal to her,ï¿½ so we formulated the following set up phrase:

"Even though I stop pretty well, I choose to stop so smoothly I hardly even know I'm stopping.ï¿½

Notice the insertion of the phrase, ï¿½Even though I stop pretty wellï¿½ into the set-up.ï¿½ This allowed Daisy to acknowledge her own progress at braking (important for her), while at the same time she prepared to take another step forward and acquired new mastery of the process.

I did not ask her to give me a SUDS level on this issue at any time because there was no identified anxiety here, it was a self-improvement task.ï¿½ I believe this is important to note because when using EFT for on-the-spot teaching, a SUDS level is usually unnecessary, since one can conduct an immediate objective test after each round or so of the tapping ï¿½ the person is right in the car (or wherever) and can try out the behavior being tapped on.ï¿½ How better to rate ease with it than through a direct demonstration?

So we systematically tested out the effects of EFT after every three rounds of tapping (my Choices Trio method described in Chapter 3 of my Choices Manual).ï¿½ I would ask her to drive over to a more deserted part of the parking lot and brake at a designated point.ï¿½ For example, I would suggest, ï¿½As youï¿½re driving over there, bring the car to a stop. Before you reach that green post over to your rightï¿½or, before you reach the red car that is parked near the curbï¿½etc.ï¿½

She followed my directions and I must admit I was amazed. After doing only three quick rounds of EFT (the Short Form of EFT), during which we had installed the new positive attitude of ï¿½hardly even knowing she was stopping,ï¿½ Daisy, who had never even thought she had a problem with her braking but had simply taken my word for the fact that there was a problem, now handled her car in a completely different manner.ï¿½ I watched as she gently brought it to a stop with perfect control and no suddenness whatsoever ï¿½ï¿½ her stops were seamless.

What was also interesting was the fact that Daisy herself had no awareness of any difference in her driving after she did the tapping. She had not perceived a problem in braking before and she did not perceive a difference in her performance now ï¿½ but it was clearly there, a behavior apparently learned at a subliminal level.ï¿½ The change in her visual motor coordination while driving was so rapid and complete that it was clearly apparent to me immediately after this first 3 rounds of tapping ï¿½ but to this day it is not apparent to her, although that change appeared to be permanent.

Just to make sure that this new behavior would take, I had her do some more tapping using the same phrases, after which we again did a test.ï¿½ We alternated this sequence three times, the tapping then the testing, and then it was time for the rest of the family to board the car and for her to drive us all back home.

The drive back gave me ample opportunity to observe the carryover effects of the work we had just done.ï¿½ As we traveled, I felt as though I were riding with a completely different driver.ï¿½ I watched her stop at intersections or behind other cars or to let pedestrians cross the street, or whatever else was demanded, with such ease and smoothness that it was a pleasure to be a passenger now.

Particularly important was the fact that her father has since reported that Daisyï¿½s driving has improved noticeably.ï¿½ According to him, there is a definite ease and sureness that was not there before, although clearly she has a way to go in terms of road mastery, something that can only come with experience.ï¿½

Daisy has not done any more tapping for this problem because she feels no need for it, nor does anyone else in the family.

From this experience with the ï¿½driverï¿½s edï¿½, it seems to me that an important potential use of EFT may be on-the-spot for educational purposes, that is, its use while the instruction process is proceeding, as an adjunct to it.

Imagine the educational implications if such a plan were implemented in standard teaching situations.

Can you imagine a teacher stopping in the middle of a math class, say, to have the children tap on their anxiety about specific difficulties with math, right then and there ï¿½ï¿½ and then continue with the math lesson?

Can you imagine a teacher stopping during a class to have students tap on their anxiety about a test that has just been announced -- and then proceed with the lesson?

Can you imagine an athletic coach stopping to have students tap to improve a specific move on the high jump, and then continue with their practice?

These are but a few of the many possible educational applications that come to my mind.ï¿½ EFT may be able to contribute powerfully to the efficiency and effectiveness of education, and I would hope that we will all explore this possibility.

EFT Master, Dr. Patricia Carrington