Past research suggests that detailed instructions of how to perform a motor skill presented prior to practice can impair performance and learning of the skill as it prevents learners from attending to physical and perceptual cues directly relevant to the task (Hodges & Lee, 1999; Verdolini-Marston & Balota, 1993). However, this finding has been demonstrated primarily with tasks that require participants to attend to perceptual information during task performance. Smith (2003) suggested that one way of reducing the negative impact of instructions on learning would be to shorten the duration of the task, so that interference from processing perceptual information during task performance is avoided. In support of this suggestion, Smith (2003) found that a specific and a general instruction group both learned a novel ballistic task better than did a no-instruction group. However, in this study Smith used only a 10 minute retention interval, which may not have been sufficient to accurately indicate the degree to which the task was learned in each instructional condition. In addition, differences in performance on the first trial block in Smith's (2003) acquisition data cast some doubt over whether the groups differed before the experiment began. To address these two issues, this study replicated Smith (2003) while using a 24 hour rather than a 10 minute retention interval. Participants practiced 100 trials of a two-handed coordination task lasting 2s or less. Specific and general instructional conditions were compared to a no instruction condition on both RMSE of performance accuracy and the degree of distortion of velocity of the non-dominant arm as a result of performing a reversal of direction in the dominant arm (this measure was found to be useful in uncovering the participants' strategies for learning the task). Feedback was provided after each trial during practice, in the form of a computer display superimposing the participant’s performance over a perfect performance trace. Learning was assessed using a 24 hour retention test without feedback. The results replicated those of Smith (2003), suggesting that the pattern of results was not a function of the short retention interval. As found by Smith (2003), the velocity disruption measure indicated that providing instruction altered the participants approach to learning the task, and in this case improved the rate of acquisition of the skill.Keyword(s): performance, research, technique