It's just habit. If you decide to do proper form picking things up, just practice a bunch and try to remind yourself to do it right. If you catch yourself doing it wrong, do it over right. Eventually you'll have the good habit.

Good call. I will try to reprogram myself the same way. You never know when something becomes heavier than you thought, and that's when your back gets thrown out. Especially anything involving children.

I can imagine it being the same as indicating, or putting on my seat belt in the car. Seatbelt is always first thing on, last thing off - and I never change lanes without indicating, it's fully automatic and doesn't require conscious thought.

To add to this,I keep the weight low until I feel really confident I can maintain proper form moving up in weight even when fatigued. For example if I can do 10 sets of 10 reps of swing at a weight without compromising form, I would look to increase weight.

Nice - My trainer went through that with me (and we still do it that way when trying new things) and the results were amazing. When it is time to go up with wieght, it's much easier. Interestingly - when doing very heavy weight (e.g. on a max out day) I know if it's too much early enough into the lift to bail with much lower risk of injury by practicing good form!