That advice is about turning an early base. There is no good reason to do this, other than if local terrain or conditions dictate that you must.
Fly the pattern as normal, using the appropriate airspeed and power setting to conduct the short field landing.
For a reality check, while many instructors teach different techniques for short field work, and soft field work, both are typically the same. That is, short fields are often soft, and soft fields are often short. Due to the nature of both, short soft fields are often surrounded by terrain and obstacles. One can instruct in the theoretical niceties of each technique, but the simple fact is that truly short fields are often soft fields, or prone to be soft fields, and must be treated as such.
Any pattern work to a short field landing (or soft field landing) should be treated the same way a normal proceedure is conducted. Make it uniform, stabilized, and seek to achieve a good landing based on a stabilized approach. No diving, no pushing over, nothing unusual or sudden.
Very often students are taught to make a short field landing by touching down, and getting on the brakes. This makes a lot of sense for a short hard surface, but is not a wise idea on grass, gravel, dirt, mud, snow, or ice. Getting into such a situation on a hard surface, the airplane will certainly stop in a much shorter distance than it can take off, meaning that such a landing is to be reserved for only the most dire of emergencies. Therefore, except in all but the most unusual situations, such a technique has little value. If one cannot take off from a location, one should not land there (forced landings being the only real exception, and seldom do these present themselves on short hard surfaces; normally short soft surfaces, where braking is of little effect, or is counterproductive).
Much more critical to actual use (especially in the event of a forced landing) is the ability to land short, without brakes, but land soft, and land straight. A big part of this is being able to hit the same spot every single time with power, without power, with flaps, without flaps, etc. Students should be familiar with performing this to locations other than a runway, so that they understand the sight picture and feel of preparing to put the airplane down somewhere other than the airport. (If the student sees this for the first time in a real emergency, heaven help the frightened student, and the foolish instructor who never did his or her job).
Fly a normal pattern to landing, and make it stabilized. Don't get too slow; it won't make the landing a whole lot shorter, and if one does come up a little short on an obstacle without power available, one will need an airspeed reserve to clear the obstacle.
Good luck in your studies!
