I see. The advice we were giving people a few years back that were new to link building was slow and steady. Natural, related, and original. Is it then, given this new algo, fair to say that such is still the case. If only a little more...bolted down?
The best way would be to try and remove any spammy links that you have. Remove anything considered "over-optimization" and concentrate on content. If you build links, reduce your rank and increase the quality of links you are getting. This is a longterm type plan but it will pay off in the end.