Hello again. I am here to inform you all that I am officially on the fence for learning Colemak. I have been learning Dvorak and it has been going quite well, but two things are starting to get on my nerves. 1 Repetitive same finger strokes. I am thinking I will lean towards more finger alternation as opposed to hand alternation, so Colemak has Dvorak beat there. Secondly, my right hand is sore, lol. Like constantly. I use the mouse a lot, and left hand mousing is out of the question. This is probably due to computer games, one of my new passions. anything to ease the burden on my right hand will probably help this. It is my middle finger that is killing me the most, and its not pain but just soreness from so much use. Surprisingly my pinkies feel great. On a side note, what is really attracting me towards Colemak now is that it just feels more natural for me, even after getting up to ~45 on Dvorak. Just trying it out for 30 minutes, and I already have the layout memorized. Plus I think my brain types in handrolls, instead of the back and forth between left and right. Plus I feel like I'm always reaching more in Dvorak. The F key is killing me. My biggest typos are between O & E, and L & S. These are just my first thoughts. This may be redundant, but I think I'm going to keep learning Dvorak and learn Colemak on the side. As my Colemak speed increases I will truly be able to tell which one is a better fit- comparing them side by side. That's what I think this needs to come to. I honestly don't think I'm going to go back to Qwerty, ever again even for friends computers. I can easily change their settings back and forth i think, between dvorak. Qwerty's layout will always be ingrained in my brain, though so I may inadvertently end up learning three layouts in the next couple months. This might not end well.

P.S.
I really have too much time on my hands for this stuff, It's a little sad :( .. lol (sighh)

I'm being a little bit hasty. I don't know anything yet... It may or may not be the better choice for me- Colemak that is, Its hard to make the best decision for me, there are so many options... I'm just having a hard time picking between two. We'll see though. I do want to give Colemak a full run though. I don't want to have any regrets.

One only thing that keeps me on the Colemak is the shortcuts. I prefer Dvorak's positioning of the punctuation symbols. Much easier to use. But I cannot say that the punctuation is a big deal for me on Colemak. Even the position of the semicolon does not bother me that much. I think with the ergonomic keyboard, its not much of the stretch as on a standard one.
With L8fan's posts, I think I'm beginning to see the benefits of the Shai mentioned about Colemak when it compares to Dvorak. I still like the hand alteration over the finger rolling and I think that brings in better accuracy than the finger rolls, but the fact that I'm not completely lost when I face a QWERTY keyboard is a plus and the positioning of the W, F, L, is something that I feel is much better than it is on Dvorak; although their positions never bothered me on Dvorak.
So, while I'm a fan of the Colemak's shortcuts, the positioning of certain letters and the way it makes typing on QWERTY easy, I'm not a fan of the positioning of the symbols, finger rolls and the fact that it is not easily available on Windows. On Dvorak, I like the hand alteration, the positions of the symbols and the fact that it is easily available on any Operating System. I'm not a fan of the lack of easy of shortcuts, some of the positions of the letters.
I think that whatever layout you do choose, you're just gonna have to live with somethings.

If you are not facing any of the issues that I've mentioned above, then I think staying with Dvorak is the best bet for you. I say that I do get tempted to switch back to Dvorak every now and then, but I stay because, I've invested more time on Colemak than I did with Dvorak and learning it again would be a b***h.. Another thing is that I do like having the easy shortcuts and the placements of some of the letters.

Who knows.. maybe I will or maybe not. I'm still thinking that I since I've invested so much time in getting Colemak into my head so far, I might as well continue with it and stuff. I haven't gone completely with the Colemak touch typing thing lessons; although I feel that after I've mastered that, I will be a whole lot better with it. I should make effort and make more time for it, if I truly am serious about the switch and making it proper.

Hmmm... that's odd. What I did when I was frustrated with my lack of progress, was to write-read a not too assuming book on Amphetype. I just typed and read, enjoying the book and not thinking about the typing more than an absolute minimum. After I had done that, I found that my typing had gotten better flow and my speed went up as a result of that.

Then again, if every sentence gives you a really hard time you may not be able to enjoy such an experience. :(

Have you used Colemak full time? If not, your Colemak skills cannot grow fully. Be brave and jump off the layout cliff. Keeping two layouts will slow both of them and bring only confusion to your tired brain.

Focus on your accuracy, then your speed will steadily increase over time. I suppose 98% accuracy is a must

Thanks for your reply. How is your accuracy and speed then?

My switching experience was very tough too for the first three weeks. Then it gradually felt better each day.

I went through a similar phase - what worked for me was to set a strict accuracy limit for whatever typing exercise i was doing (be it amphetype, typeracer etc.) of 98%. I would completely forget about speed and just repeat each exercise until i exceeded 98% accuracy.

It was a bit brutal to start off with but definitely pulled me out of a rut eventually

I think typing is progressively more miserable as the accuracy drops off, regardless of your overall speed. Things feel good in the space from 98-100% accuracy - like your really flowing..

The whole time that I have been using Colemak, I have never used typeracer or any other typing program. The only thing that I have done is go through the typingweb.com
Maybe that is it. I need to get myself some actual typing lessons in Colemak.

Yeah, I've been playing with Colemak to help learning it. Typing of the Dead (new version out on Steam!), TypingMaster, Amphetype, FastTyper etc etc.

Girls have the power of reducing blood from our male brains, putting it into somewhere (you may figure it out), so when girls are around, you lose some of your productivity.

Colemak or girls, you have to decide.

LOL... I think you guys are missing the point. When I'm not looking at the screen and just looking somewhere else, that is when I'm able to type at least to a level that I used to when I was using QWERTY. But when I do look at the screen and try to touch type, I make all these mistakes. What the hell is wrong with me?