Hi everyone. Today I am trying Colemak for the first time.
About this time last year I unsuccessfully attempted to switch from QWERTY to Dvorak. In QWERTY I could already type at 80wpm (going by various online tests), but I was always unsatisfied at the thought of typing in an "inferior" layout. I learnt Dvorak because I liked it's design, liked to be different, and also over ths years I had picked up a number of bad habits in QWERTY that meant that while it was fast, I was typing inefficiently even by QWERTY standards.
But Dvorak turned out to be a disaster! Although I thought the layout was very good (and still do) I had to give it up after 2 or so weeks. I think that having to re-learn what had been so natural to me for so many years took its toll, and learning Dvorak left me mentally exausted. I can honestly not remember a time when I felt so tired and stressed, for no obvious reason, as I was then. Then I got up one morning and I found that I had completely forgotten both layouts, being so tired I just got the two confused and could not type anything. Anyway, as I woke up more I quickly remembered my QWERTY, but that was a scary half an hour of not being able to type since I can't do my work without typing! So there and then I decided to give up learning Dvorak, and I quickly regained my 80wpm in QWERTY.
After that experience a year ago, I have been back on QWERTY, complete with all of my old general sense of dissatisfaction with the layout, back to where I started. Then I heard about Colemak. Part of me feels really foolish for attempting a new layout after what happened last time, but I'm giving it a go regardless. I had a free day today so this morning I went through the layout with the program TypeFaster as recommended on here, and now I've typed this whole post in Colemak which has taken half an hour so far! It is so frustrating not being able to type as fast as I think like I am used to, but I'm getting the hang of this quicker than I did with Dvorak.
Unfortunately I still really like the Dvorak layout, its design and feel (going by my limited experience of it of course), and learning Colemak is kind of a second choice for me. Maybe one of you can convince me otherwise.