I started touch typing six months ago. Before that I was a "search and poke" typer. I almost regret switching from QWERTY now that I think about it because I was doing so well but each time I think about going back, I look at the comparison page and get convinced that I can be much faster on Colemak. It looks really good on paper with very low same finger key presses and the combos.

I am frustrated because my results don't reflect the advantages.

Any chance of putting those lessons on this thread makdaddyrak if they are just plain text?

Very good point there boli. If Shai is reading this, it may be helpful to remind people that they will probably not match their Qwerty speed in a month or two.

I think tricks like that one will be useful once you're at a high level. Before that I don't think you should learn them as it'll confuse the learning of the good habits. Once you have mastered those it's time for master class.

As an example, Ryan Heise (who I believe is the reigning Colemak speed-typist champion) tells us how he had a "bump" from 90 to 100 WPM but then he started focusing on which words he's good at and which ones he needs to beware of. (On a side note, this reminds me of Chess: Good principles can take you to a decent level but at the top levels you really have to study very hard to learn openings and other heavy stuff!) Once your typing becomes so good that it starts focusing on the word level, I imagine you can also start using tricks in some words. Before that I'm afraid it could be more of a hurdle than a real benefit.

Thanks for the detailed reply and the lesson plan, Mak. I have a couple of questions. How do you disable the backspace key? Or do you mean I shouldn't even reach for it? I'll try your suggestions and maybe that will do the trick.

You must relax slowpoke. I am starting to think that obsessions with becoming fast are the worst enemy for the typist. I was never that bothered about speed with Qwerty, so why am I now? I found this on the 'net today which has calmed my 'need for speed' down a lot:

"I managed to gain 3 wpm today after an epiphany led me to try a new type of drill. The epiphany occurred after reading about Barbara Blackburn, the world’s fastest typist. She learned to type on a Dvorak typewriter in 1938. Her error frequency was supposedly two-tenths of one percent.

My epiphany was that she became such an accurate typist because in 1938 the penalty (in terms of lost time & productivity) of making a typing error was huge. Liquid Paper didn’t exist back then, so you pretty much had to re-type the whole page. Today, the cost of mistyping a letter is minimal – you just hit the backspace key – so there is not much motivation to focus on accuracy.

This epiphany led me to try a new type of drill, one that would force me to type things correctly the first time and be less reliant on the backspace key.

The drill is blind typing pangrams. I mentioned pangrams a few posts ago. A pangram is just a sentence that contains every letter of the alphabet. There are lots of web pages out there with dozens of pangrams (including the Wikipedia article on Pangram). Blind typing is typing without seeing the letters you press appear on the screen. For example, when you are typing in a password field and you only see bullet characters appear, you are blind typing.

Blind typing requires you to really concentrate on accuracy, because you can’t check to see that the character you typed was correct. I found that blind typing forced me to shift from speed to accuracy. Typing pangrams ensured that I covered all the characters on the keyboard. After just blind typing a dozen or so pangrams, I found that my accuracy had improved dramatically.

To do this drill just create a new document in your favorite text editor and position the window so that it is mostly off screen. Then bring up a web page with lots of pangrams on it and start typing those pangrams into that document. You won’t be able to see what you are typing as you are typing it, but you will be able to check what you typed later by dragging the window back onto the screen."

Give it a go.

Here is the link to the entry on 43things: http://www.43things.com/entries/view/3132970