Not sure how much of your original QWERTY speed you should go for before trying the next step. Or whether speed measurements is indeed the way to assess when it's time to change. Maybe you should just feel your way.

It's all in the finger position!

I'm coming to know myself better as a typist now. And I've made a discovery today:

My finger position when typing QWERTY is totally off. Not even close to home row, or anything like that. I just kinda spread my hands over the keyboard, and make the best of it. And that is actually key to my QWERTY efficiency, because the keys are all over the place.

But Colemak requires very accurate placement of the hands on the home row to work. That's the whole basis to the distance measurements and other metrics which make Colemak so cool.

And with Tarmac Phase 0 (LUI only), I don't get to acquire much finger-positioning skill. So the "L" key, for example, is very awkwardly positioned for me, and is actually quite difficult to reach.

So, I'm considering maybe moving to Phase 1 before growing fully comfortable with Phase 0, because I'm not even sure it's possible to feel fully comfortable with LUI only. And then Phase 1 would force me to position at least my right hand on home row, while my left hand continues roaming free.

It's just a thought, though. For now, I'm sticking with LUI. Just felt like sharing.

Edit: Current hi-games stats: 53 wpm, 31 finger repeats, 6.78 meters travelled.

Yes. I'm actually getting used to it now. I didn't switch to Phase 1 yet, because I'm working on a new, experimental kind of OSD keyboard script. As soon as I have that working well, I'll probably switch (and post the script in the forums, too).

Good luck onwards! I'll go for my vacation for the next 2–3 weeks so I can't follow your progress, but I look forward to checking the blog-thread when I'm back from my yearly week in Roman soldier clothing. The Empire cheers you on!

OK, I now switched to Tarmac Phase Two - QWERTY Hybrid. Wow, the E and O and N letters are all in strange places!

Now let's see how this goes. I put physical labels on the keys. (This message is short because it's taking forever to write.)

Korivak -- of course. :) It's just a big change.

----

And a short general update: I'm starting to get used to it. I feel the LUI phase was _really_ helpful. The LUI keys now feel familiar, and I just need to get used to a handful of new keys.

So, if anyone else decides to go Tarmac, I highly recommend sticking with LUI for a week or so, until it becomes familiar.

I'm going to try working with TypeFaster a bit, later on. That will be the first time I really train.

Still on Tarmac2. Getting comfortable. I suspect my hi-games scores are affected by pressure while taking the test.

Currently, 40wpm, 26 finger repeats.

Hey man! Welcome back! :)

I'm not giving up on my Ergo 4000. Nothing beats it! :)

Re the feeling -- it feels really nice. I did not experience the "out of control" feeling that comes with cold-turkey switching. It's really becoming natural now.

Thanks for your support! I'm very happy with the path I've chosen. Honestly, if it wasn't for Tarmac, I don't think I would have kept up with Colemak.

Heya,

Just to let you know I'm still around. I'm doing well with Tarmac... I'm not sure I feel like moving on. ;) I've grown to like this layout.

Still have some typos, but nothing to irritating.

To be honest, I don't know. :) I still have typos with Tarmac, but I'm quite comfortable with it. I guess I'll be giving it a few more months - I don't feel like rushing it. :)

I'm very happy it worked out for you, and that you feel it's been a helpful idea. Thanks for the detailed updates.

And welcome to Colemak proper! I feel confident you'll love it and feel it's complete in a way the Tarmac isn't, now that both hands will be optimized.

Since your experiment has been a success, maybe the Tarmac should've been advocated in some way. I don't know what Shai thinks about it, but since he has said that he's too busy to maintain multiple versions of the layout I guess someone else should do it and maybe Shai would link to it then. Feel like making a page somewhere? If I'm to do it, I'm afraid it'll be very primitive since I haven't made a web page (worth looking at) in my life. On the other hand, I ought to make a page on all things Colemak (including national layouts, Vim, Tarmac, layout images and frequency diagrams) eventually.

... And it's back to Tarmac!

Yes, the Colemak curve was still too steep for me, especially with a crucial deadline coming up at work. So I went back to Tarmac phase 2. Ahhh, what a sigh of relief!

I'll have to re-try Colemak when I'm less busy.

(As for the Tarmac webpage -- I think it'd have to wait for a less busy time in my life...)