Salutations! I wasn't expecting to write this sort of thing when I made the switch, but it's been rough and I'd really love to be able to talk to someone else that has gone through similar experiences.

I am now 24 years of age and can safely say that I have lived most of my life in front of some sort of monitor, whether it be a TV, PC or arcade machine. Roughly 11 years ago, I started to more vigorously pursue "hardcore" PC gaming (I loathe the term, but it is the only one that accurately describes the amount of time I have dedicated to the hobby). Over time, I started to delve into internet communities, and I can now say that I post actively on several forums and social boards, and frequent a handful of internet relay chat rooms (IRC), on a daily basis.

This sort of hobby, as you can expect, is very demanding when it comes to typing speed, so it was only natural for me to be quick with my fingers after the prolonged amount of time I exposed myself to the task. It was quite a marathon of a journey, looking back.

My native layout was QWERTY throughout that journey. Typing quickly is quite literally a matter of life and death for online gamers; an unfortunate side effect of this gaming-induced method of learning QWERTY during my youth was that I learned to type with improper form, with my left hand resting on WASD (what is used to move in PC games) and my right hand seeming to just hover over the other half of the keyboard to compensate. Although I somehow maintained a high WPM with this improper form (roughly 80 WPM prior to switching), I knew it was holding me back; I figured that the only way to maximize my WPM would be to learn how to type properly, and on a more efficient layout.

Around mid-December of last year, I finally made the switch, and while I see the potential of Colemak, it's been a devastating learning experience. After installing the registry files, I made it a point to find an old keyboard, rearrange the keys, and then take a WPM test. The results were catastrophically miserable: my 80 WPM on QWERTY was now a solid 8 (EIGHT!) on Colemak, according to this little test: http://hi-games.net/typing-test/ .

Needless to say, my eyes were glued to the keyboard for the first few weeks while I tried to get a sense of where everything had moved. Posting on forums was now a struggle, it became nearly impossible to hold a conversation in an IRC, and trying to type during a game may as well have been suicide. There were times where I seriously considered switching back, but for some reason it seems that I dismissed those thoughts.

After a few weeks of cold turkey Colemak with an unhealthy amount of staring at my keyboard, I put the old keyboard away (the one that I had rearranged to have a Colemak key layout) and went back to my usual one, with the keys left in their QWERTY setup. I grew tired of staring at keys while I typed and took the a leap of faith by forcing myself to type blindly (after all, looking down now will only tell me the wrong keys since it's still QWERTY down there).

Strangely, Colemak seems to have forced my hands into their proper positions. Using any other posture made it even harder to type, as hard as typing had become due to the switch. This is a welcome little effect as it definitely feels like an improvement over my old style of floating my hands.

My WPM according to the aforementioned website is now hovering around 25. While it is a far cry from my QWERTY WPM of 80, it is barely enough to chat again in my IRCs or squeeze in a quick phrase during a multiplayer game. I haven't used QWERTY since I made the transition, and I'm worried that I may lose some speed by not keeping it fresh while I learn Colemak, but I'd rather prioritize this new layout until I reach my old WPM (and hopefully surpass it shortly after).

I typically spend about 10 hours per week typing lengthy posts and responses, with about double that in chatrooms, short e-mails and in-game conversations. I've been using solely Colemak for about three weeks, and have been blind-typing for three or so days. In terms of my overall grasp of Colemak as of this moment, I know where each key is and am capable of typing blindly, but my accuracy is terrible (around 8 corrections per minute). J is my weakest key, and it appears to be an uncommon letter; I'm sure the two are related.

I just want to reach the point where I can say that switching was worth it. I'm not there yet, and relearning how to type makes me feel young in ways I'm not particularly fond of. I do think that my brute force / cold turkey method of learning Colemak will speed the transition, but I suspect that I'll have to practice QWERTY again once this is all over.

All in all, this is a mess. It's hard to explain the number of ways a lower WPM has negatively affected me... but even so, I don't regret this. I think that, in due time, things will indeed turn out for the better.

One can only hope so, anyway.