So far, so interesting.  I went through the lessons up to a r s t d h n e i o and managed 14wpm.  That's most of the home row, so perhaps this time next week I will be typing somewhat slowly with the full keyboard!  It appears that each time I progress to the next lesson, the rate stays around 15 wpm as I add letters.

Thanks! Now I have registered on hi-games as 'bravoecho' too and painfully did the 5 minute test, scoring 11 wpm. Real words are extremely difficult to type as I slowly undo a lifetime of muscle memory. This post took me forever!

I have some improvements to report! My score on hi-games.net is now 17 words per minute, for the one minute test, and I can see a future in this now.  Unfortunately I cannot log into hi-games as in sends me the login key about 3 hours after I try to login. Who thought than system up?

I managed 19 wpm this morning on hi-games.  It is very interesting for me that some words are already coming much easier. My main struggle at the moment seems to be anything on the number row.  I have been writing all my emails using Colemak... and that still feels like pulling teeth at 19 wpm!

Here's something odd - When doing a test like the ones on hi-games.net I 'feel' everything is flowing well, even if it is a bit slow.  But come time to write an email or forum post I make a ton of mistakes.  My speed is about the same in each situation.

And - 23 wpm on the 1 minute test! Time to celebrate cracking 20 wpm.

Your typing skills are improved in several phases

1. Muscle memory:
You can touch type what's on screen.

2. Muscle memory integrated with brain's hearing part.
You can touch type what are being dictated to you.

3. Muscle memory integrated with brain's thinking part.
You can touch type what you are thinking.

4. Muscle memory integrated with the whole YOU
You sit there, do nothing, just watch and adore yourself. Your brain and your fingers do it all.

To reach that final level where your typing skills are effortlessly integrated with all parts of your brain, it would take several years.

OK all my times on hi-games are now above 20 wpm. http://hi-games.net/profile/5186

I decided to install aTypeTrainer4mac which is allowing me more flexible training.  So far it's very good :)

My favourite part is when I'm talking to someone while typing up something else I'm thinking rather fast in Colemak without looking at neither screen nor keyboard. And I notice that they look at me with puzzlement like "how can he do that?". :)

Of course it's not always a polite thing to do. So I only do it when I feel it necessary. But the feeling is nice!

I try Amphetype (programmed by tristesse member of this forum) and it has an option that automatically detect your weaker words from your typing and let you practise them. The program gives you a lot of statistics that help you to improve from your mistakes, as well as a lot of options (the required accuracy to pass a text or a review, ability to type a whole novel and read them through typing is excellent).

Amphetype is definitely a tailor made software to learn touch typing efficiently. It does not have much graphics and fun stuff, but I highly recommend it to any typist that wants to improve their typing skills.

Here the Amphetype project homepage:
https://code.google.com/p/amphetype/

Download Amphetype (Windows, OSX):
https://code.google.com/p/amphetype/downloads/list

Backstory of the author tristesse
=====================

About 4 months ago I attempted the difficult switch from Qwerty to what is commonly referred to as the Dvorak layout. I didn't know touch typing, so I had to learn that at the same time. It was hell on Earth. It probably took me a full week just to be able to snail away at 20 WPM and after a full month I was still only at 40 WPM. Dvorak is impossibly hard to learn.

That's when I discovered Colemak, a layout that promised to be even more efficient that the Dvorak and much easier to learn. I was intrigued and found that it fixed most of the issues I had with Dvorak, which only added to my frustration over not having discovered it sooner after having put so much effort into learning Dvorak. But finally I made the decision to switch again. Since this time I decided I was going to do it right I even went ahead and made my own keyboard layout based on a mix between the Colemak and the Norwegian Qwerty, but moving a lot of the common punctuation to the home and upper rows using the AltGr key.

After a week I was already as fast as my best speeds with Dvorak, and after a month I was at a more comfortable 65 WPM. Today I am at around 75-80 WPM, which is almost as fast as I once was on the Qwerty (80-85 WPM).

Now, in my long quest for learning a new layout, I have grown fond of programs and sites that help you measure and improve your typing. However, there is a lot of things lacking from most that I'd like to see. The two main things are:

* Texts that make sense: I am a big fan of Typeracer where you type actual quotes from popular culture (books, movies, songs). This gives you some shallow entertainment as opposed to just typing nonsense language-agnostic syllables which I find very dull and unrewarding. I also played some with TyperA which gives you random sentences, but they are cut off at awkward points (can't separate "." in abbreviations from proper end-of-sentence punctuation) and sometimes they're part of a joke that you don't get to see the follow-up to -- very annoying! A better version in this respect is Hi Games' Typing Test which at least give you random fragments instead of just half-sentences.

* Automatic lessons based on problem words (not just keys): TypingMaster Pro Satellite is an ingenious (albeit commercial and Windows-only) program which monitors everything you type and tells you which words and keys you have problems with (probably inferred from speed and backspace usage). So far I haven't found any alternative to it, nor even a free program which tells you what words you have problems with.

So basically when I wrote the first version of Amphetype on a long and boring ride on the night train these two items is what I had in mind: the ability to type texts from favorite novels, moves, web sites, whatever, and detailed statistics about problematic words and keys which can be used to generate new lessons. And that's what I've done.

From feedback from friends I've also added the ability to type whole books fragment by fragment so you can read them while practicing typing.

I am a little put off by the age of Amphetype, so I will stick with what I have on my Mac at the moment.  After very little practice this week I went to hi-games and managet to improve all around.  It's much easier now to write emails of a reasonable length without feeling drained afterwards, which was certainly the case at the start.

One thing I really need to learn is the number row and all the special characters there. So far they have not really been included with any lessons, so I may make a text file of my own drills.

That's pretty awesome :-)

When I was new I used a mixture of common words, words chosen to exercise specific keys (the original 12 or so Colemak lessons) and words chosen to exercise specific sequences of letters (many lists of which I have posted on the forum). Switch it up and don't overdo it. Make sure you stay at >=97% accuracy - setting a higher goal was not really useful to me, maybe even detrimental. But more important than the numbers: If you feel you're making a lot of mistakes, slow down and/or take a break.

Update - I have started a new job and immediately set my machine to Colemak as the default.  It has confounded others a few times but is great for me. 

I now find that when confronted with a QWERTY layout I have to stare at the keys and slowly pick out the letters one by one.  This is pretty rare... but still something that happens.

My speed has leveled out around 38 - 40 wpm and I don't do much dedicated practice now that I am working all day and out hiking on the weekends.  It would be nice to type a little faster, but honestly this is now comfortable and practical for most of the tasks I need to accomplish on a computer.

The kinesis keyboard I ordered really slowed me down when I started using it at home, but steadily I am improving on it and it is certainly more comfortable that a regular shaped keyboard!  My wife has also made steady progress on her Colemak speed -- I think she's now above 30wpm on hi-games for a couple of the tests, and is happy to do all her typing in Colemak. 

Success!