Hey pinkyache, thanks!
I can sustain a consistent 90wpm+ on the 1 min & 30 second tests, the 2 minute one is a bit difficult, mostly 85wpm+ and the 5 minute one, the most difficult, 80wpm+. I think we all have days like that when we cannot type at our best when e.g. we want to and then later pick it up :) When that happens during one of my short practice sessions, I tend to schedule it later so that I do not lose morale.
Interesting, although I might be slightly biased since, if you have not already seen my colemak keyboard, I starting to learn touch typing (qwerty) on that mechanical keyboard before I learned colemak. So I am not sure why you experience the slow down on the board. I can only draw comparison between mechanical and rubber domes in my case. The domes in my university library at least are tedious, and I can only achieve a 70+wpm with them. I think my mechanical keyboard has a lot to do with this, because I am used to the feeling and light touch to apply letters and even the modifiers with, on the rubber dome for instance I find that I do not capitalize correctly, probably due to the absence of stabilizers in the keyboard and what I feel is a higher force needed to actuate the key. The rubber domes on my laptop that I am typing this one, and achieved a 92wpm 1 minute test on, suggests to me knowing-your-keyboard i.e. typing consistently on one keyboard helps greatly with aiming to achieve a high typing speed.
I am intrigued by what you describe with slightly different fingering style.' I am not entirely sure what you mean by that, perhaps you can give an example? When I transitioned to colemak, I simply inherited the same fingering style, that is home-row on the T + N as opposed to the F + J, middle left finger type fsc and the same typing zones found on qwerty transitioned to colemak, so I am not entirely sure what you mean?
I understand what you mean about numbers or punctuation marks can throw you off, the hi-games courtroom quotes/jokes where you type alot of Q: & ; & : & " & ' symbols a lot of times, slows me down a lot, say about 5-10wpm. I'm afraid the only option for us is to practice them alot, I simply cannot be bothered lol, or to not really be worried about it and set your record at another text.
I would like to mention however it is entirely possible to recover from a mistake. Just now when I did a typing test for 1 minute I made a mistake, took a bit of time to correct (spell: tion as ntio) the trick is to not let it bother you and to press on, still got 90wpm+, same thing happens with other tests each day :)
I think typing at higher speeds than you are used to does require a lot of concentration. I am only just beginning to feel that it is getting easier as it becomes more natural to type at higher speeds.
As previously mentioned, I don't think my fingering style has changed (if that's what I think it is you mean), it's just becoming more conscious of what to type next and to break down bigger words into smaller chunks (which I call combinations) in which you can naturally type faster. If you want to look for real life examples of this, you can look at my 90wpm 2 min replay on hi-games which I think illustrates this. Clear examples can be found in the following words: wanted violent another defined uncertainty dimple - where you can see a pause break between segments of the word. I type like this on all words but in those words it is the most obvious, possibly because I have not typed the aforementioned words too often so it takes slightly longer for me to type it/think where the next combination is coming from.
Another factor to consider is the 'left hand situation' It occurred to me that the staggered grid system of the keyboard had a detrimental on my left hand. For me at least I found it uncomfortable and to some extent I still do typing anything on the left side of the keyboard. I think the unsymmetrical style of the keyboard could be blamed for this (why it is still like this from the typewriting days who knows, well we could all hypothesize), why I don't think it feels 'quite right'. One way to alleviate the problem at least in my case is to raise my fingers slightly on my left hand. The right hand can happily stay on the home row and still feel comfortable keying from it's relatively idle state.
In terms of changing my life for the better, the whole colemak/mechanical keyboard experience has made me more interested in keyboards generally, particularly mechanical keyboards so I have gained a new hobby, LOL. Plus the added satisfaction when typing *you* are the only one in class/public/workspace in most occasions that can, 1) Not only type properly but 2) Type in another keyboard layout which other people will not know (unless the legends has been prescribed colemak like on my desktop computer's keyboard).
Hope all that answered your questions. By the way, what mechanical keyboard have you got? I would hazard a guess to IBM Model M/Unicomp Customizer by the use of 'old school.'
