I thought it would be nice to celebrate my eleventh anniversary of using Colemak by sharing my Colemak journey. This post has been a long time in the making and was supposed to have been written last year to celebrate ten years, but I procrastinated so here we are. I hope this post inspires others to give Colemak a try.

I never learned how to properly QWERTY touch type. Depending on the word, typing using three fingers on my left hand and two fingers on my right hand was just how I always typed. My journey started in 2015 when I purchased a Filco Majestic Touch 2 Tenkeyless (TKL) with Cherry Blue MX switches, my first mechanical keyboard. TKL keyboards do not have a numpad, so I could position my mouse closer to the keyboard. You may have heard that Filco recently went bankrupt so it's sad that this keyboard will no longer be manufactured.  Switching to a new keyboard was the perfect opportunity to properly learn how to touch type.  To force myself to not to look down at the keyboard while I typed, I decided to use blank keycaps. The aesthetic was stealth black, black keycaps to match my black Filco.

I don't remember how I first came across Colemak. I must have read about it online somewhere as it was considered to be the best alternative layout at that time. After deciding on Colemak, I read up on the two main methods to switch from QWERTY, either going cold turkey and fully switching to Colemak or by using Tarmak, a five-step transitional layout. A transitional layout changes the position of a few keys at a time to help you slowly adjust and learn the new layout. When you get proficient with the first step, you move onto the next step which changes another 3-4 keys and so forth until you get to the fifth step which is Colemak. It's been so long that I don't recall the exact time spent between the Tarmak steps. Probably at least one or two weeks per step so maybe it was around ten weeks total to become comfortable with Colemak.

After seven years, in 2022, I descended further down the mechanical keyboard rabbit hole, and purchased an Iris ergonomic split keyboard with a column-staggered key layout. Imagine a keyboard cut in half. A split keyboard allows you to position each keyboard half at shoulder width. With column-staggered keys, the keys are vertically lined up as opposed to the traditional row-staggered keyboard. There is also a middle tent layer. Tenting allows you to change the angle of the keyboard. Each half of the keyboard is raised toward the middle like a camping tent (Λ). For column-staggered keyboards, there is a Colemak modification called Colemak-DH created by stevep that makes a few changes to make the typing experience more comfortable. I asked Dreymar how long it would take me to switch from Colemak to Colemak-DH, and he said about two weeks. It probably took closer to three weeks to switch to Colemak-DH due to the column stagger of the Iris and the new thumb cluster that took getting used to. The following are some thoughts and observations from my experiences that I would like to share.

I believe that if you want to learn a new keyboard layout you need to learn the layout on a different keyboard. I learned QWERTY ages ago on a common rubber-dome keyboard. Even though my Filco was a TKL keyboard, the different feel of using Cherry Blue switches and not being able to look at the keycap legends made the typing experience different enough. When I use my Iris, I know that I'm going to be typing using Colemak-DH. Your brain will associate the layout with the specific keyboard.  If you are more adventurous, try an even smaller keyboard. 

I find it surprising when I read that other Colemak users have difficulty retaining other layouts. I have no issues remembering QWERTY, Colemak, and Colemak-DH. I can even "type" in the air with my fingers using different layouts, and truly believe that eventually you will become so proficient you will be able to switch between different layouts effortlessly. To the readers who don't even properly QWERTY touch type, you have an even a bigger advantage than keyboard users who properly learned to touch type and therefore have the most to gain from switching to Colemak.

Using a typing websites like Monkeytype initially to help you with  high frequency common words is fine, but stop using typing websites once you know the layout and start using Colemak for real-world usage. For me, I used a typing website for each phase of Tarmak, but stopped once I full transitioned to Colemak. Real-world usage examples would include writing a university essay or writing emails.

An important point that I want to make is who cares about typing speed. My speed with QWERTY is over 120 words per minute. My speed with Colemak is nowhere close to that, but it doesn't have to be that fast. Don't focus on speed as speed will come naturally. Subsequently, comparing yourself to others who type faster and brag about how fast they type in online communities is the equivalent of bragging about the length of their "keyboards". Do something better with your time and produce something new now that typing is more comfortable.

I still feel like my journey has not ended yet. Shortly after purchasing the Iris, I installed Miryoku, an ergonomic, minimal, universal keyboard layout containing a base layer using Colemak-DH. With Miryoku, I don't even use the majority of the keys on my Iris. So next up for me will be an even smaller split keyboard, most likely only consisting of 36 keys. Customizable keyboards are widely available now with keyboard firmware like QMK that allow you to configure your keyboard layout in any way imaginable, a layout just for you. The possibilities are endless.

A big thank you to Shai for creating Colemak, and indirectly influencing the way I think about life. Just because you have been doing something one way your entire life doesn't mean there isn't a better way to do it and it's never too late to start.

Thank you to Dreymar for creating Tarmak, and EPKL with Extend. I've used both extensively in the past before switching to Miryoku and for his endless contributions to the Colemak community.

A final thank you goes to stevep for creating Colemak-DH which I do find more comfortable for column staggered keyboards.

I never thought I would switch from Colemak to Colemak-DH, let alone switch from QWERTY to Colemak. I will say that there are diminishing returns and that for me personally maybe it's not worth it to switch to a totally different layout. If a new better layout comes out, maybe it's something I will consider, but for now Colemak is all I need.