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Comment by wodenokoto | Hacker News Reader

All typing guides I’ve seen recommend keeping fingers on home row. If you do that you end up pretty close to what that drawing shows.

Homerow centric posture is imho the main cause of keyboard related pain.

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> All typing guides I’ve seen recommend keeping fingers on home row. If you do that you end up pretty close to what that drawing shows.

I type at 130 - 135 wpm with my fingers on the home row. I don't have a posture anything like that drawing. In fact I have to make a conscious and uncomfortable effort to contort my hands into that position. It's far more natural (for me) to curve my fingers to hit the right keys rather than curving my wrists so that my hands are perpendicular to the keyboard. Like this:

https://p2.piqsels.com/preview/893/842/416/laptop-business-m...

The base idea behind keeping your fingers on the home row makes sense, as it promises that you can reach most of the commonly used keys by just curling or straightening your fingers, without moving your wrists at all. This doesn’t appear true in your picture. How does the person reach T with a finger that’s already straight, while still keeping a finger on A?

This is obviously not an exact science and I’m sure you manage to type just fine. However, if given a choice of regular and split, I don’t see how one could argue that they’re just the same. For me personally, I used to type with a lot of wrist movement and had trouble learning true touch typing for decades, but learned it on a split in a few weeks.

I'm not sure I can answer the first question, because I can reach the T just fine with my other finger on A and without contorting my wrist. Also, not that it changes my point, but I don't conform to a rigid version of the home-row rule or the standard touch-typing method, and I think that's how I achieve faster typing speeds than most. My hands dance around the keyboard and each movement is relative to where my fingers were on the last movement, while keeping the home row as a base. For example, in the standard method you'd use the right index finger for both Y and U. For me, if I've just typed a Y, I'll use the second finger to type U because that's more natural than re-using the index finger in different positions.

Also, just to be clear, I wasn't arguing that regular and split are the same. I have both types of keyboards and I'm planning to switch to split once I've mastered a new keyboard layout. My point was only in support of the original comment; namely, that that drawing is misleading.

Yeah, I get that. From how you describe it, I think my typing style was similar to yours. It works, but it’s significantly distinct from what’s presented as proper touch typing form. In my case, the downside was that due to all the movement, even tough I knew where the keys are, I tended to hit wrong keys a lot.

Wait have you been thinking "keep them on the home row" means any finger not actively typing a key must be in physical contact with its home row key??

This would at least help me make sense of people's wrist problems. Holy cow. Never mind how much it would slow somebody down. None of my fingers is ever stationary long enough to bring it back to a specific place typing 135 wpm.

It's really quite easy to keep your fingers on the home row and avoid bending your wrists. I've done it for decades without any wrist problems.

It's even easier than the bent wrist position. Take a look at your hands. What is the shortest finger? Your pinky.

The straight wrist position lets you put your pinkies on the home row without the unnatural stretching that the bent wrist requires.

Try it: Keep your wrists straight and start by placing your index fingers and pinkies on the home row. Then let your middle and ring fingers settle into place.

You may notice that your middle and ring fingers arch higher than the index fingers and pinkies. That's fine!

Then start typing. If you're used to the bent wrists, the keys above and below the home row may not be where your muscle memory is used to. Keep at for a while and your fingers will re-learn where the keys are. Just don't let yourself slip back into the bent wrist position, and you will be back up to speed in no time.

Here's a comment from years ago with some crude ASCII art illustrating the difference:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20663540

Many years ago, I was lucky enough to discover a keyboard training program called Stamina. The author suggested using a more ergonomic hand position: instead of placing your fingers on ASDF and JKL;, you place them on SDFV and NJKL. This way, your hands rest in a position similar to what you would use on an ergonomic keyboard. In addition, the characters on these keys are more frequent, so your base typing speed should increase (especially for cyrillic layout). It was over 20 years ago, and I wonder why nobody uses it and everyone still uses that uncomfortable orthodox hand position.

This is almost exactly what I do. Keep my wrists in line with the forearms, such that they're angled relative to the keyboard. So the home keys aren't ASDF, it's more like QWEF and HUIO. (Although it's more like the home position is in the crevices between those and the keys just below.) I've always done this just naturally and have never had any problems with typing stress or fatigue in 40 years.

I don't know. Hands on the home row is pretty comfortable for me. My arms are coming at the keyboard on an angle though, so there's no real wrist strain. Certainly if I kept my hands at a 90 degree angle to the front of the keyboard like in the diagram, it would be uncomfortable.

>If you do that you end up pretty close to what that drawing shows.

It doesn't have to. It will depend on the distance to the keyboard, the height difference between you and the keyboard, where on your desk the keyboard is placed. It also depends on the person writing ofc.

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