I’ve always been amused by the “magic feather” nature of my typing.
I don’t touch type. I ask my brain about this, and it reports without hesitation that I don’t touch type. Honest. Never have.
That said, I am perfectly capable of typing at a respectable clip without looking at the keyboard, with my fingers hovering more-or-less above the home row. I get screwy when I go after unusual punctuation keys or numbers, but when it comes to letters and commas and so forth, it works fine.
For several years, this only worked when I didn’t notice it was working… that is, when I became sufficiently absorbed in what I was doing that I just typed. This became clear to me when a coworker commented “Oh, hey, I didn’t know you could touch-type” and suddenly I couldn’t.
It has become less fragile since then… I am typing this right now without looking at the keyboard, for example.
But my brain remains fairly certain that I don’t touchtype.
I learned only a little while ago that I don’t type, I dance. Words are regular, common movements… maybe like the finger movements of an incantation. Kinda cool.
I was in the same state: I could type without looking as long as I didn’t think about it. I wanted to get where I could type while looking at the screen or copy from a piece of paper. I rearranged the keycaps on my keyboard in alphabetical order so that if I looked down I would mess up. After a painful couple of weeks (especially with complex passwords) I had convinced my brain that I didn’t need to be looking down to type.
My typing is not as good as yours, though, because I don’t really use all my fingers. I type plenty fast, but I overuse my inner fingers and move my hands more than you’re supposed to.
I’ve always been amused by the “magic feather” nature of my typing.
I don’t touch type. I ask my brain about this, and it reports without hesitation that I don’t touch type. Honest. Never have.
That said, I am perfectly capable of typing at a respectable clip without looking at the keyboard, with my fingers hovering more-or-less above the home row. I get screwy when I go after unusual punctuation keys or numbers, but when it comes to letters and commas and so forth, it works fine.
For several years, this only worked when I didn’t notice it was working… that is, when I became sufficiently absorbed in what I was doing that I just typed. This became clear to me when a coworker commented “Oh, hey, I didn’t know you could touch-type” and suddenly I couldn’t.
It has become less fragile since then… I am typing this right now without looking at the keyboard, for example.
But my brain remains fairly certain that I don’t touchtype.
(shrug)
I learned only a little while ago that I don’t type, I dance. Words are regular, common movements… maybe like the finger movements of an incantation. Kinda cool.
I was in the same state: I could type without looking as long as I didn’t think about it. I wanted to get where I could type while looking at the screen or copy from a piece of paper. I rearranged the keycaps on my keyboard in alphabetical order so that if I looked down I would mess up. After a painful couple of weeks (especially with complex passwords) I had convinced my brain that I didn’t need to be looking down to type.
My typing is not as good as yours, though, because I don’t really use all my fingers. I type plenty fast, but I overuse my inner fingers and move my hands more than you’re supposed to.