Touch typist I want to know when you type do you raise your fingers, or do you keep them touching the home row and drag them to the top and bottom row? I saw people who really type fast they keep their hands and fingers on a higher level without resting on the home row, while me in my case I keep them resting on the home row and raise them a little bit to reach the other letters, I'm asking this because I think I'm doing it wrong, especially when I type on a laptop keyboard I keep doing a lot of mistakes.
I type 100–120 wpm. I can usually transcribe what someone says in real time, if they don't speak too fast.
I do hold my fingers over the home row, and am always in contact with it to some extent—but only to maintain an awareness of the keyboard as a whole. I don't drag my fingers to the other rows; I raise them just a tiny bit, only as much as needed to reach the other keys
without dragging.
Dragging wouldn't be efficient. You'd constantly be negotiating the ups and down of the keys's depressions, and wasting time and effort overcoming friction against the keys (no matter how slight; it'd add up).
At the same time, raising your fingers any more than necessary is also wasted time and effort. So, in mechanical terms, it's a matter of developing a feel for keeping your moving fingers
just above the keyboard.
That said, though, if you want to reach your typing potential, I think you need to let go of such intellectual concepts.
As a pianist, I can express this even better in relation to piano technique. To play the piano smoothly and naturally, transcending technical limitations, requires you to let go of the idea of the keyboard as a collection of separate keys, and think of it more as a single, music-producing thing. You can then address it in the smoothest, most organic way. You focus on your
intention to play, and consciously move your upper body, arms, and—to a lesser extent—hands, but
not your fingers. This leaves your fingers to do their subtle work as "quietly" (efficiently) as possible, without conscious interference.
When you speak, you don't stop to think of each word you're saying, or how it's spelled. You express thoughts.
Similarly, good pianists focus on the music they want to create, not the notes they're playing. They express musical ideas.
The same way, good typists focus on what they want to express, not which keys they're pressing. They type the way people speak.
If you focus on the
ideas you're expressing, your body does whatever its need to do to keep up with you. Physically, our bodies are much wiser than our conscious minds, and perform much better when they're allowed to do so without our minds wading in and trying to control them.
My piano teacher used to say: "Trying to control your fingers is like sending the Chairman of the Board down to the assembly line." It's true about nearly everything we do—typing, too.
You are ignoring this user. Show me the post.
Dude, really? You're still wasting everyone's time—including yours—with this silly crap? You need to get out more.
