Learning Colemak-DH

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I have always wanted to try learning a new keyboard layout. It is the one avenue of keyboarding I never really explored, as I always figured that the time commitment to get good would just be too extreme. Well in the past few months I switched over to using vim as my primary IDE and have been loving it, which has brought back my desire to fully optimize my typing experience. As luck would have it, I also just got a new job and have a month of free time before my start date, so what better time to absolutely tank my productivity!?

Before doing any research I swapped the Dvorak layout onto my FSSK with QMK. I felt completely useless. It hurt my brain trying to unlearn decades of muscle memory in one fell swoop. I am coming from QWERTY as a ~75 WPM touch typist. I was not classically trained really, but I would say my form is relatively decent. Hovering over the home row and all that. Not great at using the 'correct' fingers for each character, but I get by. At 75 WPM I am pretty content with my typing speed. Even when writing a bunch of boilerplate it is always my brain that is the limiting factor not my fingers. The hope with switching layouts is to decrease fatigue and wrist strain when typing at full speed for longer durations.

I tried out the Workman layout, the Norman layout, standard Colemak, and finally have settled on Colemak-DH. I found this thread that details a method of incremental progression via a 5 stage layout called Tarmak. The idea being that at each stage it only changes a few of the key swaps so you can get used to them without feeling totally useless. Right now after a day I am on Stage 1b and typing around ~25 WPM with 94% accuracy. A far cry from where I was with QWERTY but unlike with Dvorak, this actually seems possible.

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I elected not to swap my keycaps around for the time being. So far I haven't felt the need to look down at the keyboard, but I don't want to even give myself the option to hunt and peck. Writing this post was almost excruciatingly slow, but I think I am enjoying myself? Time will tell, but I would be glad to hear any tips and tricks if anyone else has taken this journey.

[Muirium]

Tarmak is an intriguing idea for incrementally building muscle memory. The week or two I tried learning Colemak some years ago was excruciating, as you’ve likely already heard, so this approach is definitely worth trying.

As for Colemak-DH:



I see what they’re getting at but I think it misses the point. Colemak is pretty smart about choosing exactly what to change from Qwerty and what to not. That bottom left corner is left the same because of Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste. As Z and X are such lightly used keys, and C and V are only middling, I’d leave them where they are for the vital muscle memory besides the alphabet I have so strongly attached to them.

Anyway, best of luck. Now’s the time to try! You’re even doing the right thing by no relabelling of the keys. You rightly want to be a Colemak touch typist, not just an accomplished Colemak pecker.

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Yeah I am not sure how I feel about the bottom row yet. Keeping consistent shortcut keys was part of the Colemak allure, but I do like the repositioning of the d and h keys... I feel like running it on an ISO or ortho layout would make a lot more sense:



I could deal with just one extra jump to the V key. As it stands on my entirely ANSI keyboard collection, the swapped C and X have been really tripping me up.

[Muirium]

The key that tripped me up the most—and the change I really wanted—was the order of R and S. Here's vanilla Colemak, as I was using:


(Image from the Colemak website, I was not in fact running Windows.)

I was very, very tempted to make my own alteration so it went ASRTD on home row. ("µemak"?) The single unit hop S makes rightward on Colemak (while all important A stays put just beside it) was throwing me off Ro Ro Bad!

While I really liked the thought put into Colemak for all of us Qwerty incomers, I found the smaller differences the harder ones to get used to. Your fingers, like your mind, want to 'snap to grid.'

[AndyJ]

> I was very, very tempted to make my own alteration so it went ASRTD on home row.
---
"...and so it begins."

Once you change a big thing, the urge to make small changes is strong.

Most OSs support plain Colemak now. If yours does, there's a lot to be said with just staying with that. But if you're having to load your own keymap... go for it.

[Muirium]

Indeed. I had similar thoughts, and seeing as that wasn’t my only problem with Colemak—barely reaching 20 lousy wpm was the Big One!—I ditched the experiment completely. Thus all the past tense. Curiosity satisfied: firm REJECTION of the premise that the layout would suit me. Not after a week or so, that’s for sure.

I’m used to typing effortlessly, that’s the thing. And, honestly, I found I was hankering to type on my phone that week! Oof.

[AndyJ]

There's nothing I want to say so badly I'm willing to peck it into a phone.

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Jumped up to Tarmak stage 2 yesterday:

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Immediately felt unproductive and switched back to qwerty for some home server maintenance. Typing passwords is almost entirely muscle memory so that really broke me. But I am back at the typing practice, and clawing back to a measly 24 WPM. I tried out cold turkey Colemak and just felt infuriated by my hands so I think this incremental approach really is the way.

So far not experiencing any issues swapping back to qwerty on my phone or keyboard. I am slightly worried about being caught in limbo between not knowing colemak and degrading my qwerty abilities, but alas I am enjoying the challenge. Looking into ergo keyboards now too

[Muirium]

Looking into ergo keyboards now too

Good idea.

Keyboard enabling aside, that was my plan when I tried Colemak too. Stumbling and failing on regular keyboards, I reckoned if I maybe learned a new layout on ortho, I wouldn't affect my Qwerty muscle memory on all other boards. I already have a little Access IS, let's rummage up a picture:



Dressing the little fella up in fancy caps was fun (I have the Colemak kit for Round 5, unpictured) and so was noodling around with its physical layout of mods and such. But actually typing on it, in Colemak, or Qwerty for that matter? Turns out stagger is just as ingrained in my muscle memory as the Worst Layout in the World.

That was just me and my impatience, though. "Orthomak" could be well worth trying out, if you commit to it like you should.

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8 or 9 days later, I am typing slowly but relatively accurately on the full Colemak DH layout. I switched over to using keybr for training. One letter at a time. Doing a few hours of dedicated training every day (while listening to podcasts or what have you) It feels like each day I wake up with significantly more muscle memory than I had the night before. I can also type for significantly longer (than on QWERTY) without building up wrist fatigue, so I am still enjoying this experiment.

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That was just me and my impatience, though. "Orthomak" could be well worth trying out, if you commit to it like you should.

I always scoffed at the Ortho obsession as being ridiculous but after attempting to learn another layout, it makes me wanna try it!

[Muirium]

Clicked the link, hit skip on all the instructions—why do they move them around, who do they think they're kidding?—and began typing right here on my laptop when the anger began: "These Aren't Even Words!"

Impatience indeed.