Dumbest discovery ever... I am normally doing handwriting with hand laying on table moving in steps after letters, and fingers moving the pen to form letters. Like a lot of people does, those who have good enough motor control to do things this awkward way at all. For first time ever, i searched the web on the fountain pens (coz i bought one at supermarket for purprose of nicely drawing my signature, photoing it, and make my program add it to those images that i posted here recently) And instead found some handwriting tip: use forearm muscles, keep hand in air, and do not move fingers relatively to arm. I thought, how can forearm move with millimeter precision? Tried and practiced it a little, can see how it is much superior method because: Hand is heavy enough to damp out vibrations, it just can't move with too big acceleration. Muscles are bigger and can move with better precision, and for much longer time. This group of muscles are already trained for nice and smooth movements (while fingers do fast, "jerky" kind of movements all time when you type on keyboard, and rarely have to do nice smooth movements unless you play on musical instrument requiring this). It is already getting faster than my usual readable handwriting ("unreadable" one is still faster, but i don't use it because i don't handwrite notes for myself anymore). Sigh. Why, for Christ's sake, in my whole lifetime nobody *ever* told me about it. I mean, hell, school is supposed to teach those things. Why didn't i myself notice how those with neat handwriting do it. So, what ya think about it? [Edited by - Dmytry on November 21, 2006 11:09:33 PM]

I just tried writing a couple paragraphs like this, and it took a while and was rather ugly. I can see it getting better, though. How much practice did it take to get it up to the level you were at with the other writing style?

Also, I found myself naturally writing more "cursive" like using this method, but I haven't written in cursive since gradeschool. Were you writing in cursive or in print?

Quote:Original post by bjle
I just tried writing a couple paragraphs like this, and it took a while and was rather ugly. I can see it getting better, though. How much practice did it take to get it up to the level you were at with the other writing style?

Also, I found myself naturally writing more "cursive" like using this method, but I haven't written in cursive since gradeschool. Were you writing in cursive or in print?

Cursive. Print is really difficult this way.
As for why it was fast for me to improve over normal (like hour), it's probably because i don't do handwriting much often, and possibly because once in a while i do pullups on door frame (i.e. rockclimbing style pullup with all weight supported by fingertips that are on the frame's top edge) which probably aint good for finger movement precision.
Actually it isn't strictly "better", just it's faster than my slow but readable writing style (but looks uglier), yet more readable than my faster but less readable writing style. Additionally, it has fluidity to it, it isn't like this horrible draw letter move hand draw letter draw letter draw letter move hand irregular thing.
Maybe it's that in schools these days you first learn to write in print, which is really better done resting hand on surface, and then you do cursive this way, which totally sucks.

[Edited by - Dmytry on November 22, 2006 6:46:59 AM]

I just sort of figured that out on my own. I didnt think it was a big deal until just now.

Thanks for boosting my ego [smile]

another thought: actually, i would probably continue to write math formulas like i usually write because pen has to be lifted and landed really often...

I was taught cursive the hand-moving way. No idea why they force kids to go through life with ugly handwriting...

hmmm, I tried to give this a go and I can't do it... it's probably down to my writing style and how I hold a pen; I use my thumb and ring finger for control close to the tip with the middle and index finger providing support as the barral of the pen comes to rest on/near the knuckle of my index finger..

I also only write semi-cursively, linking certain letters... this doesn't stop me writing very clearly, although I tend to do it slowly (one A4 page per hour more or less)

interesting. my handwriting sucks balls, it always has and its only getting worse as i never write anymore except on exams. i do indeed write with my fingertips, and yeah thats probably the reason why its so jerky.

yay schools indeed. when people had sucky handwriting, they just said: here, go copy this piece of text. not a word about technique that i can recall.