FluencyLesson 10 of 20 · Awkward reaches at speed
Little finger work
P, Q, Z, the apostrophe, the slash, both Shifts and the semicolon: everything the weakest fingers own, under load.
- New keys
- No new keys
- To pass
- Done when the check reaches 94% accuracy and 33 words a minute.
Lesson 10 is locked
It opens when you pass the check in lesson 9 (Same-finger pairs at speed). Lessons open one at a time, in order.
The little fingers own more than their share of the awkward keys. Between them they have A, Q, Z and the left Shift on one side, and the semicolon, P, the slash, the apostrophe, the quote, the colon, the question mark and the right Shift on the other. At speed, the little fingers are where errors cluster: they are the shortest and weakest, they reach up and down at steeper angles than the other fingers, and the right one has to hold Shift for every left-hand capital.
There is no way round this except to make the little fingers stronger and more precise, and the way to do that is to give them more work than ordinary text would. The drills here are dense with P, apostrophes, capitals and questions. They are harder than the passages that follow, which is the point: after a few sessions of this, ordinary prose feels light.
Two things to watch. First, the wrist: a small rotation is allowed for a little-finger reach, but if the whole hand lifts, the index finger loses its bump and the next word goes wrong. Second, Shift timing: hold it a beat longer than seems necessary, and release before the next letter. Most capital-letter errors are a Shift released too early or too late.
Paper people puppy apple It's; isn't; can't Why? Who? Quiz? Zip?