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StenoDrills.com
| Right-Hand Letters D and ZAnna Mae Tedley"There's a mighty big difference between good, sound reasons and reasons that sound good". The majority of bad strokes involve the right hand. The reason for this is simple. When you begin to stroke a word, almost invariably you begin by forming the beginning of the stroke first. This is natural and normal, and it would be kind of silly to expect otherwise. That means that when you stroke the word "word", you will think of those four letters and where they are on the keyboard, but the letter "w" is going to get just the tiniest bit more attention than the rest of the letters. That tiny microsecond of extra time will always make the left hand appear stronger and more controlled. The right hand gets the worst end of the bargain. It has the least amount of time and the greatest amount of keys. The combinations are generally tougher. Luckily, for the most part, the right-hand letters are stroked the same way as the left-hand letters. Nice, even strokes. Fingers centered on the keys. The letters "D" and "Z" are a different story. They present a unique problem. The dirty little secret of stenography is that the shortest and weakest finger is the one that must control twice the number of keys than its stronger, longer, and more agile brethren. Try this. Stroke a few words. This ensures that your hands are situated in their normal position. Don't try to put them in what you think is the proper position. You need to know what your hands look like while you are stroking normally. When you feel comfortable, stop. Keep your hands on the keyboard. Don't move them. Look at your hands. Stroke the letter "L". How much did your hand move? Not much, most likely. Try "F". How much movement? Now do "S". Your hand remains in the same basic position, and it will stay there if you run through the normal keys: FRPBLGTS. Next try two-letter combinations of any of the "FRPBLGTS" keys. You will find that the great majority of combinations are as simple as stroking a single letter. Again, stroke a few words. Stop. Watch your hands. Stroke the letter "D". How much did your hand move this time? Compared to the first experiment with the letter "L", it moved a lot. In fact, a large percentage of reporters twist the forearm to create the letter "D". They do it without realizing it. The motion that they use doesn't work very well when the "F" or "R" keys are pressed on the same stroke, such as the word "card". For this they use a normal stroke. These people must stop twisting their forearms to reach these letters. It throws the entire arm out of whack. It is very counterproductive. Easy. If you can remember a time when it seemed like your hand flew right off of the keyboard during a stroke, sit right down. Welcome to the first day of school. Everyone who twists their forearm to reach the last two keys will eventually twist too much and literally toss their hand overboard at the completion of a lone final "D". They are constantly changing their position on the keyboard. Their hands are tilted left, and they can't hit an "F" to save their souls. So they violently twist their arms. Now they have thrown the hand into the keyboard. They stroked the "F", but now they have to twist the forearm again just to reach the "T". Left for the "R", way right for the "Z", and on, and on, and on. Then they lose their place on the keyboard. More lost time finding the home keys. If you have lost your place on the keyboard outside of theory class, you are very undisciplined. Think of all the hours you spend writing on that machine. And you lose control? Too much twisting. Too much pounding. Too much movement. This is how to correct it. Stroke a few words to get comfortable. Stop. Look at your hands. Now very slowly stroke the letters "F" and "D". You have just proven that you can reach these keys with the proper motion. Those of you with small hands may have noticed that your wrist moved to stroke the "D". This is correct. You also probably moved your forearm a tiny bit. This is also correct. You did not twist it, but it swung to the right just a tad. This movement should be kept to an absolute minimum. Most people can correct this with finger-stretching exercises. To recap, don't twist anything. The least amount of movement is always the best way to do it. That's it. Here comes the hard part. The method that I have just described is the very best way to stroke the final two letters. The trouble is that it doesn't work with all the combinations. It works for the easy ones, but some fingering patterns won't work very well. "FGD" and "RLZ" are two extremely hard strokes. There are others, but these are about the most difficult to employ during the heat of battle. Twisting the forearm doesn't work for this stroke, either. You either pull the index finger off of the "F", or your ring and little fingers slam into the keys before they have been positioned properly. Either way, you aren't going to stroke "FGD" very fast or very competently by twisting your forearm.. These strokes are hard for this reason. Our hands aren't made for steno machines, and steno machines were definitely not made for our hands. If they made steno machines to accommodate our natural motions, the "D" would be lower and angled a little. The key itself should be raised. And if any of these manufacturers ever get a clue, the left edge of the "D" would be a very identifiable bump. We need to know exactly how far to stretch our hands out of position to reach the "D". Any more than the minimum is way too much. The rest of the keys would similarly be moved to their proper positions. All of the keys would be angled and sculpted to accept a more natural stroke. Back to work. Stroking "FD" is easy. "FG" is easy. But stroking "FG" anchors your fingers to the keyboard, and, therefore, you can't change the position of your wrist, so you can't reach the "D". Do you remember the beginning of this article? I explained that we stroke from left to right because that's the way we spell, talk, think? That is the key to this stroke. If stroking "FG" anchors your hand to the point that you can't reach the "D", then don't stroke the "FG". That's right. Don't stroke it. The easy way to stroke the "FGD" combination is by putting your hands in position to stroke the "FD" and then moving your ring finger downward to reach the "G". Do you understand? The combination that you need is "FGD", but you stroke "FDG". This is an almost simultaneous series of motions, but it only works in this order. This may sound complicated, but it isn't. All you have to do is get your hand in position to stroke the "D" before you commit your other fingers to their particular positions. Still too complicated? Make it your goal to never drop the final D. If that is the one letter you refuse to drop, you will soon spread your fingers properly every time. Think about it. The index finger rests on its two keys: the "F" key and the "R" key. The index and ring fingers rest on their respective keys. It's the short, weak little finger that has four keys to cover. It can't possibly be resting on all of them. You must wait until the little finger reaches the "D" key before you attempt to stroke it. You must. So now you have done everything that I've told you so far. You don't twist your forearm anymore. You accept a small amount of wrist motion and an even smaller amount of forearm movement to the right when you stroke the "D" or "Z". On the "FGD" stroke, you spread your fingers to reach the "F" and the "D" before you commit the ring finger to the "G". And yet, it still comes out as a mess. Do you want to know why? Do you want to know the horrible, unspeakable truth? A truth so foul, a truth so reviled that we never speak of it? "FGD" and several other unusual patterns simply shouldn't be stroked the way we are taught to stroke them. This garbage about using only finger motion is wrong. It isn't reality. Guess what else is wrong? How about the part where they say to always hit the keys with your fingertips flat on the keys. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And if you want to stroke it first time, every time, clearly, concisely, and accurately, this is what you do. Stroke a few words. Stop. Look at your hands. Stretch your fingers to reach the "F" key and the "D" key. Pull your ring finger down to reach the "G" key. If you try to stroke any key from this position, you will hit too many keys because your fingers are already stretched to near their limit. So don't stroke. Hold your fingers in this position and simply push down a little. For most people, this is an almost imperceptible forearm motion with the wrist held firmly in place. Others accomplish the same effect by bending the wrist, but I prefer the forearm method. Bending the wrist swings the hand up and down. A hand swinging down is apt to hit extra keys. A hand swinging up to the original position must arrive before the next stroke or the next stroke must be modified to account for being out of position. The forearm method consists of a slight motion downward with no wrist or finger motion. Get your fingers into position for "FGD", and then bounce your hand downward into the keys. The fingernail is the main contact point for the "G" key. If your fingers start out on the right keys, they will definitely strike the right keys when they hit bottom. And if you leave them on those keys until your forearm returns upward that slight distance, then you will not add extra letters to the stroke. It's slow. It's awkward. But it is accurate on our worst strokes. We have to accept the fact that we are not going to write every single word at the speed that we write our most familiar words. Some combinations are tougher. This article is about those strokes. Those strokes cause us to slow down. They cause us to write trash. They cause us to stumble. Now you know how to correct those strokes. So, correct them. Practice. Ready?
FP FT FL FD FL FD FP FG FB FG FD FG FD
FG FD FGD FD FGD FG FGD FD FGD FT FGD FL FGD FS FGD.
RZ RL RZ RLZ RPZ RL RPZ RLZ RB RT RBT RB RZ RBZ BGZ
BD BG BGD PD PG PGZ PG PGD PT PL PLZ G BL BLD BL BLZ
And don't stop here. Make up your own drills for using the letters "D" and "Z". Then make up drills with words containing these letters. Don't forget to apply the same principle to "GT" and "LS" strokes. A little practice goes a long way. How far are you going? Click here to purchase the Speed Teacher |
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