I've actually learned how to hold a pen ergonomically by Taylor Swift. [1] Sounds crazy, but I use the grip with a drawing tablet pen and it just feels natural.
I hold the pen between index finger and middle finger and use the thumb to click buttons.
I started to get some RSI pain using a normal mouse, because I believe the hand seems to rest too flat on the table. I first switched to one of those crazy ergonomic mice [2] without much success, because I think, there the hand position is just too steep/vertical. Then I completely switch from a mouse to a drawing tablet and I fully recovered. I also think, that you don't need as much force to move around your hand compared to a mouse.
Oddly enough, when i'm going for long writing periods, the Taylor Swift method is how i do it. I've been writing that way since high school when we had to write out 5-10-page essays instead of typing them. I get slightly less control, but can chicken scratch for hours without any fatigue.
I laughed when I saw this was the top comment on this post! My first thought reading this article was, dang, wait til he learns how Taylor Swift holds a pen. It looks weird at first but it's surprisingly comfortable and easy to write with!
As a left hander, writing is difficult. Western writing favours right handers; from the direction of flow, down to the formation of letters.
That coupled with mild dyspraxia, meant that I have a death grip on a pen - I grip it so hard the ends of my fingers turn white, all the while trying to control my movement as if an invisible force is constantly tugging the nib in random directions.
And don't get me started on fountain pens - they are explicitly designed to be 'dragged' across the page. As a left hander you mostly 'push' - I broke so many fountain pen nibs, until I eventually gave up using them.
Changing my grip on a pen now, would probably make all my issues worse, not better!
So people used to think there was only one standard-issue type of brain, and that everyone's brain operated in the same way and could learn the same things equally well, and a single optimal technique could be developed and taught once to everyone. The Taylorist dream, among others. But left handed people kept stubbornly existing, despite the beatings. And then education discovered that dyslexia and dyspraxia are things. And the not-well-understood category of "non-neurotypical" people currently classified into conditions like autism, Aspergers, ADHD etc. Eventually we're going to learn to fit the technique to the human rather than the other way round. People over processes, and all that.
This may explain why people have strong-but-wildly-different opinions about which programming languages are "intuitive". Maybe some are just ""left-handed"", in a very non-literal sense.
(I'm a left hander from just slightly after the "beating children for being left-handed" era, but I expect there's someone in the audience who remembers it)
Also left-handed - and I also hate fountain pens, but for another reason: as a left hander you move your hand over the fresh line you are writing, so the text ends up smudged with a fountain pen. Ball-point pens work better (mostly), and I refuse to contort my hand or write at strange angles to avoid this, that's a recipe for trouble. Fortunately I don't have to write a lot by hand anymore...
I'm also left-handed and dyspraxic. At school they gave me a triangular rubber grip [0] to put on my pen to help me hold it properly. Though I didn't get much better despite spending hours doing handwriting practice.
At high school after I finally got diagnosed they lent me a little Amstrad laptop to do my work on [1]
I can write neatly if I "draw" the words, but it takes ages. My handwriting hasn't been an issue since I left school, so I don't worry about it too much.
> And don't get me started on fountain pens - they are explicitly designed to be 'dragged' across the page. As a left hander you mostly 'push'
A left-handed childhood friend of mine would place her folders at a ~45 degree angle, and write at an angle. That way, she was not pushing the pen from the left (smudge the paper with her hand), but rather pulling from top-left to bottom-right.
That said I also abandoned fountain pens - writing with them looks nicer, but writing math quickly is a pain.
Handwriting education is sorely lacking for left-handed people. Most often they are left to figure out things for themselves.
Things you -- or other left-handed people -- could try:
- Rotate your writing surface. The more you rotate your writing surface the more it changes the writing direction from left-to-right to top-to-bottom which solves a lot common issues. It may take some getting used to but it's a lot better than using a claw grip to bend your wrist out of the way of your writing.
- There are "left-handed-inks" for fountain pens available these days. They generally dry quickly and resist smudging. Combine this with a pen that has a round tip: it won't give a hoot about which direction you're applying force in since it won't dig into the paper like a square or chisel tip will.
- Use a calligraphers grip. Place the pen in your hand, the body of the pen resting in the web between your index finger and thumb. Rest the grip of the pen on your middle finger in a comfortable spot, some people rest it on the side of the fingertip but moving it up till past the knuckle places it in an area with more padding. This does necessitate rotating your paper to avoid smudging but it does make applying less force to your pen a lot easier. If you still have pressure problems with this grip you can try modifying it by resting the pen on your index finger instead and holding it with your thumb.
- I'd consider this somewhat of a last resort since it's not quite the best writing technique but you can try holding the pen some ways above the grip. The extra distance from your writing can be just enough to avoid smudging.
The world sure isn't built for left handed people, but it seems to me that a lot of suffering could be avoided by including specifics for lefties in writing education.
I used to get a really painful "cave" in the side of my middle finger, from the pressure that I applied to the pen, after writing a page or so. These days I'm barely handwriting, so I'm good.
I feel your pain. I am also left-handed and during school times switched pen nibs every other month since they kept deteriorating. And I never quite got the hang of avoiding smearing.
I switched to writing almost exclusively on tablets a few years ago and it's so much better for me. I can't quite put into words how much of a difference it makes for me. Smearing is a non-issue and the pen glides fine either way on a glass surface.
There are some other benefits as well: I can no longer loose my notes and I'm a lot better about filing them away neatly digitally than I am with physical notes, but I suppose that might be a very personal thing. Having them indexed occasionally comes in handy as well.
I went from a Surface to an iPad Pro and vastly prefer the latter. If you haven't yet I would recommend giving it a try. These days even the normal $329 iPad supports the Apple Pencil and provides incredible value in my opinion.
My dad is left-handed and learned with fountain pens. He writes with his wrist bent inwards very sharply so that he can drag the pen without smearing the ink.
To get an idea of what it looks like: bend your wrist to about 90 degrees, hold it so the "point" of your wrist is pointing towards the top of the paper, hold the pen so that it is tilted to the left of the paper going down and the right of the paper going up. Your pinky should be the only thing in contact with the page, and should be far enough towards the top of the page that it doesn't drag through the tallest letters you draw.
It's the most awkward looking way of holding a pencil I've seen.
In Japan I believe the (true and only correct) way to hold a pen is taught and emphasized from a young age, while the United States maintains a "do it your way" mentality about it. It may have to do with chopsticks requiring similar precision or that it is difficult to follow the detailed prescriptions for writing Chinese characters otherwise - I'm just speculating here.
On a related note, there are pens whose grip is shaped to teach/enforce the "correct" way.
For example the Pilot penmanship or many Lamy fountain pens are popular ones.
That said, teaching handwriting is surprisingly very country specific. For example, in Germany proper grip and writing with a fountain pen was something you were taught in elementary school (I think now less emphasized) and simple cursive. In the US they seem to instead prefer throwaway pens and seemingly hard to read cursive.
Same in Russia, to a lesser defgree. For pens\penls\forks\knives.
My grip was always 'right' but I clearly remember my father commenting every time he saw a person holding his tool the wrong way. To him me doing it the right way was like a little victory or something.
I’ve studied ペン字 a bit (the art of writing Japanese with a pen instead of a brush as was traditionally done). Grip is emphasized as bad grip makes it very difficult to write beautifully: certain strokes become crooked and/or shaky. Posture is also emphasized.
I don’t think it has as much to do with chopsticks as children are generally proficient with chopsticks before they can write in my experience.
As dwg says, there is an optimisation of the grip for what is seen as good writing.
The interesting part is that stroke count and order is important, sometimes more important than the exact resulting shapes. That puts an emphasis on how the letters are written, and changes the tradeoffs between precision and fluidity.
I’m surprised they don’t teach this in US schools. I just Saturday had a large stack of documents notarized and I observed the poor notary getting hand cramps. Then I saw her grip on her pen and it was no wonder. I felt sorry for her.
The most important thing I did to "ease" my pen grip was to stop using ball-point pens. They require a lot more pressure in order to put ink to paper than, say, a gel pen. My hands thank me!
Ball-point pens actually were very painful for me to use after breaking my dominant hand thumb. Fountain pens forced me to both grip and stoke much more gently, and even fifteen years later I still use fountain pens almost exclusively.
Somewhere online (maybe here) I read the suggestion to hold the pen between the index and middle fingers (with the thumb slightly below and to the side, where it will naturally fall). I've done it this way ever since - it's much more comfortable, and I find it easier to control the pen.
I've held a pen like this all my life. Long term effects are a callous on the middle finger front-most knuckle and a slightly crooked index finger. Gets the job done, but I wonder if there is a better way.
I've used the dynamic quadrupod grip my entire life, fingers very close to the tip of the pen by the way. I used to draw a lot as a kid and I think this grip gives good precision. It's not ideal for extended periods of writing perhaps, but it's not too bad of a compromise.
I use what they call the "dynamic quadrupod" grip. I've tried the "correct" grip but I find that either the pen is at a lower angle or I have to turn my wrist more to get it at a higher angle. Maybe it is because I'm left handed but neither of those options work as well for me.
I try not to judge but when I see someone hold a pen between their index and middle finger I find it hard not to. A few years ago Taylor Swift was in a Coke commercial where she was writing lyrics. The first thing I noticed was how she holds her pen and it drove me crazy. https://imgur.com/QyTQpre
Grip matters a great deal for a calligraphic hand. Take a chisel-tip felt pen and try to write sensibly with the broad part of the chisel, and you’ll quickly discover a few things: why calligraphic hands look like they do, how to form letters with a mixture of line widths, and how your hand has to hold the pen in order to produce legible text.
Incidentally there’s this often implicit belief that people’s handwriting was better in the
past than it is now. I mostly don’t believe this—there’s just a sample bias towards only showing the nice writing that was often made by professional scribes. And some scribes had shitty hands, too.
> implicit belief that people’s handwriting was better in the past than it is now
I, on the other hand, believe this. When typing doesn't exist, and your livelihood depends on your records being legible, you put a lot more effort into legibility (and having heard a few stories about the corporal punishment associated with poor handwriting in schools a century ago, you'd get better out of pure self-preservation).
To back that up with an anecdote, I found a box of private bank ledgers maintained by my maternal grandfather, and I was absolutely astounded at how neatly he wrote. These were for only his own consumption, but the handwriting was clearly legible to me a five decades later.
Even my mother's handwriting is quite legible, even though computers became popular in her 40's (and typewriters in her teens).
I was just discussing this with my wife as my 6-year old daughter developed an interesting grip (not shown in any of those pictures). With humans being creatures of habit, I'm curious if there is generally a certain age where the grip should be corrected, especially if it looks like a straining one. I remember having a co-worker who held her pen in her fist, like she was writing with a boxing glove on (puts all the strain in the arm, elbow & shoulder).
My 6 year old does the grip first described in the post. Her school teacher has shown much apathy in correcting it and even suggested it was "too late" (UK state school). I'm going to try and help her myself. Tips include shorter pencils and "pinch and flip": http://mamaot.com/3-tricks-to-help-kids-learn-to-hold-their-...
I have crazy hitchhiker's thumb, so much so that I can bend my thumb almost straight backwards. When I hold a pen I cradle it with my index, middle, and ring finger all opposite my thumb, which is angled backwards and applies the pressure onto the pen. I don't think I've ever seen anyone else who holds a pen like I do. I get comments on it all the time.
I was never taught how to hold a pen correctly as a child, and self-taught the first bad method from the chart (index finger overlapping thumb). I assumed writing was supposed to hurt, and never questioned this until I was an adult because it was consistent with my perception that the main purpose of school was to inflict suffering on children.
I think this might have contributed to my interest in computers. I starting typing all assignments as early as possible, because it was so much faster and less painful. I later taught myself conventional pen grip, and then switched to a Lamy Safari fountain pen. The Lamy Safari has an approximately triangular section grip part, which forces conventional grip. I think all pens and pencils used in schools should have this design.
I have never able to hold a pen like I'm "supposed" to, or really how I've seen described. I hold my pen between the pad of my thumb and the side of my index finger in the neighborhood of the first knuckle.
Hmm, I seem to do a hybrid of the dynamic tripod and the lateral tripod. I hold "grip" the pen using the side of my thumb like in the lateral tripod, but I guide the tip with my index finger like in the dynamic tripod.
I also don't rest any of my fingers on the paper. Instead I rest the side of my hand on the paper.
I remember as a child I didn't like the feeling of pulling on the pad of my index finger when I gripped with my fingers (e.g. the dynamic grips) which is why I used the lateral style grip.
I have always used the dynamic tripod grip (the same grip shown in Escher’s “Drawing Hands” drawing). I am right-handed but I write “away” from me, at a 60° angle or more. I wonder how common this is. While writing with the Apple “pencil” on the iPad, I typically have to use the orientation lock! Some apps such as Goodnotes allow you to control the angle but not Apple’s own Notes.
[+] [-] zubspace|6 years ago|reply
I hold the pen between index finger and middle finger and use the thumb to click buttons.
I started to get some RSI pain using a normal mouse, because I believe the hand seems to rest too flat on the table. I first switched to one of those crazy ergonomic mice [2] without much success, because I think, there the hand position is just too steep/vertical. Then I completely switch from a mouse to a drawing tablet and I fully recovered. I also think, that you don't need as much force to move around your hand compared to a mouse.
[1] http://spdrdng.com/posts/how-to-hold-your-pen-in-the-most-er...
[2] https://www.amazon.co.uk/CSL-Wireless-Vertical-Ergonomic-But...
[+] [-] jermaustin1|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keeganjw|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] underthensun|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jaruzel|6 years ago|reply
That coupled with mild dyspraxia, meant that I have a death grip on a pen - I grip it so hard the ends of my fingers turn white, all the while trying to control my movement as if an invisible force is constantly tugging the nib in random directions.
And don't get me started on fountain pens - they are explicitly designed to be 'dragged' across the page. As a left hander you mostly 'push' - I broke so many fountain pen nibs, until I eventually gave up using them.
Changing my grip on a pen now, would probably make all my issues worse, not better!
[+] [-] pjc50|6 years ago|reply
This may explain why people have strong-but-wildly-different opinions about which programming languages are "intuitive". Maybe some are just ""left-handed"", in a very non-literal sense.
(I'm a left hander from just slightly after the "beating children for being left-handed" era, but I expect there's someone in the audience who remembers it)
[+] [-] rob74|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richardjdare|6 years ago|reply
At high school after I finally got diagnosed they lent me a little Amstrad laptop to do my work on [1]
I can write neatly if I "draw" the words, but it takes ages. My handwriting hasn't been an issue since I left school, so I don't worry about it too much.
[0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Triangular-Pencil-Grip-5-Pack/dp/B0... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_NC100
[+] [-] probably_wrong|6 years ago|reply
A left-handed childhood friend of mine would place her folders at a ~45 degree angle, and write at an angle. That way, she was not pushing the pen from the left (smudge the paper with her hand), but rather pulling from top-left to bottom-right.
That said I also abandoned fountain pens - writing with them looks nicer, but writing math quickly is a pain.
[+] [-] Doxin|6 years ago|reply
Things you -- or other left-handed people -- could try:
- Rotate your writing surface. The more you rotate your writing surface the more it changes the writing direction from left-to-right to top-to-bottom which solves a lot common issues. It may take some getting used to but it's a lot better than using a claw grip to bend your wrist out of the way of your writing.
- There are "left-handed-inks" for fountain pens available these days. They generally dry quickly and resist smudging. Combine this with a pen that has a round tip: it won't give a hoot about which direction you're applying force in since it won't dig into the paper like a square or chisel tip will.
- Use a calligraphers grip. Place the pen in your hand, the body of the pen resting in the web between your index finger and thumb. Rest the grip of the pen on your middle finger in a comfortable spot, some people rest it on the side of the fingertip but moving it up till past the knuckle places it in an area with more padding. This does necessitate rotating your paper to avoid smudging but it does make applying less force to your pen a lot easier. If you still have pressure problems with this grip you can try modifying it by resting the pen on your index finger instead and holding it with your thumb.
- I'd consider this somewhat of a last resort since it's not quite the best writing technique but you can try holding the pen some ways above the grip. The extra distance from your writing can be just enough to avoid smudging.
The world sure isn't built for left handed people, but it seems to me that a lot of suffering could be avoided by including specifics for lefties in writing education.
[+] [-] jstimpfle|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cu3PO42|6 years ago|reply
I switched to writing almost exclusively on tablets a few years ago and it's so much better for me. I can't quite put into words how much of a difference it makes for me. Smearing is a non-issue and the pen glides fine either way on a glass surface.
There are some other benefits as well: I can no longer loose my notes and I'm a lot better about filing them away neatly digitally than I am with physical notes, but I suppose that might be a very personal thing. Having them indexed occasionally comes in handy as well.
I went from a Surface to an iPad Pro and vastly prefer the latter. If you haven't yet I would recommend giving it a try. These days even the normal $329 iPad supports the Apple Pencil and provides incredible value in my opinion.
[+] [-] rlkf|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aidenn0|6 years ago|reply
To get an idea of what it looks like: bend your wrist to about 90 degrees, hold it so the "point" of your wrist is pointing towards the top of the paper, hold the pen so that it is tilted to the left of the paper going down and the right of the paper going up. Your pinky should be the only thing in contact with the page, and should be far enough towards the top of the page that it doesn't drag through the tallest letters you draw.
It's the most awkward looking way of holding a pencil I've seen.
[+] [-] Graziano_M|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hatmatrix|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diffeomorphism|6 years ago|reply
That said, teaching handwriting is surprisingly very country specific. For example, in Germany proper grip and writing with a fountain pen was something you were taught in elementary school (I think now less emphasized) and simple cursive. In the US they seem to instead prefer throwaway pens and seemingly hard to read cursive.
[+] [-] konart|6 years ago|reply
My grip was always 'right' but I clearly remember my father commenting every time he saw a person holding his tool the wrong way. To him me doing it the right way was like a little victory or something.
[+] [-] dwg|6 years ago|reply
I don’t think it has as much to do with chopsticks as children are generally proficient with chopsticks before they can write in my experience.
[+] [-] hrktb|6 years ago|reply
The interesting part is that stroke count and order is important, sometimes more important than the exact resulting shapes. That puts an emphasis on how the letters are written, and changes the tradeoffs between precision and fluidity.
[+] [-] aidenn0|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simplegeek|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alderz|6 years ago|reply
I think I changed my grip after seeing the painting.
[+] [-] kazinator|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumby|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blahedo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dotancohen|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanTheManPR|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bikenaga|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1MachineElf|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MivLives|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arketyp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jccalhoun|6 years ago|reply
I try not to judge but when I see someone hold a pen between their index and middle finger I find it hard not to. A few years ago Taylor Swift was in a Coke commercial where she was writing lyrics. The first thing I noticed was how she holds her pen and it drove me crazy. https://imgur.com/QyTQpre
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hprotagonist|6 years ago|reply
Incidentally there’s this often implicit belief that people’s handwriting was better in the past than it is now. I mostly don’t believe this—there’s just a sample bias towards only showing the nice writing that was often made by professional scribes. And some scribes had shitty hands, too.
[+] [-] falcolas|6 years ago|reply
I, on the other hand, believe this. When typing doesn't exist, and your livelihood depends on your records being legible, you put a lot more effort into legibility (and having heard a few stories about the corporal punishment associated with poor handwriting in schools a century ago, you'd get better out of pure self-preservation).
To back that up with an anecdote, I found a box of private bank ledgers maintained by my maternal grandfather, and I was absolutely astounded at how neatly he wrote. These were for only his own consumption, but the handwriting was clearly legible to me a five decades later.
Even my mother's handwriting is quite legible, even though computers became popular in her 40's (and typewriters in her teens).
[+] [-] webconnoisseur|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willtim|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GistNoesis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeherr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrob|6 years ago|reply
I think this might have contributed to my interest in computers. I starting typing all assignments as early as possible, because it was so much faster and less painful. I later taught myself conventional pen grip, and then switched to a Lamy Safari fountain pen. The Lamy Safari has an approximately triangular section grip part, which forces conventional grip. I think all pens and pencils used in schools should have this design.
[+] [-] ivix|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colechristensen|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jansan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harimau777|6 years ago|reply
I also don't rest any of my fingers on the paper. Instead I rest the side of my hand on the paper.
I remember as a child I didn't like the feeling of pulling on the pad of my index finger when I gripped with my fingers (e.g. the dynamic grips) which is why I used the lateral style grip.
[+] [-] tartoran|6 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IYUO3EM?tag=aboutcom02thebalanc...
[+] [-] bakul|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bepvte|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leg100|6 years ago|reply
http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/236206-alterna...
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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