Speedrunner's Guide to Typing

Learn to type at 100 WPM in 2 weeks or less ;)
This video is meant for those learning an alternative keyboard layout (Colemak, Dvorak, Grapite, Sturdy, etc.) and those learning typing for the first time. The skills presented in this video will enable you to get to 100 WPM on monkeytype.com 60s.
Formal rambling aside, this is my personal method and experience. If you have your own method that works, great! Put a comment down below. I don't want to write a whole typing guide here, so I'll just say this:
This method exclusively serves as a shortcut to typing fast on e200 (English 200). Whether you agree with whether that is a good way to learn, is up to your OWN discretion. I personally favor this method, but if you don't, and have your own method; that's great, post it down below. This guide is not meant to teach general typing, but I included bits here and there to help with that. Understand this before you go comment about how this isn't "real typing". Thank you c:
If you have any questions, feel free to post them below. I'll try and answer literally all of them if possible.
Other resources:
Jashe's Comprehensive (Speed) Typing Guide
docs.google.com/document/d/1L...
Foggy's Typing Guide
docs.google.com/document/d/1o...
Monkeytype Guide by NinjaTypist
docs.google.com/document/d/12...
Keyboard Layouts Doc by ec0vid
docs.google.com/document/d/1_...
Typing Ergonomics Guide by Viper
forum.colemak.com/topic/2671-...
Mechanical Keyboard Vendors (not needed to type fast)
www.alexotos.com/keyboard-ven...
Das Keyboard
The Fastest Typists in the World Share their Typing Secrets
• The Fastest Typists in...
Octahedron
How To Type FAST And Make The Most Out of Your Practice
• Octahedron's Typing Pr...
Setup:
AT2020 - Mic
BM40 - Keyboard
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro Sequence
0:27 Introduction/Purpose
0:46 Proof This Works
1:12 Basic Terminology
1:50 Overview/Table of Contents
2:15 1) Memorization: Intro
3:44 How I'm going to learn alongside you!
5:11 1) Memorization
9:41 2) Touch Typing
11:58 3) Chording
14:37 4) The Secret Sauce
17:39 My own scores
18:06 Reaction + Some Thoughts

[@va1orance]

Here's a burst/chording typing practice website: www.burst-type.pro/ It was made after this video; would've been pretty helpful when I was doing the challenge :D

[@va1orance]

Set the word list to e200, then you can practice chording/burst without having to manually make the tests in monkeytype.

[@oxion.]

Very nice video. I didn't realize it only had 300 views when I clicked on it. I'd be surprised if it doesn't blow up in the next few days.

[@joseporcar1954]

Just what I was looking for!!! Great video

[@LucyBoob]

i truly wish this guide existed back when i started learning how to type. now learning colemak i assume this will be helpful though :D

[@MarigoldAW]

This is an extremely well made video damn. I recently got a new split keyboard and I have a lot of really bad typing habits. This video gave structure to how I should go about learning to type again

[@khanhcaoquoc4283]

Thank you for this tutorial, I'm going to try colemak

[@RickGladwin]

Great video! It’s eye opening to learn about things I’ve noticed myself doing already (chords and bursts) without knowing their names, and while only doing them on certain words. I think practicing these consciously will help. Thanks! For me the main reason i’m hitting a wall seems to be my keyboard - currently a staggered QWERTY. Keeping my hands in the home position means I get wrist pain fairly quickly, or I can move my hands around and lose efficiency. I’ve got my first full split keyboard coming in the mail, and I’m very excited to break through this wall (and inevitably start modding my keyboard 😂)

[@RickGladwin]

Followup: it’s here, I’ve got it tented like a MF, and my wrist pain is practically GONE. Still retraining my touch typing muscle memory, but working on this thing feels so much better. Thanks again for the great video.

[@MichaelVash7886]

Watched this shortly after it came out. had been thinkimg about learning an alt layout with how much i type. Your video gave me yhe plan to make it happen. Thinking i will go with colemak dh

[@va1orance]

Best of luck :)

[@Ivy_Snowfox]

Nice video, thanks for the tips !!

[@alexkuiper1096]

Really interesting - thanks!

[@burtonstudios5223]

Best breakdown I’ve seen on this so far! It would be great to have a follow up talking about how to go past 100!

[@va1orance]

I'll definitely try once I get back to my old speed of 176 WPM. The thing is, past 120 WPM, what you can learn really dwindles. Just as a minor list here: 1) Multi-chording/Spacegrams: Learning to type multiple words in one "chord". 89% practically is just this. 2) Read ahead: Read at least 1-2 words ahead, some people can do more, some people find more than 3 to be worse. 3) Burst vs Accuracy practice: Covered briefly in this video, in higher speeds, these two will diverge further. For example, for burst practice, you would want to ignore accuracy and purely focus on speed. This is usually about 40 WPM higher than what your PB is. Then, to "fix" your bad habits, you will work on long duration (5 min+, 98%+) typing tests. It's rather grueling, but it comes in time.

[@user-lb7rc6tm9g]

I used to type at 40 wpm without employing the touch typing technique. My progress wasn't linear. When I began using touch typing, my speed dropped to around 10 wpm. After practicing for 4 months, I managed to reach 40-50 wpm. Another 5 months later, I'm currently typing at 65-75 wpm. My goal is to achieve 120 wpm by 2025. Do you think I can make it to 120wpm in 7 month?

[@va1orance]

If you practice properly, perhaps faster than 7 months :) Typing above 100 WPM for people who haven't done it before is a matter of building up muscle memory. Unless you've experienced an injury, 140 WPM is possible for anyone. Past 140 WPM is where you have to start building finger strength/muscles. Just focus on accuracy and learn a bit of chording, see you at 120 WPM c:

[@user-lb7rc6tm9g]

​@@va1orance Can you elaborate more on "practicing properly"? I mean I have already set a goal of 15 mins per day, but I tend to be more addicted to typing these days. So I end up typing for at least 50 mins a day. What do you think?

[@va1orance]

Sure, what I mean is targeted practice. A lot of people say to simply work on accuracy, but if you are already around 98% there isn't a really clear pathway. What I recommend is this: Look at your consistency when you do a typing test (the statistic, it should be in a % form). If you are going above 83%, you should work on burst speed through chording as I mentioned in the video. I recommend setting goals in intervals of 10-20 WPM. Then, I would set a burst WPM goal 10-20 WPM above that. For example, at your 75 WPM, set a goal of 90 WPM over 60s. Your burst WPM goal should then be 100-110 WPM. At these low speeds it probably is difficult to work on burst, so I recommend going to 25 or 50 words and trying to get that WPM. Once you get to 120 WPM (which you certainly will :D), things will get much harder. 120 WPM is getting close to the "no practice/muscle training" speed. To clarify, what I mean is practically anyone can get to 120 WPM without working on any sort of endurance or finger strength. Once you get to 140 WPM, you will have to start training your fingers physically as weird as that sounds. Hopefully I'll have a video out about that by then :)

[@khanhcaoquoc4283]

Hi, I've been using your method for awhile to learn colemak, and I made it to 32-35 wpm pretty fast. However, I'm stuck at this level for nearly 2 weeks now. The reason is that I still mistyped some of the letters a lot, I think I got too used to qwerty after a very long time using it. Do you think I should start learning chording now, or keep practicing until I build new muscle memory and then chording?

[@va1orance]

Quick Update: It's been two months since I started this challenge. I have now reached 164 WPM over 60s. Good luck to all :D On a side note: I may be doing this one more time on another keyboard layout. For those who are in the knowhow of alt layouts, Stern was a layout designed to have high alternation, extremely low SFBs, and low redirects. It certainly works well and accomplishes all of those goals. It actually has 0% SFBs on Monkeytype English-200. That being said, the LHM middle column this layout uses in my view simply has too much movement. I have begun work on a custom catered layout that is designed to minimize these top bottom row interactions. I do not fully recommend this layout. If you are fine with LHM, it is still quite solid. However, I would encourage you to take a look at dusk (altlayouts.com/dusk/index.html) which I believe is better suited for the majority of people.

[@tocdolaspeed]

Great video! Just curious, why did you pick an ortho board for this challenge? I thought you prefer real split keyboards?

[@va1orance]

I actually switched to a split board right after this challenge ended 😅. The main reason I was using an othro board for this was to see if I could maintain multiple keyboard layouts through just having two different keyboards (I had just gotten 208 WPM on 15s, and I didn't really want to lose that progress). It kinda half worked, but I decided it wasn't worth the effort after I could type reasonably well on the new layout.

[@sandwich-plays]

This gonna blow up fr

[@dhruvbakshi9609]

crazy crazy video

[@_Karadi_]

starting today with these. Will report back in 2 weeks :)

[@va1orance]

Let me know how it goes :)

[@user-rizzwan]

how to deal with one hand getting fatigued when typing for long periods. is it postural or using one thumb that causes it.

[@va1orance]

It is likely due to posture. Are you: - Tensing up one hand - Typing with your wrist instead of your fingers - Angling your hands up (relative to the keys). A slight amount is ok, not too much.

[@heaneesalinas1420]

Great video!, how many time per day you must practice for this goal?

[@va1orance]

I allotted a total of about 9.5 hours while doing this. I spent close to an hour each day, but realistically, just 15-30 minutes each day with targeted/focused practice will let you get there in around 3 ish-weeks. Most of that time spent was learning the arrangement of letters, so if you are not doing that, purely memorizing chords will take very little time once you get used to it.

[@NovaGuo]

How would you suggest training muscle memory for thumb clusters?

[@va1orance]

It would depend on what you are using them for. I use one for a letter + the rest for shift/ctrl, and it kinda just comes down to "well I have no other keys so it must be one of these". Since clusters are usually quite small, I would just say learn it as you go.

[@user-on8ym1vx9f]

Is there a video where you show your tags settings? How to change previous words to circles?

[@va1orance]

Uhm- what do you refer when you say "words to circles"?

[@user-on8ym1vx9f]

​@@va1orancesorry, that was poorly written, on minute 8:02 the last word change to circles after typped

[@va1orance]

Ohh I see; Press esc (or go into settings) > Theme > dark note Neat little built in monkeytype theme.

[@elliottclaus7584]

what about steno?

[@va1orance]

I'm not too familiar with the learning process with Steno, I've tried, but didn't find it interesting enough. I would recommend using the openstenoproject guide, or qwerty steno if you don't have a specific steno keyboard set up. Again, not my expertise though :)

[@xanderec]

ggs