# First thoughts and experiences

**URL:** <https://community.keyboard.io/t/first-thoughts-and-experiences/625>\
**Category:** Help and Getting Started\
**Created:** [October 31, 2017, 3:06am UTC](https://community.keyboard.io/t/first-thoughts-and-experiences/625 "2017-10-31T03:06:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bjn](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/community.keyboard.io/bjn/32/5337_2.png) [@bjn](https://community.keyboard.io/u/bjn)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 3:06am UTC](https://community.keyboard.io/t/first-thoughts-and-experiences/625/1 "2017-10-31T03:06:15Z")

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For the most part, absolutely love it.

- I wish the thumb arcs were further towards the outer edges of the keyboard. I said the same to Jesse when I used a prototype, and it seems I just have weird hands. I could make great use of a key under M and V, while I find the shift keys more of a stretch than I like. My thumbs naturally want to rest on the control keys rather than space and backspace.
- My P key seems a lot heavier than the Q when touchtyping, but not when looking and pressing them straight down. I wonder if this is some asymmetry of my typing technique.
- My pinkes want to rest on Q and P rather than A and semicolon. This will just take a small amount of retraining, I think.
- I’m not yet used to the palm keys. But I think that’ll come pretty quickly.
- During normal typing, my thumbs go back and forth between space/backspace and shift a lot. Often I miss when moving back to space. It really seems to me that they should be next to each other. I’ll likely move them. I’m thinking shift-backspace-ctrl-command and alt-ctrl-space-shift (all left to right). I’ll use the default layout some more before moving things.
- I have a few spots of overenthusiastic dremmel work as mentioned in the recent backer update, but it’s not enough to bother me.
- I haven’t really done any coding yet, but for typing English I’m already pretty fast again! The main things are missing space/backspace as mentioned above, and learning not to account for the staggered rows, especially when pressing Q and J and B.

I’ve posted my current layout [over in the Dvorak thread](https://community.keyboard.io/t/initial-dvorak-layout/13/193?u=bjn).

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**Author:** ![amos](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/community.keyboard.io/amos/32/639_2.png) [@amos](https://community.keyboard.io/u/amos)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 3:21am UTC](https://community.keyboard.io/t/first-thoughts-and-experiences/625/2 "2017-10-31T03:21:45Z")

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I had the same issue with my pinkies trying to rest on Q and P, but I have gotten used to that. I was thinking of swapping the cmd-shift and the the alt-shift, but I thought I would keep with the defaults on those for a week or two longer to see if it gets better or still makes me crazy.

I did some coding the other day and the muscle memory for my vim/tmux shortcuts is harder than typing in English or Irish. It made my head hurt trying to even remember what actual keys the shortcuts were on.