Hey all, I just purchased a Moonlander and after using it for a day, I unplugged it and packed it back up because I noticed my muscle memory on my laptop was already deteriorating!

I want to be an ergomech user, but I also need to frequently use my laptop by itself with a standard keyboard. Is it possible to keep my muscle memory for both? Have any of you had success switching back and forth between a split ergo and a standard keyboard?

Any advice or reassurance is appreciated. This was a massive purchase for me and this issue has me very disheartened at the moment.

Update: I got it back out a couple days ago and it turns out all I needed to do was use it for a day and then sleep on it so my brain could do a firmware update. I’m back at the 70wpm I was with staggered, and yet my proficiency with staggered has only dropped about 5/10wpm.

  • dan@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    If you stick with it you’ll make steady consistent progress. One thing that really helped me was tracking my progress with monkeytype.com - it might not feel like you’re getting better but seeing how closely correlated practice and improvement are really kept me motivated to stick with it.

    I haven’t lost the ability to type as I previously did, though I do find myself resenting being forced to use laptop keyboards. I can do like 60wpm hunt and peck on a row staggered keyboard, and a bit more touch typing on an ortho/ergo/split, but I can’t touch type on a row staggered kb and I can’t hunt and peck on an ortho/ergo/split, haha

    • LanthanaeOP
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      1 year ago

      I take it from this that you were not able to touch type on a standard keyboard prior to getting the ergo? I can touch type on a staggered board and am worried about losing that ability.

      • dan@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        No I didn’t, but I was surprised I haven’t lost the ability to type as I used to on a row staggered keyboard. It might be different adjusting to touchtyping though since they’re basically the same skill just you have to compensate for row stagger… My suggestion would be to not go too long without doing one of the two, that way you can keep your skills honed…