[yodon]

Every couple years, I'll adjust my doodling habits to a set of patterns based on a simplification of the Palmer method. This simple doodling practice has given me the best handwriting at just about every place I've worked in the past ten years.

Draw two horizontal lines about half an inch apart and in the space between them doodle one of:

+ continuous clockwise stream of overlapping circles (imagine you flattened a slinky)

+ continuous counterclockwise version of the above

+ continuous line mountains/valleys (draw an N that becomes an M that keeps going and has tons of peaks)

Repeat.

The first time trying it, most people will find it freakishly difficult to do smoothly and consistently. That's because your fine-motor eye/hand control circuits aren't tuned for these motions which are are the basis functions for all western language penmanship. If you start doodling these figures when you're bored on zoom, your penmanship will magically improve, not because you learned penmanship but because you enabled your fingers to do what your brain is telling them to do.

This will also help you have better penmanship on a whiteboard, but in-office whiteboard writing involves more large muscles as well, so it doesn't hurt to also doodle on a whiteboard this way once you have the fine-motor controls tuned up (the fine-motor remains the most important, even on a whiteboard, so starting with pen and paper doodling will get you where you want to go fastest for either format).

[squirt]

Qualifications: former professional penman, focusing specifically on American Penmanship from ~1860-1920. Spencerian script, and the Palmer method both fall into this time period.

> If you start doodling these figures when you're bored on zoom, your penmanship will magically improve

I find this sentiment common, particularly amongst people who learned penmanship "recently". It is incorrect.

A brief interlude--When I was in middle school I resisted learning cursive. My teachers would tell me that drawing little circles and lines would make my penmanship better. I asked why, but they didn't know. Their teachers told them it was true, so now they're telling me it's true.

Push pulls and oval drills will only improve your penmanship if:

  1. You practice them "correctly"

  2. Your write in a style that is applicable to the drills you've practiced

There's no magic. They are intended to specifically train a smoothness and control in arm movement writing. Those writing with their fingers will derive little benefit. In no way am I trying to discount progress you have made personally. My contention is that any person devoting sufficient time and intentionality to their handwriting practice will see some improvement, regardless of the methodology used. The crux of the issue is how much progress can/will you make.

Happy to answer any clarifying questions regarding cursive or penmanship.

Below are some of my favorite references in business penmanship.

[0] https://archive.org/details/ChampionMethodOfPracticalBusines...

[1] https://archive.org/details/armmovementmetho00zane

[2] https://archive.org/details/MillsModernBusinessPenmanship

[yodon]

I think this is something of a debate on "is it good to get some exercise?" vs "is walking or swimming or weight lifting a better exercise?"

The minimal set of doodles I mentioned is a simplification of the Palmer method, which can itself be thought of as a simplification of the Spencerian method. If one wants to get into penmanship seriously, there are many wonderful rabbit warrens to descend into.

If one is unable to form legible letters at all, in my experience that tends to be more of a fine motor eye-hand coordination thing than anything else, in which case almost any well-chosen set of doodle drills will help significantly.

[edit] also - welcome to HN! I just noticed the green font for your username. I suspect you'll have lots to contribute to this place.

[squirt]

> I think this is something of a debate on "is it good to get some exercise?" vs "is walking or swimming or weight lifting a better exercise?"

This is an astute comparison, and I think you're completely right. One who devotes time and effort into practice (nearly any practice) of handwriting will improve.

However I would liken it more to something such as: "will Olympic weightlifting make me a better soccer player than sprinting, ball control, and team coordination drills will?". It's not a generic A or B, as we're trying to achieve an intended result.

More aptly, "given I want to achieve C, is A or B a better approach".

[jrootabega]

I'd like to hear more about being a professional penman!

[squirt]

It's a surprisingly big field. Largely divided into:

  1. More artistic, commissioned works
  2. Wedding calligraphy, envelope addressing
  3. Teaching

I principally taught. Was too much of a perfectionist, and would devote more time than was economically viable to commissioned works. Though my art is on a couple wine labels in Napa.

Calligraphers/penman show up in surprising places. The White House employs 3 calligraphers for writing menus, invitations to formal events, etc.

[sanj]

Can you link to a pic or vid of this? I think a visual aid would help.

[yodon]

Something like this [0], but don't worry about the counting, just doodle the patterns

[0]https://fcmdsc.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/exercises.jpg

[albert_e]

is the "italic" style slanting deliberate and required?

[yodon]

Most English language handwriting has an up-and-to-the-right tilt. Architects will frequently adopt a precisely vertical style but it tends to feel cold and impersonal (or perhaps just unfamiliar as most writing does have a bit of slant to it). I suspect it's a bit like the serif vs sans serif debate. People generally prefer the look of sans serif fonts but they read farther into and retain contents better when the font has serifs (first measured in the 1950's and first discussed broadly in Ogilvy On Advertising, the book that most of Mad Men season one's plot points were based on). Straight up and down seems like it would be best, but for whatever reason hundreds of years of practice have retained that small angle as the preferred style.

[squirt]

Yes and yes!

It's due to the way penmanship was written. Consider the arm position [0] of proper penmanship. The page is at an angle to the left, such that it is similar to the angle of your forearm on the page. Pivoting at the elbow allows you to swing your arm from the left side of the page to the right. The forward slant allows you to always be moving "forwards" as you write across the page.

I hope that was clear. Please feel free to ask clarifying questions if not.

[0] https://archive.org/details/armmovementmetho00zane/page/12/m...

[yodon]

I agree that the slant is intentional, but it's not clear to me that the slant comes as a result of the preferred arm position (it seems equally likely the arm position was chosen because it results in the desired slant).

As you might be aware, arm position and use in serious calligraphy is a far more thoughtfully and intentionally designed process than I ever would have imagined. A major component of Spencerian technique involves resting the right forearm on the left palm (I think I have that right, I'm not actually one who does Spencerian writing) in order to use the flesh of the forearm as a linear bearing driven by the shoulder muscles and constrained by the left palm as a means of achieving a more repeatable and predictable translation motion than can be achieved with simple proprioception based motor control.

[jhanschoo]

It is deliberate for most Latin cursive scripts. I believe it is common wisdom that ovals are easier to write consistently and quickly than circles. Though I suspect this perhaps has more to do with older pens and styluses than a universal.

Edit: come to think about it, it's probably a universal, since you see angling in Arabic and Chinese scripts' calligraphic styles as well.

[ASalazarMX]

We used to get homework of these in elementary school. I always thought it sucked, and did them poorly, and my penmanship now is awful unless I write very slowly. Fortunately very, very rarely I need to write by hand.