7 Comments

This is the best blog I have ever read. As a person with small hands and long fingers, I wish I had read it before I bought all the pens in the second group. At least now I know why they don’t work. This is a nice way of saying “at least now I have a weird hand diagnosis”.

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and knowledge is half the battle!

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For long, skinny pens, I mourn the loss of the late, lamented Rotring Art Pen

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Gone too soon

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I need to stop gripping my pens so tightly. I have normal sized hands (I think) and use the very standard grip that I was taught in school. For reasons I do not understand, I have a death grip on my pens that creates cramping and fatigue and I don't know how to alleviate that or change my grip. Suggestions welcome!

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I retrained myself from a four-fingered death grip to the correct grip a few years ago, when I first got into this. Biggest thing in practicing was probably forcing myself to sit at a desk when I did it—I was in the habit of writing from the sofa while in front of the TV, and any position where gravity is working against you is going to reinforce a death grip.

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I already use the standard tripod grip as I was taught in school, and I sit at a desk to write, with a good chair, good posture, all that. It's just that I can't seem to not hold a pen much too tightly. I can consciously stop for a few minutes, but then I feel like I can't control my handwriting, and it goes back to death grip.

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