How to Improve Your Handwriting

hi there I'm Lindsey Bugsby here in snowy Boulder Colorado and today we're going to talk about handwriting and how to improve it first and foremost I want you to remember that good handwriting is not something that people are born with it's not like you have this category of people who have good handwriting and this category of people who have bad handwriting it all just sort of depends on the mood of the day which is why I've never really been able to get into you know handwriting analysis because you can't pinpoint a personality just based on what you're seeing written on a page I think that what we're seeing on a page is a snapshot of what someone is feeling that day how rushed are they how stressed are they so the first thing you've got to do is really check yourself and remember everyone can write neatly and everyone can write messily so remember that don't let your handwriting Define you you can write in beautiful handwriting or you can write in handwriting that's not so beautiful it's something that you have to make a conscientious decision about every time you sit down to write one of the primary factors that will set you up for handwriting success is using a writing utensil that you really connect with So to that end you'll want to try every writing utensil you can get your hands on pens pencils I prefer pens but some people really like to write with pencils and just you know try everything until you find something that connects with you I experimented with three different pins to write this cursive and on this first bit here I used a pilot Falcon fountain pen you can see it looks very elegant but this pen is close to two hundred dollars that I wrote this with so then I tried writing with a Muji pen this little guy right here which is about let's say five dollars first it has a 0.38 millimeter tip and you can see that this cursive is nearly identical to the cursive above it so these two look very elegant to me and then this line right here I wrote using a pilot g205 pen I like this pen because it's very smooth when it writes but you can see that the stroke is a little heavier so experiment and then think about what looks best with the handwriting that you tend to gravitate towards so for me I really like that thin stroke I feel like for example this letter looks very elegant because the stroke is so fine I used a fountain pen to write this but it would look similar if I used a Muji pen so that's what I tend to gravitate towards are pens that have a really nice delicate stroke think about what you like try a bunch of different pins and then decide which one is your favorite something else to keep in mind in your quest for nice handwriting is to stay relaxed so it sounds counter-intuitive because you would think that the more you clutch your pin the more control you would have over what you're actually writing but in fact the opposite is true if you're very tight and you're gripping that pin it will be hard to write well you can see that that that's just kind of all over the place so when I relax when I keep the grip on my pen nice and loose it's a lot easier to write so just check yourself as you're writing check your entire body you need to make sure that your shoulders are nice and loose your back isn't hunched over and especially vitally that you are not clutching the pen that nice relaxed grip is going to be the key to writing fluid characters my next recommendation for improving your handwriting is to start every session with drills so you can see on this improve your cursive worksheet which is a free printable on the tpk website I'll put the link in the video description you've got three examples of drills here and so these are drills that are fabulous to keep in mind and to do in real life even if you don't have the worksheet with you before every writing session so if you're going to write a note to somebody or whatever you need to warm up your hand with just a few basic Strokes so these types of basic Strokes are really great way to loosen up and to really Ward against that clutching that I talked about this is going to help you to maintain that nice relaxed grip and to get into the zone for writing characters that look fluid and confident another vital part of the handwriting conversation is paper placement a lot of us have this instinct or maybe we're taught I can't even remember at this point to put the paper straight in front of you and then go ahead and write but you can see that as I'm writing my shoulder is coming over here I'm just having a lot of weirdness and so what I would recommend is rotating the page to really achieve that Comfort level honestly I like to rotate my page so that it's parallel really to the end of my table and that allows me to write in nice slanted cursive whereas if I write the cursive more upright it's more difficult to achieve a slant so I'm not saying that you need to write like me and go with this dramatic rotation but what I am suggesting is that you try several different rotations so for right-handed people it's going to help to move counterclockwise so try writing with your page slanted like this or like this like this try all of those different things and see what feels most natural to you it could very well be that you prefer to write like this and that's fine for lefties you'll want to experiment with a clockwise motion so that might be right here right here or right here it's just whatever feels most comfortable facilitates that nice relaxed grip and helps you to achieve the slant that you want if you feel like a few tweaks are not going to help your handwriting then you can take your endeavors to the next level and fill out a worksheet like I mentioned I have this free improve your cursive worksheet on the tpk website the link to that is in my video description and what you'll do is Trace over any gray characters that you see to familiarize yourself with the letter form and then try the form on your own this is no official cursive style it's just the cursive style that I tend to write in every day and once you fill out all of these letters which I recommend doing with the aid of your favorite podcast ebook or music then you will practice writing out words going a nice Pace not too fast not too slow and in this way you might adopt some new letter forms and also just be more conscientious about your curse of handwriting in general if you are interested in cursive in particular and you don't know how to write in cursive or you're a little rusty you can try tpk's premium cursive worksheet so that is a little more intense than the free worksheet and that it has directional arrows all of the uppercase and lowercase letters nice and big for you to try and then it has this word practice session and it comes with a free online course so there's that to consider and then the other thing I have which is probably my favorite is the elegant cursive handwriting worksheet so that's something you'll want to take on if you have a thorough understanding of how to create cursive and you just want to learn a style that's very beautiful fun to look at so this is what that looks like it's almost like looking at ocean waves very affluid alphabet Styles here The Strokes tend to go up it's just very pretty so check that out if you find yourself drawn to those more vintage handwriting styles as with anything else handwriting practice makes perfect so any opportunity that you have to practice your handwriting sees it hand write grocery lists write notes for your spouse your partner your friends instead of sending a text send a little letter send cards if you can incorporate handwriting into your everyday life then you're going to see an exponential shift in the quality of your characters guidelines go a long way in making your handwriting look neater so I always remember when I was little I read this thing about handwriting analysis where if you're writing on a blank page and your handwriting Slants up like this you're supposed to be an optimist but if you're handwriting Slants down like this you're supposed to be a pessimist I think that's baloney it's all about how difficult it is to actually write on a straight line very very few of us can actually do that without any sort of guide so if it's appropriate I would recommend using lined paper now you're probably thinking well what if I want to write in a card that's not lined what do I do then a lot of times what I will do in that case is I have a light box I'll tear out one of these pages from a lined notepad and put that underneath the card shine up the lines through the light box and then I have instant guidelines if you don't have a light box you can always just make guidelines with a pencil to write on but those guides are going to go a long way in ensuring that you write on a straight guideline the last two things that I want you to keep in mind are pace and personal style pace is going to be one of those Goldilocks things you're just going to have to find what's right for you if you write too fast then your handwriting won't be legible but if you write to slow then your handwriting is going to be shaky because you're just concentrating too much on certain Strokes so you have to find a nice pace for you the most important thing when it comes to handwriting is to embrace what works for you and what makes you feel proud when you look at the page so you probably noticed that in this video I'm focusing on cursive a lot in a lot of my examples I used cursive and that's because I tend to use cursive in my everyday life I think cursive is beautiful I love looking at those connected letters and how they look like ocean waves but maybe you prefer print and in that case Embrace what works for you use your print switch it up one day you might be filling print the next you might be filling cursive you don't have to have your handwriting be something that defines you because it is so fluid it just varies from day to day from moment to moment from mood to mood so when you feel like having nice neat handwriting remember the tips in this video go to Pace that works for you stay relaxed experiment with rotating your page fill out a worksheet try different letter forms but on days when you just want to get something on the page you can throw all that out the window it doesn't matter I hope that you enjoyed this video and that it helps you to realize how much power you have over your own handwriting if you want to write neatly you can write neatly and if you're not feeling it you don't have to but there are several techniques that you can use to write neatly on the days that you do want your handwriting to really shine like I said I have several resources on the TP website that will help you with your handwriting I will link to all of those in the video description I would love to see you in one of my online courses I would be honored if you downloaded one of my free worksheets hope you enjoy if you're interested I have other videos on YouTube about how to improve your signature and then there's also a really cool video on how to write a beautiful handwritten note so definitely check those out and don't forget to like And subscribe happy writing

Channel: The Postman's Knock

Views: 39,163

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Id: IYdujqjNb1s

Length: 14min 17sec (857 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 17 2023