i know i hold my pencil wrong, i also grip my pencil really hard so it quickly makes my hand hurt and makes me want to stop writing. i've been holding my pencil like this for as long as i remember and i can't hold my pencil another way. i know how to hold the pencil as the "tripod grip" way but as i try to write like that my handwriting goes sloppy and i change back to the way i always write unconsciously. how can i stop this?

I hold my pen really tight and wrongly and that always caused my ring finger cuticle starts to bruise and makes me want to stop writing so thank you for the help

Seriously, THANK YOU! I struggled already, and then I had a brain injury, so my hand hurts more and it never feels natural anymore. This helped right away! I am so thankful!

i thought it’s just me who has pain from writing,thx god it’s not just me

Oh my god i was looking for this since a long time! thank you very much! I even have problems with mouse and keyboard because of this passive tension I have.. I thought it's something to do with angles and grip but now I know what to do. Now I can draw, write, and type without any pain. Thank you again !

This is really helpful :') i get bruises when im holding my pen 'incorrectly' i didnt know it was wrong since i saw my mom holding a pen thats also why my handwriting is ugly-

I had a problem with my thumb cramping up when I wrote for even a couple of minutes and this video reminded me to just relax my hand, thanks for the vid!

Such great insight David. Thank you!

Such great news. Keep it up, David.

Thurber (the creator of the D'Nealian handwriting system) describes an alternate grip which may help to eliminate the pressure or the squeezing of the writing tool to hold it in place. "The pencil is placed between the index and middle fingers, resting on the web of the hand. It is then grasped with the thumb, index, and middle fingers about an inch from the point. The thumb gently holds the pencil in place against the other two fingers. The hand rests on the heel of the hand and slides on the tips and nails of the fourth and fifth fingers.The pencil is held with about a twenty-five degree slant from the vertical position. This provides a firm structure that doesn't require much fingertip pressure to hold the writing instrument."

thank you! trying to get back into journaling and this video helped me with my wrist pain. God bless you

Thank you for this. I watched your videos in the past and this was a great video to come back to in order for me to freshen up my technique :)

Thanks for this i have written with basically all my fingers (except my pinkey) gripping the pen/pencil for most of my life. And everytime I wrote for long periods of times my hand and fingers would always be sore afterwards. Now i am going to make a change and finally make it easier on myself whenever i have to write anything down.

I've always held my pen tightly and i've always known it. But the way I held it always made it so hard to keep it light. Thank you so much. Literally just changing to this grip has completely changed how tiring writing is. I actually feel like I can lessen my grip, even if it'll take some practice still to do unconsciously.

Awesome video with spectacular tips and tricks

Thank you! I am interested in improving my handwriting and your channel is a great help.

I'm Brazilian and I watch several planner channels. It always intrigues me a lot the way most of the people of these channels ( basicaly Americans and Canadians) hold the pen. It is very different from how we are taught here in Brazil. I can't exactly describe how they do it, but the thumb goes over the index finger. I've tried writing that way and besides being very difficult, it hurts my whole hand. Sincerely it baffles me why ensinar crianças a escreverem dessa forma.

I've been looking for a video how to hold a pencil while writing without hurting my hand. This was after I did an evening course where I was required to write an essay with my hand word for word what my tutor said. After practicing with this new technique (as you demonstrated in this video) I have new handwriting, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. At least I didn't feel any pain while writing so I know it's working 🙂

Thank you. Been using wrong pen Grip all this time. Even disliked writing because my arm and hand became so painful always when writing..believe this will help me😍

Thank you for this! I knew that I've always held a pen correctly, so I didn't know why writing fatigues and hurts my hand so much! I am tense in general, so it makes sense that this was my problem, but I never noticed it before, so thank you! I tried writing with a relaxed hand and I noticed that when my hand would tense up again, my shoulder got tense too. I will be working on this now.

Something that we should do here is teach kids how to write neatly. My father and uncle were taught how to do it in their homeland and I'm over here struggling on every letter so that it looks nice.

Shoulder injury has be concerned so I decided now would be a good time to learn how to write well my my non-dominant hand (right). My hand would always hurt after 15 minutes of practice though and while the writing was pretty decent looking for only using my right for only a few days I always had to go at it slowly. With the tripod grip you've shown me(which is kind of different from the way I wrote with my left and how I initially tried to write with my right. No wonder I got writer's callus at a young age, still have it actually) it become much more comfortable to deal with. Thank you

This was extremely helpful. Thanks for the great uploads

Thanks for the ultimate tip.

I have to say, I love your Parker pen! So slim and aerodynamic!

This is exactly what I need. Thank you

Omg tysm! I'm ten and since its online classes alot I have to write for hours together so this helped alot❤️

thank you so much, i used to hold my pen on my ring finger, and it even created a bruise because I really forced the ink out of it. This really helped because today I had a huge test and thankfully my finger didnt hurt as bad.

This is the most useful handwriting video I’ve seen. Even though it seems obvious, I never really thought about it as the main issue. Thanks!

This actually helped because my problem was the right grip. My index finger DIP joint was hyperextended and I hadn't noticed it till now.

excellent tutorial

Fantastic hands!

I cant describe really how Im feeling right now. All my life since I remember I have struggled with writing. I started doing cursive, but it was so undecipherable that I switched to "print letter" style so that people could actually understand something, this after a suggestion from a high school teacher. Im a 39 years old family physician. I didnt want my caligraphy to be the typical medical cliché, but it was. Since I have a memory my caligraphy hasnt been that great, and bc of that I always try to write extra slow, specially with regulated medications, so that the prescription is readable, and even with that extra care sometimes people came back because the pharmacist didnt accept the prescription bc they said it was unreadable. It didnt happen all the time, but a few times a month made me feel bad, bc Im working twice, and the patients are wasting their time. I started using the pen as you said in your video. Turns out I was just holding bad the pen. It was tight. Not fluent. It hurt. For the first time in my life when I write my letters are clear, fluent, beautiful. Im almost crying right now. Thanks for this video.

Thanks guy ! This helped.

Thanks, brother. Very helpful video for applying in own life.

thx i was holding my pen and pencil like a mass and now i understood how to hold it and write with it and now i dont have any pain and my letters are way better thx for teaching me

Thank you dude for this simple tip now my writing is so beautiful

Thankyou. You can also try just applying the amount of pressure weight the writing utensil weighs. I found this to be better for me while holding a pickelball paddle.

my parents stopped complaining

The try pod grip helped my handwriting alot

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH. I was struggling so hard to write lately and my hand was shaking due to the pain in my wrist. I hold the pen the same way I do when I draw, so my pinky scrapes against the paper and it hurts after a while. doesn't help that when I'm signing documents or filling out forms, there's the additional pressure to not make a mistake and then the shaking gets worse because the nervousness makes me grip even harder! It's so frustrating! I think these days, because we type more than we write, handwriting issues have becomes less of an issue. It's not untill I'm forced to write whole paragraphs of text by hand that I notice this is a big problem and I really need to fix it or else I literally can't write anything longer than a sentence or two by hand. After I tried the "textbook posture" my pinky no longer scrapes against the paper and it felt really weird at first, but the pain is reduced by like a whole 3/4 and I was able to write like 3 pages by hand without shaking or jittering. I could barely believe it. ten minutes and I was able to get used to the new pen-holding posture. This is such a life-saver! I thought I was just going to have to deal with wrist pain and shaking my whole life! I'll continue to practice this posture until my hand automatically goes to it when I pick up a pen. When I'm not deliberately using the tripod posture, I revert back to my habitual posture. You have no idea how big of a difference this made for me. I was filling out i9 and handwriting so much text a few days ago due to new job and I was so close to tears because the shaking and pain keeps coming back so fast. It was exhausting!! This is probably something a lot of people experience but don't openly talk about so I'm so glad you made this video and shared it.

Thanks a lot,this helps me very much. Keep rocking....👍

Thanks for this video❤❤

I write with a really intense grip and when I use a relaxed grip my writing is a lot lighter is there a way to have a relaxed grip and still write letters with a darker shade?

I leave a comment here, so in future i would remember that i learn neat writing from this channel

Thank you!

My pencil grip is very weird and I definitely have the hard grip problem. In my case it causes the first knuckle of my thumb to bend inwards, concave. It looks very unnatural, puts so much pressure on the knuckle, and hurts after just a couple paragraphs. It's been so frustrating trying to re-learn my grip, especially since I'm an artist and use the same grip for all my drawing coordination. I'm going to start trying practice exercises to completely relearn it. Up until now I thought it was impossible to fix.

It has to do with the fact that we have always been used to writing with a pencil. Back in the day, when writing with a number two pencil, you had to really dig in for the writing to be coherent.

Thank you so much!

My problem isn't really my hand hurting, it's my finger. The way I hold my pen to draw is similar to the one you showed except the pen is resting on the middle part of my middle finger. Or to be more specific, right beneath the distal phalanges and at the top of the middle phalanges. I unconsciously press too hard sometimes and my skin get's sore and occasionally bruised. My skin isn't very tough and I have to press the pen down hard to get the right density for my sketches(I draw digitally). I've tried other ways of sketching and so far I haven't found any that I like and don't get frustrated with.

Turns out i'm actually a bit double jointed in my fingers, a site i'm reading says when that happens your joints are more loose and weak causing you to have a tighter grip and you lose concentration and get tired very quickly, which is exactly what's always happened with me :P What prompted me to look was i just noticed the top joint of my forefinger keeps bending on the pencil with only a bit of pressure and i just keep doing it repeatedly while using a tripod grip, same when resting the pencil on my middle finger too, and still happens trying to use a more orthopaedic grip putting it in the web of my forefinger causing me to put most of the pressure on my forefinger. All of my hands aren't double joined but my fingers seem to be i can push them back quite a bit further, the joints on my thumbers and little fingers are the most bendy too, so i think this is why i've always struggled to handwrite, plus my hands are small so i feel like they just aren't built for it. I don't think some people grow out of it so you won't ever improve your handwriting it's just what our hands are like, some people can strengthen their hands but mine are like "noop i'm too smol" lol i think i do need some pencil grips though cos it is uncomfortable and will never feel natural for me to do, cos really it's not either it's a taught skill. I also adopted a kind of small flick motion back when i did a music course which does take a bit of the pressure off cos i had to write so fast lol, it kinda feels like i'm gliding more and doesn't really change my handwriting to worse and totally unreadable even to me as long as i don't do it even faster lol so it seems to work taking the pressure off a bit strangely, and i can more seamlessly keep a continued motion with most letters except i have to slow down on my capitals, f's, t's, g's, y's, n's and vs and then when pausing a bit longer to make a space. The best i seem i can do is leave maybe 1 millimetre or so... more space before bigger words and write shorter paragraphs like 4 or 5 lines and then write bigger for notes.

Thank you, very very much

Ive gripped my writing utensils too hard since i was a kid. I would ALWAYS break my crayons and it was so frustrating. I'm a writer now at 26yo who adores handwriting but the pain i experience is ridiculous. Im watching this video to help undo that habit. Thanks for teaching us!

I’m glad you mentioned about the shakiness. I thought it was just me :) I’m trying to adjust my grip and sometimes it feels like a pen just flies off the page lol I have to really concentrate on relaxation… I realize a big part of my problem in my grip has been holding it too tight since I was a little kid (which is an extremely long time ago). All through grade school and university I always had a big bump on the first knuckle of my middle finger from the pressure applied there. Interestingly, the stress from the grip translates itself to my wrist which is where I get my pain. Thanks, not only for the tips, but being an understanding “teacher“, readily recognizing what are the challenges, and how to overcome them.

Bro the resting part; rest your pen with your middle finger and don't stress fore finger and the middle finger, is the best study of writing. I found my technique just to practice more.

Thank you so much

Thank you sir 👍🙂

Great video. I am a freshman in college and I'm currently in the middle of a math final. Thank you

Hello. Hey dude ! Thanks a lot. Now I can write my homeworks and other works very smoothly. Earlier it used to start paining only from 5 mins of writing and now after mere 40 mins or more. I thought this problem only persisted with me, but thanks for relaxing me. The tight writing always proved to be a curse. You also explained very nicely. Thanks a lot again ! I'm very happy now

I've always held the tripod abnormally. My middle finger doesn't rest under the pen. Instead it sort of presses against the side of the pen. It's weird, but I'm gonna try the "right" way and see if it benefits me or not. My writing has always been sloppy and I'd like to improve. Thanks for this vid!

As a lefty under-writer, I find that the classic tripod grip with the elongated/relaxed finger puts my pen at a terrible angle. It digs the point right into the paper. My adaptation has always been a more curled grip with the pen resting on the ring finger. Might not work for everyone but it works for me!

A Parker Jotter, a man of culture I see! Just got mine in the mail today :) so happy that I searched for a tutorial to learn how to better grip such a tapered-bodied yet beautifully crafted steel pen, and voilà, I stumbled upon this one~

it tried to write one page with this method ,what actually is 1.set your mind to your content rather than writings and fonts 2. get medium thickness pen with rubber grip 3.make your hand totally dry for more natural friction 4.use some techniques like shown in vid. before this i get pain in my shoulder very very quick like after 2,3 lines and after, i write whole paper with barely any pain ,writings look average but that writing is your real writing ,worked for me

Thank you very much

Thank You.

i was writing for ever 6 hours yesterday in preperation for my exams and ive had pain ever since last night. it was a struggle to write an exam today with a sore arm

Iv been holding My pencil with my middle ,ring and thumb finger for as long as I can remember . I tried to change it but ended up have pain . Well I want to change it now since I know it's not right . Thanks for the video

Im watching this video as im experiencing this paint. Bro thanks for the video.

anyone know if there are finger gloves for a small callus on the finger from excessive writing?

This should be thought on schools

Usually a NEW PEN ,you know, starts on rough so i put more pressure, also grip it more tightly, to write better...but overtime it becomes smooth and i continue to write that way...

I hold it like the tripod way but stick the pencil between the pointer and middle finger but I tend to hold it tightly.

when i write i hold my pen/pencil near the tip, and after around 10 minutes i have an intense pain in my thumb. thank you for this.

The way that I hold my pencil is I put my thumb over my pointer finger and gripping tight , I’ve been holding it like that ever since I was old enough to write and my mom said that my writing is bad . I’ve been trying to write with the proper way but since I grip my pencil tight it’s hard to adjust and my writings are always squiggly .

As a retired high school teacher it does make a difference how you hold a writing utensil. Incorrectly held tools lead to illegible penmanship and hand fatigue. In the meantime the rest of the class is waiting for these folks to finish taking notes. The entire class is slowed down. Seems there’s a lot for elementary schools to get right and stop not bothering.

Hi! I've been writing in quadrupod style for 20+ years and I've had much problem with hard grip so I've just recently determined to change to tripod style. However, no matter how hard I try to relax my muscle, my upper arm muscle can't relax, my hand muscle can though. Will my upper arm muscle relax if I practice long and consistently? Thanks.

Thanks brother

thank you

My dad writes with the tripod grip. eventually the area where the pen rests (on the middle finger) swelled. And it never healed. So I don't know if it's really the right way but as he said its all about putting little pressure.

Thank you sir☺️ I actually almost forgot how to write after the quarantine 🙄 And your video is of great help😘

Thanks i have a lot of homework. Remind me next year thanks

I have a question 🙋 I was practicing this tonight and noticed some pain towards my pinky.. is that me tending something up? Or just my muscles relearning how to write so it’s straining different muscles? I want to make sure I’m practicing the correct way. Thank you 💕

I needed this because i have been using the pencile and pen wrong and it starts to slowly scrape off the skin from my nails.

I hold the pen using my long middle finger, It is super clean and accurate yet I get a left tilt due to my figure length, and also slower speed. So I'm trying other grips

Been wanting to know if I'm holding my pen right.

This really help bc Im going in highschool n my penmanship was very bad now I'm getting better at it 😉

Thank you I always get worried people may judge me because of my writing.

I always having trouble holding the pencil it’s making my fingers loose and a SPEACIL THANK YOU.😊

It's not much of a solution but you made me more closer to the solution for this annoying problem, I thank you for this awesome effort and guidance, I hope I can be able to return favour to you sometime.

Tysm

In that thumbnail, you're holding using the D'nealian grasp and I thought for sure you were gonna punk me. XD Great vid, Dave!

Thanks

I had a very firm hrip on my pen before, and i know it is ineffective because after just 15 minutes i get tired with writing easily. When i was in 6th grade i searched what is the proper pen hold and they said the tripod method, when i first tried it my writing looks like a wreck. But now i am getting used to it (grade 11) but my main concern is that my thumb pressed down to the tip of my pointer which hurts like hell. How do i resolve this?

The tripod grip invites a tighter grip. A fat pen and easier grip with the thumb wrapped around the rubber grip helps ease pain when writing

I'm sore when I try it and I think I'll use the way I usually use it because it's more comfortable haha

I just love the pen. Is the top body stainless steel?

Same for me

Mine is sweaty palm.. as the sweats starts coming the grip between hand n pen lessens so inorder to get better hold of pen I need to tighten my grip n thus my hand starts to Hut..

Yo dude I've got the exact same black parker pen right here, ready to write with

My problem is when I write, my hands get a bit sweaty, so the pen becomes a bit slippy as well. With this grip the pen is slipping a bit, so I keep having to fix it.