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Hello, Being a ballpoint generation and having used ballpoints since the first day I went to school, I had difficulty in transitioning to fountain pens. Loosening up the grip and using the whole arm movement were like learning how to walk all over again. In the end, I finally found what works for me, and hopefully this may be helpful to others who are having similar problems. Note that this is not the only way. I am pretty sure that others may have discovered various ways of holding fountain pens. Figure 1 shows how I hold ballpoint pens. The pen is held/pinched by the index finger and the thumb, and the pen rests near the first joint of the middle finger. Notice how much my index finger bends and how my index finger meets my thumb. When writing using this grip, I rely a lot on finger movements and downward pressure, both of which are unsuitable for writing with fountain pens. Figure 2 shows my fountain pen grip. First, notice that I slide my thumb position backward (Always remember to pull back your thumb when using fountain pens). Second. the pen is held by my middle finger and my thumb. The pen rests near the first joint of the middle finger and held in place by the thumb. The thumb is positioned slightly backward towards the rear. Third, the index finger simply rests on the pen. In fact, I can actually lift my index finger up and write (as shown in Figure 3). Forth, when writing, do not use any part of your palm as the pivot. Instead, use the fleshy part of your forearm as the pivot and let your arm move freely. When using this fountain pen grip, you will rely less on finger movement, and more on wrist and whole arm movement, which is the ideal according to Palmer. The only caveat is that you cannot use this grip when you need to exert downward pressure. So when you are writing using ballpoint pens or you need to write on carbon papers, you need another grip. I hope this helps.

Hi there guys, I'm a bit shy about asking this simple question, I hope it won't take too long for you to answer. I'm going through Eager's book with my new Safari, and I'm trying to cure the habit of writing with my wrist and fingers only. Now I've read the posts about writing with the arm etc., and the advice seemed to be Now I've tried, but when I'm writing from my shoulder, my whole arm is off the table - in fact I'm writing right down to its edge. If I shunt in real close, and lower my chair until my forearms are on the table, the weight of the arm just seems to make writing from the shoulder difficult. Am I missing something here?