O and P combine the two things that make keys difficult: weak fingers and an upward reach. It is the hardest combination in the course so far, and worth taking slowly.
The new keys
- O — right ring finger, one row up from
L. - P — right little finger, one row up from
;.
The collapse problem
When a weak finger has to travel, the hand's instinct is to help by moving the whole unit. Reaching for P, most people rotate the right hand clockwise, lifting the index finger clean off J. The key gets typed, but home position is gone and the next two or three keystrokes are guesses.
The fix is unglamorous: reach more slowly than feels necessary, and check after each attempt that the index finger never left J. Speed built on a collapsing hand is speed you will have to unlearn.
O is worth the effort
O is the fourth most common letter in English. It appears in of, on, not, for, you, to, do, one — it is unavoidable. A ring finger that reaches O reliably is one of the bigger single contributions to your eventual speed, which is why this lesson is placed before the more exotic keys rather than after.
P and the punctuation cluster
P matters less for its own sake than for what surrounds it. To its right sit the bracket keys, and below-right the apostrophe. The right little finger will be working in that neighbourhood constantly once punctuation arrives in the advanced track. Getting its upward reach accurate now means the later lessons are about which key, not where the hand is.
Practice notes
If your little finger tires, stop and rest rather than pushing through — fatigue in that finger produces heavy, imprecise keystrokes and teaches the hand to compensate. Short, frequent sessions build weak-finger control far better than one long one.