Effects of pen holding posture on handwriting motion

Exploring the nature of skill is useful to understand the specific feature of handwriting or calligraphy. Although we learn the holding posture in handwriting at elementary school, and we notice that the holding posture must be one of the important factors to improve skills in handwriting or calligraphy, it has not been explored how the holding posture of pen or brush affects the handwriting efficiency or performance. In this study, we categorized the holding posture of a pen into three types according to the angle of the joints of the fingers; weak grip which is generally recognized correct as holding style and recommended at elementary school education in Japan, strong grip under which fingers are strongly bent, and others (types I and II). The motion of fingers, the writing pressure and the holding posture of a pen, and the gripping pressure during handwriting were measured to verify the rationality of the weak grip type which is in general recommended at elementary schools in Japan.