so ive been at this whole CW thing since i got my general last spring and i started at basically zero, worked up to around 5wpm using the Koch method with LCWO and that part was actually pretty smooth. got to 13wpm over the summer and now i just... cant seem to break through. every time i try to push to 14 or 15 it just turns into mush and i panic and drop back down.

i practice maybe 20-30 minutes a day, sometimes less on busy days. using LCWO mostly but ive also been doing some of the W1AW code practice files which i really like because it feels more like actual operating. im copying by hand which i know some people say is wrong but it feels more natural to me.

is this a normal plateau or am i doing something wrong with my practice routine? id really love to get to 20wpm eventually, maybe even get on HF CW for real. any tips from people who went through this?

yeah that 13-15wpm wall is super real, almost everyone hits it. what helped me finally crack through was honestly just forcing myself to stop writing every single character and start listening for whole words instead. like dont try to copy the letters, try to recognize the whole word as a sound. took a few weeks of feeling like i was getting worse before it clicked but once it did the speed kind of unlocked pretty fast.

also 20-30 min a day is fine but make sure some of that is head copy even if you only do 5 minutes of it. your brain needs to learn to trust itself without the pen as a crutch. i know that sounds rough but it really does help. and keep doing the W1AW stuff, that real-world text at variable speeds is way better practice than random letters honestly.

im kind of in the same boat lol so cant offer much advice but just wanted to say youre not alone. i hit 12wpm back in like june and felt like i was going backwards for a while. somebody on here told me to try just listening without copying at all sometimes, just absorbing it. not sure if it works yet but it feels less stressful at least haha