In E.C. Mills' Modern Business Penmanship, the plate of introductory movement exercises at first seems unremarkable; like most other texts, it shows a line of push-pulls followed by a line of ovals. There is one sentence that stands out, however, and suggests what I believe to be the key to developing a movement technique that really works for us in our writing.

Mills says,

“The oval movement is the pulling movement slightly modified. It consists in moving the arm straight in and out of the sleeve, and in rolling the arm on the large muscles near the elbow.” (Plate 4)

As is typical in MBP, however, the explanation is spare, and could easily be passed over as insignificant. The accompanying illustration showing a push-pull transitioning into an oval is instructive, but it too could benefit from some explanation.

In this lesson I will focus in on Mills’ point about the similarity between the push-pull and the oval gestures and will explore how an understanding of that similarity can help us develop a more effective muscular movement technique.

We will be building intuitively on two crucial concepts from the previous “Foundations of Business Penmanship” lesson, Building the Writing Engine, in which I focused primarily on developing the push-pull.

1) How to drive the pen rhythmically with a free, unimpeded motion.

2) A writing position that allows the rocking motion of the upper arm and the hinge action of the elbow to work in tandem with one other.

Different Shape, Same Engine