Am I holding my yarn wrong?

[Jrich06]

I have crocheted for years but am looking to improve my speed. I have watched videos on how people hold their yarn and hook, and I am starting to wonder if I am holding my yarn wrong. I hold the hook knife hold in my right hand and keep the yarn in between my index and middle finger if my left hand. However, I use the left hand to wrap the yarn around my crochet hook to make my stitches. My mother in law taught me, and she is a knitter originally and this is similar to how I knit. Does anyone else crochet this way? Is there a better way? Keeping the yarn around my left index finger just feels too loose.  Thanks in advance!

[Granny Square]

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it".  There are lots (well a few anyway) of ways to hold your hook, and probably a whole lot more ways to hold/tension your yarn with the other hand. 

I hold my hook like a pencil, and when the internet came along and I found out that some crocheters held their yarn overhand/knife style I tried that and thought "nope, nopity nope, no way".  Then my next project was a knit one and realized I KNIT overhand...um...

I think I tension my yarn SORT OF the same way as you, over the first finger, under the second, then laying over the last 2 fingers--but I create stiches much differently.  I learned knitting first (continental style, which means you tension yarn with the left hand), and that was exactly how I tensioned crochet when I learned that later.  I had grab some yarn to make sure what my left hand was doing in crochet- the pinky side of my wrist moves slightly skyward, then quickly back down each stitch in the action of moving the yarn thru my fingers, but my fingers weren't really moving except to very subtly loosen side to side to let the yarn pass--I didn't even realize they were doing even that.

So the major difference is my right hand is doing all the work to form the stitch, my left hand does not contribute in any way in wrapping the yarn around the hook.  Whether that contributes to speed or not, I can't say, but may explain why I have arthritis in my right hand fingers and not my left...