So, some more about how I'm spinning.
I started out in position A, sitting on a chair, dangling the spindle. This gives me about 18 inches of drafting space before the spindle knocks into the floor (or, more often, the dog who is right underfoot). Not great.
Then position B: standing. Much better: I can draft out about three feet of fiber before hitting either dog or floor. Holding the arm out isn't a great situation, but not profoundly painful, either.
So we end up in position C: standing, and lifting the left arm above the head to nearly vertical in order to get about five feet of drafted-out yarn before having to wind on. Curse the short arms. The result: ouchies in the left shoulder.
Noel suggests standing on a chair, but I've not been able to figure out how to get enough spin into the spindle to be able to drop it a long distance and bring it back up before it starts unwinding itself and breaks off.
Hey, I told you: learn to draft horizontally and use the walking-it-up-your-fingers trick. Really really. I know it seems implausible but it works. Do you need a crap youtube video? Because for you, I'll do that right now.
I guess I do because I can't wrap my mind around how the yarn will go. Of course, I only know a couple of methods of drafting and only just got beyond having the spindle go flying across the room as soon as I let go and work on drafting evenly.
So would I use the right hand to sort of hang the spindle off of, making a 90-degree angle? Then draft with the left, letting spin travel up over the right hand, and then... that's where my brain can't quite picture it. And a web search doesn't yield pictures, leading me to believe that ALL SPINDLERS HAVE MONKEY ARMS.
Or, you know, video would be awesome.