Ambidexterity

Has any left handed-person out there been forced as a child to become a righty?
I want to become more ambidextrous.
I have heard that it is good to use your opposite hand when you can, develops that side of the brain more or something…
Then I also heard that it can confuse the brain and cause all sorts or unspeakable maladies.
Which is correct?

What I’ve heard is that it can cause stuttering.

My younger brother is left-handed. He came home once in early elementary school and said his teacher made him write with his right hand. Our parents put a stop to that real fast.

I was never forced per se but I’m ambidextrous to an extent, probably as a consequence of living in a world dominated by righties. I write left-handed and bat left-handed, but play a right-handed guitar and use right-handed scissors, for instance.


TMR
If you believed in yourself, and tore enough holes
in your pants, there was always a mist-filled alley
right around the corner.

Brain-wise we are set up for right or left handedness. Chimps aren’t ambi, for example they are supposed to be 50% right, 50% left.

You probably have to start “doing” ambi really young to have it take.

Hang on for a couple more responses, you might hear from an ambi.


Are you driving with your eyes open or are you using The Force? - A. Foley

I am ambidextrous and quite proud of it. I like to imagine that it gives me a better chance to use both hemispheres of my brain while attempting to solve a problem. In fact, I am somewhat of a puzzle nut, having collected all types (Rubik’s cubes, etc.) that I am very good at solving by myself. I think it helps me play music also.

I theorize that I became ambidextrous because my father is predominantly right-handed and my mother is predominantly left-handed. Anything my father taught me (sports, etc.) I tend to do right-handed, while things my mother taught me (writing, eating) I usually do left-handed. About the only thing I cannot do reasonably well with the other hand is write, but I am sure that I could if I trained the muscles for a few weeks.

I did stutter for about 6 months when I was ~7 yrs old, but I quickly grew out of it.

I have always used either hand for doing things that require fine motor control. I never really considered it unusual until people started to comment about me shaving the right side of my face with my right hand and the left side with the left hand.
I use tools with whichever hand seems to be the most convenient at the time.
One thing that does seem odd to me is that to send Morse code with a “bug”, using my left hand I have to turn the bug backwards with the paddle facing away rather than towards me. That means the dits are formed by pushing with the thumb and the dahs with the forefinger in both cases. Sort of makes sense I guess. Right and left thumbs make dits, right and left forefingers make dahs.

Weird. I’m right-handed, and yet I use my left hand for the most delicate and finesse-required work I do. Dunno why, it is how I was taught to do it,and my left hand now has muscle memory that my right does not. I tried to switch once, on a job out of neccessity. It was a disaster…
So…I agree with the posters who say it is a product of what you are taught.

Yeah, it guess it’s what you are taught to some extent- or what you are not taught.
I am right-janded and I first wondered about this question because i can only brush my teeth with my left hand. I don’t know why this is.
And people ask me if I am left-handed because I always wear my watch on my right wrist.
But that’s not really what I wanted to know.
I was wondering about the possible dangers and-or benefits of consciously training yourself to be ambi as an adult.

Cecil actually did a column on [url=http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_085.html]paw preference in cats. It seems to me that the same principle might apply for preference/ambidexterity in humans, that handedness is an advantage, because it lets us get more practice with a specific paw-- er, um, hand.


“There are only two things that are infinite: The Universe, and human stupidity-- and I’m not sure about the Universe”
–A. Einstein

Oops, make that paw preference in cats


“There are only two things that are infinite: The Universe, and human stupidity-- and I’m not sure about the Universe”
–A. Einstein

Turps, you could do it! But the older you are the less well you will do - It’s like language, we learn it best when we are young and additional languages after the first and plonked over to a different site. Your learning a new set of hand-to-eye and muscle use GOK what else.

Think of it as re-trainig a person left damaged after a stroke. They re-learn, but it is no easy or fast job.

I can’t see how it would hurt you unless it make you less decisive in an emergency - put out a fire with the left or right hand, grab a railing with left or right hand?


GOK = old time speak for “God only knows”

You mean there are people who shave both sides of their face with the same hand?

It sounds as if ambidexterism spans a broad and diverse territory of humanity. For those of you collecting evidence:

I write with my left, but mouse with my right. (And as an architect, I do some relatively demanding mousework)

I eat with either hand, but usually cut with my right.

I throw with my right but kick with either foot equally well. I also catch with my right, which makes fielding feel unnatural, but that might be true of most ‘true’ righties and lefties.

And, because I vaguely sense it may be the most telling, even though I shudder to mention: I do have a strong lefty preference for that activity you already knew I was talking about.

I’m ambi, and I was “encouraged” to write with my right hand instead of my left as a child. I don’t know if that made me ambidextrous, or if I would have been anyways. (For the record, it didn’t make me stutter.) The “which hand to use” for grabbing things really isn’t a factor - I just use whichever hand is closest.


Hardware: The parts of the computer system that can be kicked.
Percussive Maintenance: See Hardware.

Just to speak to the OP’s question, family legend has it that my maternal grandfather was originally left-handed, but that the nuns beat it out of him once he got to school (sometime in the early 1920s). I’d confirm this with him, but he’s been dead for nearly 14 years.

As far as personal experience, I can say as a left-handed person I find it nearly impossible to do most “handed” tasks with my right: writing, batting, cutting with scissors, playing mandolin, and pretty much everything else. I’ve tried off and on since I was a little spud to develop the other hand, but it never seems to come off.

On the flip side, I had a friend in first grade who broke her right arm and became pretty functional with her left, including writing. She grew up to be an art instructor, though, so maybe she had a special aptitude for it! I guess it varies from person to person.

–Amy

“Da Vinci also cultivated the balanced use of both sides of his body, painting, drawing, and writing with both hands.”–Michael Gelb, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci

I personally heard Gelb state that da Vinci taught himself to switch hands while painting to reduce fatigue. Gelb might not be considered to be an authoritative source, but he knows his wines. Tangentally, I had a most amusing psychology teacher claim that every left-hander “fell on the wrong side of the crib,” meaning that if the future left-hander damaged the left side of his brain significantly during infancy, the right side would take over manual duty, and ordain the child to left-handedness. Want a southpaw? Tap him with a spatula on the right side of his head from birth, or so says Dr. Z.

My left-handed mother, who may or may not be brain damaged, claims that a disproportionate number of actors are left-handed, and cheerfully points it out at every opportunity. I have to agree that very many are. I don’t think it is in dispute that left-handers are more prone to being “ambidextrous” simply because a right-handed world forces it upon them. If you want to see examples of complete ambidextrousness, I suggest you ask da Vinci, or Michael Jordan.

It seems some people here have more ease for being ambidextrous. FWIW, during my high school years I decided to develop my left hand skills and for a couple of years, every day, wrote a couple of pages in my diary using my left hand. After that time it became quite obvious to me I was not improving and my writing with my left hand was very bad… so I got tired and quit.

If the left side of your brain controls the right side of your body, and the right side of your brain controls the left side of your body, then it stands to reason that only left-handed people are in their right minds. Take it as a gift…don’t worry, be happy.

I would give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

Not sure of source, but I thought that the division of hemispheres theory of the brain had been largely discredited.

Turpentine, it depends on what you want to do and how committed you are. I switch hit in baseball, with slightly more power as a (natural) rightie and better bat control as a southpaw. I play tennis with either hand, although my left-handed serves (and throwing) are pretty much what people used to describe as “like a girl.” My left-handed writing is awful, but my right-handed isn’t much better. I didn’t start working on any of these until at least teen years, so it can be done.

Bucky

I’m really miffed that Bucky beat to it: I’d give my left hand to be ambidextrous.

Could we extend the OP a bit to include “eyedness?” I know two men (one Army, other Marines) whose eyedness and handedness were opposite, yet they both qualified Expert at the range. They learned to do some tasks with the weak eye and strong hand or the other way around, with a sort of half-way ambi result. Anyone else in this boat?


I lead a boring life of relative unimportance. Really.

I was forced to write with my right hand in school. I originally wrote primarily with my left. Now I can only do it when I don’t think about it. My left hand handwriting is actually neater than my right’s but a little slower. That is until I think about it and then it gets real slow and messy. I do several other things primarily left-handed, like using a can opener… it really is hard to use a right handed can opener. I just can’t seem to be able to use it right-handed. I can now use scissors with both hands but it took a long time to be able to use them right-handed. As it is now, I primarily use my right hand to write and eat and I can use both hands to do most other things except using a can opener, throwing a frisbee, etc.

I think the malady thing is a bit of an urban legend.