I hold them normally; people are very surprised when they see me do something left-handed.
I’ve told these stories before (maybe I should start collecting linkies to my repeatable stories instead of rewriting them?):
I remember the kindergarten teacher making me bunch up my left hand and hitting me with a ruler whenever I used it to color or draw, saying that “the left hand is the Devil’s hand!” Mom claims this is a figment of my imagination and that I got it from the Celia books at Abuelita’s, only in those books Celia would not have to bunch up her fingers. The tips of mine still sting at the memory.
When my parents signed me up for tennis class at age 11, I only stayed for about a week. Coach explained the “forward” and “backward”, I understood it, but when it came time to practice the forward… as the ball headed to me, I instinctively switched hands (so the racket was now in my left) and hit it backward. He got angry.
Then we had to practice the backward. As the ball headed to me, I stood paralyzed. My body screamed “switch hands, switch hands!” but it was Not Allowed to do so! Coach grumbled and shot another ball. This time I switched hands and hit it a perfect forward. Coach got angry.
I dropped out. The club has a policy where if you drop out during the first week you get a refund so that was OK, and the racket had been a first comunion present so no problem there… but there’s times I wish that idiot had been able to reclassify me as lefty :smack:
In 8th grade, the Phys Ed teacher had to give birth in October. Her replacement was her sister, who had a degree in Biology and took no nonsense from anybody… including dear Elder Sister who’d told her which four to flunk. Among other things, she identified several of us as “left-footed” based on which was our dominant foot when we started walking away from a wall; I jumped 50cm higher as a leftie than as a rightie, going from a 4 (fail) to an 8 (B+) in that test!
In 10th grade part of the Phys Ed class was learning some local dances; us left-footed girls got to dance the guys’ part. Whenever someone insists that I have to start a dance move with my right foot, forget it: I generally can’t. I can do it in Sardana for example[1], but I actually cheat a bit: if we’re starting with a right-whatever, I do a little bounce with my left foot. And once I realized I did this, I’ve noticed others doing it too!
There’s many tools I can use with either hand, just not pens and pencils. I take pictures left-eyed (which is funny since it was the eye that had the worst sight before I lasik’ed), I’m stronger with the left hand and left leg. When I fiddle with things, it’s either with both hands or with the left.
[1] Sardana is a traditional dance from Catalonia. Dancers form a ring, holding the hands of the next two dancers. Even in semi-pro dance groups, there is a director calling the steps. It’s got to be one of the easiest dances ever, there’s only half-a-dozen steps (forth, back, long and short right, long and short left). The beauty of it is in how easy it is yet how nice it looks when so many people (often, several circles dancing to a single band) get it right. If any of you get a chance to join one during a visit to Catalonia, do, it’s fun!