For sure, though I had it relatively easy, since I’d only been knitting about 9 months when I decided to switch styles, so I wasn’t that good at English, yet, either. Still, it was a struggle, because I’d sit there working at the stitches painstakingly while knowing full well I could be doing it faster if I just gave in and did it the other way.
Also helping was the fact that I grew up crocheting, so holding the yarn through my left fingers was more natural for me.
I occasionally work on practicing knitting back backwards, or doing two-handed fair-isles, as well. I’m not sure I’ll ever really master those, though.
The funny thing is, I crochet also so it does feel natural to wind the yarn through my left fingers… until I pick up knitting needles, then I can’t stand it and have to wind it through my right fingers.
I think that’s because when I wind the yarn around my finger to crochet (after winding around the pinky) I wind from the outside in. It’s really hard to pick the yarn up that way while knitting, you need to wind from the inside out… which is how I wrap the yarn around my right finger, and I then proceed to ‘throw’ it.
I’ve been crocheting consistently for longer than I have knit, so it’s quite ingrained. So I just stick with what works. 
I recently went on a knitting retreat and it was amazing (and interesting) to see the different ways people held their yarn and needles (and I even got a short video of Annie Modesitt knitting, because she’s just so fast. I was in awe…). And yet we all manage to get such lovely pieces made.
I started out English. But then I worked for a German woman who couldn’t stand to see me wasting to much time and motion throwing the yarn with my right hand. So she insisted I learn Continental. I have never looked back; I thank her daily in my prayers. Continental gives you more consistent tension, faster and more efficient movement, and is far more versatile for complex color work, which is kinda my specialty. 90% of the things I’ve made I could not have made using the English method.
Yep. I’m totally in favour of everyone doing absolutely what works for them.
I’ve been using one of my Barbara Walker treasuries lately while I work up a baby sweater for a friend, and in one of the sections, she goes into great detail about why people who knit like I do (Continental hold, picked purl stitches) are just wrong. It was all I could do not to throw the book at a wall.
Given that the method she’s in favor of produces fabric that’s rowed out, I find it a little baffling that she considers my method inferior just because it leaves stitches temporarily backward on the needle. I do whatever increases and decreases are required with no extra problems, and for things like twisted stitches, I can flip the stitches if I can’t figure out how to do them the way it’s set.