I grew up strictly right-handed, but when I was 14, I took an archery class, and the instructor determined that my left eye is my dominant eye (unusual for a righty, but not unheard of). So, I learned how to shoot a bow left-handed (and, years later, when I tried trapshooting, I used the shotgun left-handed, as well).
I was never any good at hitting a baseball / softball; when I was in grad school, my roommate (who had played baseball in high school) said, “I bet you’d do better hitting lefty”. I learned how to hit left-handed in 15 minutes, and was stunned at how much easier it was!
I write right-handed but do many other things left-handed. I tend to switch back and forth depending on which way is more convenient. It’s especially useful when I’m cooking, I just use whichever hand is closer to what I’m needing. If I need grip strength I use my left hand due to a repetitive stress injury to my right wrist.
I use a spoon or fork right-handed but if I’m eating with my hands I use my left hand. I also use my knife left-handed. The few attempts at sports-type stuff I’ve made I’ve done left-handed. I shoot guns and archery lefty and I kick left-footed.
There is apparently a strong lefty gene in my mom’s family. Three of her five siblings are left-handed (mom’s a righty), several of my 13 cousins are lefties and my older niece is too. Some of the rest who aren’t left-handed are, like me, fairly ambidextrous.
My Dad is left-handed but has become ambidextrous enough to write legibly and easily with his right hand. I’m right handed but ambidextrous enough to play the bass guitar at a fairly expert level and don’t have any problems doing two handed tapping and the like on the fret board. I can’t write clearly at all with my left hand though.
Totally right handed, but I think I should actually be left handed. When I had my right hand in a cast people said my left-handed writing was more legible than my normal right-handed scrawl. When I do attempt to do things with my left hand I start out pretty bad but pick up skill with a speed that surprises me. Unfortunately I have done everything right-handed for so long that there’s no practical reason to start over as a southpaw. If I had done the conversion as a child things may have worked out better.
I think I’m naturally left-handed, but I write with my right hand – forced to learn that way in first grade. I can write with my left hand, but not as well as I can with my right (which isn’t great either).
I play hockey like a lefty. It just felt more natural that way when I was a kid. I play basketball pretty ambidextrously.
Not sure about dominant eyes. I didn’t even know there was such a thing. But my left eye is better than my right eye. Both need correction, though.
I wear my watch like a lefty. I play guitar like a righty.
Here’s how they showed me how to determine which of your eyes is dominant:
Hold your hands in front of you at arm’s length, and form a triangle with your index fingers and thumbs (your thumbs across each other as the “bottom” of the triangle, and your index fingers forming the two sides).
With both eyes open, look through that triangle at a distant object, then close your left eye. If the image doesn’t shift, then your right eye (which is still open) is your dominant eye. If the image does shift, then repeat the process with your left eye open (closing your right), and the image should stay still (and that means that your left eye is your dominant eye.
When shooting a bow, or a longarm (rifle / shotgun), you want to aim with your dominant eye as the “back” eye. Apparently, this is also at least partially true with hitting a baseball – which is why a right-handed batter actually swings with (mostly) his left hand/arm.
Lefty: Writing/painting, needlework, fencing (the sport, not the construction activity), tweezers, using a knife for slicing, wearing a watch (i.e., on the right wrist), opening jars/bottles, using phone
Righty: Scissors, tools like pliers, knitting and crocheting, racquet sports, pitching, dominant eye and foot, mousing
Both: Using a paring knife, applying eye makeup, batting
Lefty: dealing cards, combination locks, I think I put on belts and ties in a lefty manner (my Dad was lefty), more and more moving to non-switching of fork when eating, drinking adult beverages (my side table is to the left of my chair in my “study” -coughmancavecough - so it seems more natural).
When I was little, I desperately wanted to be left-handed. I think someone told me Leonardo da Vinci was left-handed, and I came to the conclusion that to be even vaguely intelligent, you HAD to be a leftie. I tried to become ambidextrous by brushing my teeth with my left hand, etc, but it never worked. Despite all the stories I’ve heard about why being a rightie is more convenient, I still think it’d be cool.
I was exclusively lefthanded until suffering a serious hand injury years ago. Hand bandaged for months. Had to learn to do things righthanded (including tying a shoe with one hand.) I was told I would likely get early arthritis in my left hand, but to date, I have not. Due to the arthritis concern, I’ve always made a conscious effort to do things righthanded to the point I am basically righthanded with the exception of handwriting, which I really don’t need to do much.
An experiment for those exclusive to one hand – Assuming you routinely wipe your butt with the same hand, try the other hand next time. You’ll think your butt is in a different place.
I’m cross-dominant. I’m left-eyed, left-eared, and left-footed. Even my left butt cheek is more developed than my right one (I’m not joking.
But I’m a righty. My mother tells me that I was left-handed as a toddler, but that the nursery school teachers converted me. I have no memory of this, but they must have done a helluva good job since I do just about everything with my right hand.
And yet, my left hand is super strong, maybe because its bigger and the arm is longer. It’s the “go to” hand for loosening jars and whatnot. And it seems a bit more “intelligent” than my right hand, if that makes any sense. For instance, even though I write with my right hand, my pencil grip is quite unusual. But when I put the pencil in my left hand, I automatically hold it the “standard” way.
So yeah, I’ve always felt ambidextrous even though technically I am not.
I am right-hand dominant, but I seem to have a lot of natural ability to do things with my left hand. I played a lot of sports as a kid and was almost always the only one on the team who could do things reasonably well with either hand/foot. It’s almost as natural for me to kick a soccer ball with either foot, although I have more power with my right. Same with throwing a ball; I can throw with either hand, but I have more power with my right arm. But I tend to do a lot of things more dominantly with my left foot. My balance is better, it’s the foot I use to push off with when I jump, and I’m goofy-footed (skateboarding/surfing/snowboarding). I discovered that I could write reasonably well with my left hand when I broke my right arm in 6th grade… but then pretended I couldn’t to get out of doing classwork. I’m also left-handed when I use my cell phone, like if I’m only using it with one hand; it feels odd and uncomfortable in my right hand. Maybe that’s habit from keeping a phone in my left hand so that I can write messages with my right, but I still do any swiping or one-handed texting with my left hand.
