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Mixed-handedness (Score:5, Interesting)
I am apparently "mixed-handed", according to Wikipedia. I can only write left-handed, and I prefer to use a fork left-handed, but for everything else I'm right-handed.
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Why do I find it somewhat telling but sad that I have read three posts so far that define their "handedness" by how they shoot a gun?
Then again, I suppose it does actually test muscle memory and arm strength, hand-eye coordination, as well as eye dominance... I have done some target shooting and am very left handed in that regard. As fucked up as it seems it may just be one of the better determinants of handedness... (after "DO YA LIKE GREEN SCISSORS?" of course).
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocular_dominance [wikipedia.org]
http://www.huntersfriend.com/eye-dominance-issues.htm [huntersfriend.com]
Re:Two-handedness (Score:2)
After I watched "Silverado", I started training on my two-handed pistol shooting. I practiced using my left eye to aim my left hand, and got pretty darn good at it.
Drinking kinda messed up my steadiness, I should have stuck to the herb.
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Drinking kinda messed up my steadiness, I should have stuck to the herb.
I don't know what is scarier. A drunk person with a gun, a stoned person with a gun or a person who owns a gun who does both.
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I adhere strictly to protocol. Safety takes care of itself. Plenty of sober idiots out there making statistics, nobody's paying me enough to hurt myself.
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Re:Mixed-handedness (Score:4, Interesting)
I trained as a sniper long ago.I can shoot equally well either way.I can put a bullet where I want is up to a mile range without a scope.Any longer range using a scope,I'm definitely right handed.
I learned how to write left handed when I was in the first grade after my right hand was crushed by a home delivery milk truck in the early 1960s.Took forever to heal and I've kept it up.Drives the banks crazy because I sign the checks I write with either hand.Love messing with their heads.
My late Mother was left handed but was retrained to write right handed.My sister Terry is definitely a lefty.
Handedness may be hard wired but can be modified.I'm a prime example.
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But it's also a key factor to this question as shooting involves not only which hand is dominant but also which eye, and they can be th
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Good, question, why do you find it sad? Shooting is a great sport, it's fun to do and contrary to hoplophobic claims it is quite safe to do, you just have to ensure that you always follow the three rules of safe firearm handling. Most firearm owners can and do go their life shooting frequently and never know anyone who has been shot, let alone shoot anyone accidentally.
OK, I admit it - I had to look up 'hoplophobic' (though I knew it's meaning from context). I also think it's sad. Why? When a gun/rifle is part of your life it becomes an option for everything. Should /. ever have a poll along the lines of 'When you find a burglar in your home, what do you do?" and answers along the lines of 'Call the cops'/'Throw Cowboy Neal at them'/'Scream like a girl'/Shoot them' I suspect most people who choose the 'Shoot them' option will be a) those with a gun in the house, and
Re:Mixed-handedness (Score:4, Informative)
. I also think it's sad. Why? When a gun/rifle is part of your life it becomes an option for everything.
Really? I have three guns, and I only use them for punching holes in paper from extended ranges, which I find relaxing. And truth be told, the only other option I can think of for them, is hunting, which I don't do. But, thanks for telling me how I should behave and think in order to fit your prejudices.
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Good, question, why do you find it sad? Shooting is a great sport, it's fun to do and contrary to hoplophobic claims it is quite safe to do, you just have to ensure that you always follow the three rules of safe firearm handling. Most firearm owners can and do go their life shooting frequently and never know anyone who has been shot, let alone shoot anyone accidentally.
Yes, I already said I go target shooting once in a while (in fact, last time was in Vegas with an MP5 and a P90 ;) - and I have taken a firearm safety class. I don't have any problem with people target shooting and I am not anti-gun (pro gun control, yes).
That doesn't mean I can't still think it's somewhat telling in our society that so many people would define their handedness with the hand they use to shoot with instead of the hand they use to write with.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm strongly left-handed and left eye dominant for most things, but I simply can't use a computer mouse with the left hand -- using it with the right hand is "just the way it's done".
When it comes to shooting, I prefer shooting left-handed and with my left eye but can swap shoulders and which eye I use for aiming reasonably well.
Mixed-handed indeed.
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Yeah - I'm in the same boat - strong lefty, but mouse right, play right handed instruments, etc. The instrument thing was no big deal as my first instrument was piano (a very ambi-leaning instrument), so picking up other righty instrument never felt unnatural. I couldn't bat right or throw right if I tried, but I can throw a frisbee and toss a basketball fairly competently right handed because I practiced them a lot. In Ultimate, you are a lot harder to defend if you can throw both, and in basketball being
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For example, I'm left-handed but I use right-handed scissors with my right hand, operate the mouse that's provided at the right side of the computer with my right hand, and play a right-handed bass guitar.
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After years of tensing up my right arm and shoulder from right mousing, I moved to left handed mousing.
It was awkward for about 3 or four days work, and now feels much more comfortable. I can and do mouse equally as well regardless of hand (alhtough button configurations can be an issue)
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Drat! You'e right, that would have been a good option in there.
I wonder how many people who think of themselves as ambidextrous are more properly mixed-handed -- probably a great many.
timothy
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You're joking, right?
If there's a missing option, it's ambilevous or ambisinister - equally clumsy with both hands.
Re:Mixed-handedness (Score:5, Funny)
Boom. That is some motherfucking vocabulary; grandiloquent as a steatopygic bitch. Seriously if you knew those words off the top of your head I salute you.
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Yes, he is dextrous and right.
You are sinister, gauche and cack handed.
(Actually that does bring up a question. If someone is ambidextrous which hand do they wipe their arse with?)
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That is a matter of religion, not science... ;-)
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Your brain can do most things on autopilot if you do them enough. The trick is preventing your brain from doing that in most cases. If the behavior is desirable, then it's probably tolerable, otherwise it can take a long time to fix automatic behavior.
But, as a general rule, if you're not doing something automatically, it's usually because you're not doing it the same way each time.
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I put ambidextrous, though mixed-handed would probably be a better choice, because I can't write well with my right hand (though I can do basically everything else with it). I was originally strongly left-handed, and still default to using my left hand. I think what helped me develop my right hand was the martial arts and my determination not to be deficient on one side.
Since it's popular to say...I shoot left-handed by default, but am right-eyed! It took some adjusting to shoot with my left eye, and my acc
Fork handed-ness (Score:3)
I can only write left-handed, and I prefer to use a fork left-handed, but for everything else I'm right-handed.
The hand you use your fork in depends on table manners not just handed-ness. In Europe a right-handed person holds their knife in their right hand and their fork in their left hand.
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Writing shouldn't really count, because languages are typically right to left or left to right, if you wish to write with the other hand, it involves more than just coordinating the motions, it means that you're having to learn a whole new skill.
Which is probably easier for somebody that's left handed as writing left handed is far more difficult than writing right handed.
It's mostly a matter of development, if you don't use both hands, the brain doesn't really get a chance to adjust to the other hand being
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It's funny that you should mention playing table tennis left-handed. I tried learning to do that in college. I was one of the stronger players in my social circle, playing right-handed but I wanted to be able to switch. Unfortunately, the weaker players in the circle got offended that I was "handicapping" myself by playing left-handed against them, so I had to quit. (The difference between my right-handed and left-handed play was great enough that it was hard for me to actually learn playing that way a
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The easiest way to learn is to play with people that don't know you, or really when you first start learning to play. That way, you don't have to worry about that. By the time I left China, I had gotten rather good with either hand, but I can't play an entire match with one hand or the other, after a few rounds I lose focus and my play deteriorates.
In practice, I don't think it really takes that much time to develop, I think it's mainly the eyes that need to adjust rather than the arm.
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Same Here.I write right handed but learned to drive left handed.Might be where I learned to drive on an old 1964 Ford Pickup with 3 on the Tree(3 Speed Column shift - Remember those?)When hardware hacking and typing,I use both hands equally well.Go Figure
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I can do virtually everything more or less equally well with either hand, except write. My school insisted that I write with my right hand, and consequently I now can't do this at all; I think I am naturally ambidextrous but in practice describe myself as left handed because of writing.
Apropos my .sig, I'm prepared to bet that had this poll been set on Slashdot fifteen years ago - or even just ten - you wouldn't have seen a right handed majority. While right handedness is common in the general population, i
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I'm strongly right handed in almost everything.
And yet, I shuffle and deal cards left handed. I tie knots left handed. When riding a bike one-handed, I use my left hand. There's probably a half dozen other things that I could add to that list.
As near as I can figure, it's only by chance. I learned to tie my shoes left handed, and never went back. I've done it so long that way that I'm more comfortable using my left than my right.
Missing option (Score:5, Interesting)
I have found it smart to work on making my left hand more useful. I spend a lot of my free time working on old cars, and motorcycles. Sometimes you just can't reach with your right hand, and it is very "handy" to have developed a reasonable amount of dexterity in your non-dominant hand.
Re:Missing option (Score:5, Interesting)
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I agree - working on cars and motorcycles makes it necessary to be ambidextrous. I still prefer the right hand, but the left is almost as good for most of those tasks.
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I'm right handed, but I tend to cycle sever times a day between right-handed mousing, left-handed mousing, keyboard as much as possible, back to right-handed mousing, and so on and so fourth. You'll want to use a wireless mouse and make sure to reserve some 'sacred' space to your left just as you probably have to your right.
When we do things that we're not used to doing (like mousing with the wrong hand) we tend to tense up and tire more quickly than usual. I'm not sure if you're going to want to do an all-
The hand I learn something with I use forever (Score:3)
I would say that I'm ambidextrous, because I use my left hand for lots of tasks (mouse, forks, spoons, toothbrush, pool cue), but then I use my right hand for lots of similar tasks (IBM trackpoint, tv remote, video games). I play almost all sports right-handed especially when equipment is a factor (golf clubs, baseball glove, etc.). Yet I write and eat with my left hand always.
I've always heard the argument. "You are probably left-handed but learned lots of tasks from right-handed people which is why you use both hands". But I can clearly feel a mental difference with certain tasks when using the right side of my body versus using the left.
It seems to me that whatever hand I learn something with first I end up using permanently. It seems like whenever a new task is introduced to me I subconsciously try the task out with one hand and then go with that for the rest of my life. I first used a mouse on a PC with my left hand and never looked back. But for console video games I never change the layout to a left-handed layout.
Studies say that left-handed people live around a year less than right-handed people. Maybe it's all that stress from having to use so many right-handed things like almost every door having its handle on the right side. I can't count the number of times I've swiped my subway card on the left side (the wrong side) without even thinking about it.
By the way this poll is the typical Slashdot poll where it is missing an option. Ambidextrous literally means "uses two right hands". Dexter is Latin for right. Sinister is Latin for left. So someone who is ambisinistrous is someone who has "two left hands" and is likely highly uncoordinated. Where is the ambisinistrous option for all of the people who have zero dexterity?
Re:The hand I learn something with I use forever (Score:5, Funny)
. Maybe it's all that stress from having to use so many right-handed things like almost every door having its handle on the right side.
Dude. Go through door. Turn 180 degrees. Door handle is now on the opposite side. Ain't this universe a weird place ?
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I read a fascinating book about the concepts of left/right and asymmetry some years ago called Right Hand Left Hand. [amazon.com] It explores asymmetry at all levels, from the molecular to the galactic, including human anatomy, evolution, protein folding, DNA... tons of interesting characters and anecdotes. There is also a website which has some book notes, reviews and questionnaires. http://www.righthandlefthand.com/ [righthandlefthand.com]
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Dude. Go through door. Turn 180 degrees. Door handle is now on the opposite side. Ain't this universe a weird place ?
Pull vs push.
Re:The industry standard (Score:2)
When you install the knob on the other side, you often have to fiddle with the works to adjust the "handedness" of the door; Your observation is correct.
Re:The hand I learn something with I use forever (Score:4, Funny)
(Uncertainty about handedness)
Which hand do you masturbate with?
If it's always the right hand, you're strongly right-handed.
If it's most often the right hand, you're weakly right-handed.
If it's most often the left hand, you're weakly left-handed.
If it's always the left hand, you're strongly left-handed.
If you always use both hands, you're well hung.
Re:The hand I learn something with I use forever (Score:4, Funny)
Right handed, but left eyed and eared (Score:3)
I tune my guitar with my left ear, it seems to be better at discerning sounds. At least it seems to, audio tests suggest I hear equally well out of both ears, but if I really want to listen to something, I always turn my left ear towards the sound.
Writing, tool usage, throwing and such are all right handed.
Re:Right handed, but left eyed and eared (Score:5, Interesting)
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cross-dominant (Score:2)
Dominance isn't due to "better", except, maybe, in extreme cases.
Hold your thumb out at arms length and "cover" some object on an opposing wall. Close each eye, in turn, to see which is really covering the object.
Although my right eye has consistently had slightly better vision, I have always been left-eye dominant (cross-dominant); there have been some suggestions of associated co-"illnesses", like ADD, but I don't know if the evidence is strong enough for any solid correlation.
BTW, an AR-15/M-16 ejects s
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Many auto-loading weapons are a problem for left-handers. The British Army's LA-85 bullpup rifle has a cocking handle that will remove teeth if mounted on the left shoulder. They now train everyone to shoot off the right shoulder. When I was shooting self-loading pistols left-handed I'd occasionally get a hot case flung into my face which made me more religious about wearing my polycarbonate safety glasses.
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I'm left-handed and never had issues with brass from M16/AR-15 pattern rifles when I was in the army (or with my personally-owned ones) -- maybe they've improved the brass deflectors? The hot gas and oil that gets forced from the ejection port, on the other hand...
I once fired a .22LR bullpup off the left shoulder. The charging handle hit me square in the jaw. Didn't lose anything teeth, but it still hurt like hell for a day or so and that's just from a .22. A 5.56mm NATO-drive charging handle would do a bi
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Clothing and hot brass...
Back when I was shooting regularly on an open line I tended to stand on the right of someone shooting the same calibre as I was and made sure he wasn't using Blazer. Free reloading supplies, yay!
I was on the fence (Score:5, Interesting)
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he teachers forced me to use my right hand, grew up in the 60s.
And they were wise to do so, even though it's supposedly mean, cruel and horrible.
I was born lame in my right arm, so must write with my left hand. Starting in approx 7th grade in the mid 1970s I'd come home every school day having a long blue stain on the outside of my left palm from where my hand dragged through the not yet fully dry ink from the Bic pens we all used. The papers I turned in and the notes I took were always smeared. Even pencil graphite smudged.
(My son also writes left-handed, but he ei
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Beats me how you can justify a teacher forcing a child to switch hands. When my mother was a child (yes, in a one-room schoolhouse), she was forced to switch and become right handed. I asked her why she didn't simply switch back, and she said she'd been writing so long with her right hand that she really couldn't. She always struggled to write neatly.
When I entered first grade Mom told me that if the teacher tried to make me use my right hand, to tell the teacher she'd be having a conversation with my mo
Re:Cognitive dissonance (Score:2)
I suspect anything that demands neuroplasticity probably aggravates a broad range of mental illness
I've been suspecting a causal link to the Campanile freak-outs for some time; Aside from weird, counterindicated psychotropic medications, what novelty explains it?
I was switched... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Missing option: Ambisinixtrous (Score:2)
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I once heard this described as antiambidextrous, not adept with either hand.
Leftorium (Score:2)
How many think they were switched? (Score:2)
Re: How many think they were switched? (Score:2)
I'm a musician and I'm a mess: guitar right hand, pool both, drum dominent left hand open style, bass drum right, double bass drum left.
I had pressure to go right in 1-2 grade. Never took.
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I am sure my son was forced to switch hands by a preschool teacher, and that was in 1989. We didn't realize what was going on at first, because we could not believe that this kind of crap was still going on. So, I am curious, how many people think they were switched, and when did they start school?
My two youngest kids are lower primary school age and are both left handed. We lightly encouraged them both to use their right hand when they were first learning to write but they are both very definitely left handed. The older of the two could happily switch hands for a few years but always went back to using her left, even after a number of weeks with her left arm in a cast when she broke it.
Their teachers never did anything more than a bit of mild encouragement either, as far as I know. And like our at
right-handed, but... (Score:2)
strongly right-handed, but I can write left-handed from right to left....
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I've also discovered the ability to write backwards with my left hand and wonder how common it is.
I can also start in the center of the page with a pencil in each hand and write almost perfect mirror images.
I wouldn't consider myself strongly right handed though as I play pool left handed and bowl equally good
with either hand (but I do notice in bowling that the ball curves in opposite directions as well).
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Same, except I don't think that my right-handedness is particularly strong. The fact is that a left-handed person writing with his left hand is not equivalent to a right-handed person writing with his right hand. One is pushing the pen while the other is pulling it - a completely different type of action. I find that writing backwards (unfamiliar) with my off hand (also unfamiliar) is much easier than writing forwards with my off hand or writing backwards with my strong hand.
Handedness and (language related) profession (Score:3, Interesting)
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Very interesting observations. I'll take a stab at it.
Expecting "why" in common language is pointless (according to a lecture by a James Boston some 45 years ago), "why" in common languages breaks down to historical anecdotes, if it is possible at all. In computer languages, "why" is because the person or group thought that it would be a good way to deal with the problems the language was meant to handle.
To get the versatility of your common language phrases in computer languages, you might have to ignore
I'd give my right arm to be ambidexterous! (Score:2)
I'd give my right arm to be ambidexterous!
(old joke, someone had to say it)
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That's a good one, I wonder where I read it first ? http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3573767&cid=43255717 [slashdot.org]
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Someone DID...
Swindle (Score:2)
My Great Gandfather was a lefty and couldn't afford a left handed set clubs. He would play left handers and bet them one club if they switched bags for a round. He got a whole bag full of clubs that way.
Retrained lefty (Score:2)
My parents meant well, but it's probably why I'm bloody uncoordinated...
It depends (Score:2)
I'm mostly left-handed, with one exception. A couple of years ago I went to a shooting range for the first time, and when I shouldered a shotgun, the instructor noticed my hesitation whether to place the stock on my left or right shoulder. I told him I'm left-handed, but he said, "No, you're not". Shooting from the right shoulder went fine.
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My father is right-handed, but shoots (handguns and longarms both) lefty.
Ambidextrous pitchers? (Score:2)
I've never seen or heard of an ambidextrous pitcher. Can you imagine the benefit, though? Switch-hitters are prized for the ability to adapt to a pitcher, but if the pitcher could adapt to the hitter? It'd be amazing.
Now, it might be impossible -- that competitive pitching requires you to make your body significantly asymmetrical -- perhaps the extra mass of the muscles on the other side would slow you down.
I mean, we've had an All-Star pitcher with just one arm! And he pitched a no-hitter in the bigs!
Re:Ambidextrous pitchers? whoops. (Score:2)
Oh, my information was, sadly, out-of-date. [wikipedia.org] Sorry about that.
"Right-handed, but not strongly" (Score:2)
I swing both ways (Score:3)
I'm nominally right-handed but can do most tasks (except for writing) left-handed.
I currently have two vehicles, one left-hand drive, one right-hand drive. So I'm used to shifting gears both ways.
I recently had my first experience flying an airplane from the right seat and working controls (throttle, prop, mixture, etc.) with my left hand. In this case it was a regulatory thing, a tourist who didn't have time to do the paperwork with the local aviation authorities. Advanced student flight training involves a lot of right seat flying, because one's first job is almost certainly going to be a co-pilot or a flight instructor in the right seat. You need to get used to it.
...laura
Some experimental questions (Score:2)
Since we're discussing where left-handers differs, I thought those 2 up:
- How do you handle double-doors, do you use the right hand to pull/push when going through?
I push on either door, always with my main hand.
I always pull the same door as my main hand.
- How do you unlock/open the car's door, do you use the key's hand to open?
Since I leave the key in the lock until I'm done, I never have this problem be it on the driver's or passenger's side.
QWERTY (Score:2)
1 vs. 2 hands (Score:2)
I do some things (like write) left handed, but use my right hand for other things (e.g. I bat right handed). For years I searched for the factors that made any given activity a left- or right-handed one, until a few years ago when I finally noticed the pattern.
I do single-handed activities left handed, and two-handed things the way a typical right-handed person would. Tennis is a left-handed thing, but a two-handed bat (or golf club) grip makes me a righty, there. A fork goes in the left hand (which make
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That's not ambidextrous; that's right-handed.
You're only ambidextrous if you can use your left hand as if it were your right.
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I take it you don't remember learning how to write. Because it takes an astonishing amount of time to learn to write, regardless of whether or not it's your dominant hand.
Also, you're neglecting the role that the nerves in the hands react in this calculation. I can do everything with my left hand that I can do with my right, except for writing. And the reason for that is that I've never bothered to develop the skill. It's not just using the other hand that's a barrier here, it's that you have to figure out
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There's also the issue of perspective, if you're playing ping pong right handed, your brain has to coordinate things so that you're hitting with your right hand, but if you're a lefty, you have to coordinate things so that you're hitting things with your left hand. It's not just a matter of the hand and arm, but the relation to your body.
I pass the paddle between my hands when I play table tennis if it gives me an advantage, spinwise or reach. Same with badminton.
Writing with my left isn't any less legible - it just requires using a piece of carbon paper and an empty ballpoint pen.
I juggle balls both directions, and if I solve a Rubik's cube, I do the moves the other way if it's faster.
In Archery, I prefer a sinister bow.
And I'm right-handed. None of the above makes me ambidextrous. If someone surprise-tosses me something, I will reach o
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If somebody surprise throws something at you, you're likely to catch it with which ever hand corresponds to your dominant eye. Even if one is ambidextrous, chances are good that they'll catch it with the same hand most of the time. Evolutionarily speaking, it would be a mistake to not use the same hand every single time for things that require sudden unexpected reaction.
Ambidextrous is just being able to use both hands without thought attached to how you move. There's nothing particularly magical about it.
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No, if you are smart AND ambidextrous you might be able to write the same way with the left hand as the right, but remember this means the writing comes out mirrored right to left. Learning to write the normal way with the left hand is like learning to write mirrored with the right.
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You have no right hand?
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