Right or Left? Tis' the Season

On Handedness

Like a sturdy anchor, using our non-dominant side grounds and balances, traits we can use to help us adjust to living in a sometimes unbalanced world. — Author unknown

Photo by Terry Matthews on Unsplash

I’m six years old, wobbling on the ice, wearing my new single bladed ice skates. The arctic air is making my nose run as a rare bright sun peeks out from behind the white clouds. I’m learning to shut out the bright sunlight by squeezing my eyelids into slits, and eat snow when I get thirsty from playing too hard. I’m careful not to skate too close to the abandoned fishing holes so I don’t fall into the frigid lake water. I spend a lot of time plopping down on the ice because I can’t stop on my skates yet, and stay standing.

Mama grabs hold of my arm and hauls me back up to my feet. I slowly anchor my right toe pick out to glide my left foot forward. Mama let go of my hand and once again I fall on the ice like a sack of bricks, crashing on the unyielding surface like a broken rag doll.

“I can’t do it,” I cry out in frustration. “Why doesn’t my right foot want to go?”

After eating Christmas lunch and opening my new Chatty Cathy doll dressed in a pink and white striped pinafore, German Grandpa makes me start practicing writing with my right hand.

I’m being converted from left handed to right handed, and right footed to left footed. How do I write my name? What scissors do I use to cut paper dolls out from the Sears catalog? When I do cartwheels which foot do I start off with when I do my running cartwheels?

Everything mixes up inside my head.

In school I struggle schoolwork.

In the summer I try to play ball. Any ball.

I get a new catcher’s mitt from Mama and Daddy for my birthday. It fits on the hand I like to use. But I don’t know which hand I’m supposed to use.

I catch the ball with my gloved right hand, place the ball in my left hand, and then quickly take the glove off, toss the ball back into my right hand, and throw the ball overhand with the same side to return the ball from outfield.

I pitch underhanded with my left hand. If the batter connects with the ball, I scurry to pick up the short hit—I take the glove off and quickly throw over-handed with my right hand to the base for the potential out.

Are you confused yet?

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Yeah, so was I. And I stayed confused until recently, when I learned I have to try and bowl on a team for an upcoming Christmas party. I don’t know how to bowl. I don’t know which hand to use or which foot to take off from… the same feeling I had on the ice when I was six years old… only now I’m on the cusp of 66.

This converting is contrary to the natural state of the human being. Converting handedness does not result in a converting of brain dominance. Instead, it results in an over-loading of the non-dominant half of the brain and an under-loading of the other half.

Until some decades ago, innately left-handed children who attended German schools were often forced to use their right hand for writing. Because of life-long practice, these converted left-handers became as proficient at right-hand writing as innate right-handers. Yet most of these converted left-handers continued to use their left hand for other manual skills, which were less subject to social control. —National Library of Medicine

Today

I salvage hacks from the leftovers of being converted. I doodle and write positive affirmations with my left hand for a few minutes when I first wakeup in the morning. Using my left hand activates the neurons and lights up the part of my brain that sleeps from being rewired so long ago.

Using my left hand has become a new breeding ground for igniting creativity.

Left handed morning doodle

Four ways to use the non-dominant side to help balance

• Hand-to-eye coordination activities such as drawing and writing the alphabet (It forces me to think and stay in the moment.)

• Correct muscle imbalance (I alternate standing on each single foot for one minute each to realign my hips, legs, and neck.)

• Strengthen the non-dominant side (I use the non-dominant hand to open jars, dribble a basket ball, carry groceries and use a left-handed putter in golf.)

• I use my left hand because it helps me become more open-minded. (This is rather controversial, but I’m finding it to be true. I’ve become more tolerant and open to trying new things.)

  (Using our non-dominant appendages more also appears to have some carryover to how open-minded a person is. Studies show that we tend to favor things on our dominant side, often making choices influenced by this without us even being aware of it. A Stanford University experiment by David Casasanto

I’m practicing diligently using both hands and feet in all daily activities. The party is coming soon, and I still don’t know which hand to hold the bowling ball in—maybe I’ll use both hands. I still don’t know which foot to take-off from… and if I can’t figure it out I’ll sit and cheer others in.

I can clap with both hands.

Photo by haim charbit on Unsplash

I hope the holiday season brings you (all) much joy. Thank you subscribers for reading, and being a part of this community I’m trying to grow.

See you next week!