Happy Left Handers Day 2023

 Happy Left Handers Day 2023

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Playing Violin as a left-handed

 I am left-handed.

I tried learning violin when I was in school about 13–14 years old. I realized that the bow is not held as simple as a stick, but as a special grip - at least that’s what my Guru taught.

Not like this

Source: shutterstock

But, like below:

At that age, I did not feel that grip comfortable with my right hand - I used to feel pain in wrist and shoulder and not natural - some awkward twists in wrist after practicing for 10–15 minutes.

I did not feel similar discomfort while holding the bow with my left hand.

I gave up learning after my Guru and dad felt it would be too expensive and effort to shift the strings on violin.

When I grew older, in my late twenties, I restarted playing violin - I no longer feel pain/discomfort with the right hand grip - however, I don’t find time to practice and take to the next stage to actually see if I can play at a decent level.

Why do some right-handed people bat left-handed in cricket and baseball?

 For cricket, it depends on two main things -

1. Top hand grip or bottom hand grip
2. Left-footed or right-footed.

The lesser likelihood of getting LBW, destroying bowlers’ lines are all additional unintended gifts.

1. Grip: A batsman chooses top-hand or bottom-hand grip based on his comfort or convenience. So, if you are right-handed and a bottom-hand player primarily playing square and cutting, you choose right-hand batting whereas if you are left-handed and more of front-foot driving, you choose to bat left-handed.
2. Front Foot is a major factor in one’s batsmanship - it’s the pivot for all your shots. I am a left-footed. So, I could move my left leg more comfortably and instinctively than my right. With an RHB stance, my left would be the Front Foot and thereby helps me to move freely. When I play with LHB stance, my front (right) foot would just stuck there. Similarly, a right-handed batsman may choose a LHB stance, if he’s more comfortable in moving his right foot as a pivot.
   My theory is right-handed LHB batsman like Ganguly and Lara prefer to play front foot more and could hit sixes easily for this reason.

Read this interesting article “On the Other Hand”[1] on why and how Hussey, a right-handed shifted to batting with LHB stance.

Hussey is naturally right-handed. He writes right-handed, plays tennis right-handed, brushes his teeth right-handed, picks up a spoon right-handed, and throws and bowls with his right arm. When he first picked up a cricket bat, he picked it up right-handed. But on that fateful sunny morning he decided to try batting left-handed, like Border, and ended up sticking with it for the rest of his life.

In so doing, Hussey may well have inadvertently bequeathed himself a natural technical advantage, for if there is one thing that the two main schools of batsmanship that exist in Australia - the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) school and the native autodidactic school headed by Sir Donald Bradman and Greg Chappell - agree on, it is this: a grip with a firm top hand and loose bottom hand is optimal for good batsmanship.

Logically it is easier for a batsman who holds the bat with his naturally stronger hand as the top hand (and his naturally weaker hand as the bottom hand) to grip it with a firm top hand and a loose bottom hand. When Hussey switched to batting left-handed, his naturally stronger right hand became his top hand. That wasn't what motivated his change - he did it "purely" because he "wanted to be like Allan Border" - and even when he became a world-class batsman, Hussey was generally not conscious of "the dominance of one hand over another", except when batting at the death of a one-day or T20 game. It was then, he told the Cricket Monthly, that he took the firm top-hand, loose bottom-hand grip to its logical apotheosis:

"At the end of a one-day game or a T20 game, when you're looking to basically hit sixes every ball… I made a conscious effort to really loosen the grip of my bottom hand. So I'd basically just rest the bottom hand [on the bat] on one finger - my index finger - because I was finding that when I was looking to slog, even though my bottom left hand was my less [naturally] dominant hand, it was gripping the bat too hard and taking control of the bat too quickly and affecting my swing. I wasn't hitting through the line of the ball as well as I would have liked."

Footnotes

[1] On the other hand

Why don’t more people who are righties bat lefty, since your power hand when you bat left is your right hand?

 I see 2 reasons -

1. In cricket, especially in early coaching days, importance is given to free movement of your front foot. Back foot is supposed to be stable. Hence, whether you are left-footed or right-footed also matters in addition to your handedness. In general, right-handed are right-footed. Of course, there can be exceptions.
   I am left-handed and left-footed. But I bat with RHB stance. So, I tend to move my left-foot freely. It helps in having left-foot as front foot to freely move across for playing drives (esp. cover drive) and flicks/glances.
2. I personally think the bottom hand is the power hand in cricket - opposite of what you mentioned in your question. Your top hand acts as pivot and the bottom hand to generate power - especially for pulls, cuts, lofted shots.
   Again, in my personal experience, being left-handed and playing RHB stance, my top (left) wrist tends to move quickly, thereby shifting the bat to leg-side resulting in frequent leading edges. And, I find it difficult to drive on off-side.

I am a righty. How can I start learning left handed writing?

I am a left-handed person and I write with my left hand. I know many right handed persons who write with left hand and vice versa. It’s not a big deal. With practice, one can use the non-dominant hand for writing or any other activity and become ambidextrous.

I can also write with my right hand, though not as beautiful as with my left.

Playing flute right handed or left handed?

Yes, it is Ok for a right handed person to play flute left-handed. I would not use playing left-handed or right-handed, but will use the word grip.

For example, the world famous flutist from India, Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia had a left-handed grip. He changed his grip to right-handed as a gesture of respect to his guru Annapurna Devi.

From Wiki:

Much later, while working for All India Radio, he received guidance from the reclusive Annapurna Devi, daughter of Baba Allaudin Khan. She only agreed to teach him if he was willing to unlearn all that he had learnt until then.

Another version is that she only agreed to teach him after he (of his own) took the decision to switch from right-handed to left-handed playing to show her his commitment.

In any case Chaurasia plays left-handed to this day.

Full story on his interview at FirstPost

I am left-handed and when I learnt flute, I picked and held it exactly like Pt. Chaurasia in below picture - flute to my left - whereas my dad and brother play holding it like Lord Krishna.

Image source: Wikimedia commons

Right-handed flutists :

Lord Krishna, a Hindu God:

Image source: Flickr

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Footnotes

[1] Learning from the master: Corporate lessons from flute maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia - Firstpost

[2] Image on wikimedia.org

[3] Image on staticflickr.com

Happy Left Handers Day

As there is a particular day in a year dedicated for everyone and everything on this world, today is also marked for a certain group - that I am a proud member of. A group that is ignored or many are ignorant of or ridiculed or sneered in the past and still by many in this new millennium.

For every group that is in minority or facing discrimination or indifference for a reason like race, caste, gender has supporters. But, not this particular group - because very few are aware of the troubles that the group members face in their daily life - yes, some are trivial inconveniences, not worth the trouble and some are not surfacing because, we group members adapt and ignore them.
I will list few things in the daily life of the members of this group -

• Wake up in the morning - snooze/stop alarm on your mobile by swiping to right
• Unscrew water bottle cap; Turn on/off taps
• Ergonomically designed tooth brushes
• Power on/off / Turn up/down volume on mobile
• Unbutton/button shirt/trousers
• Zip/Unzip trouser
• Put in/Take out from shirt pocket
• Wear a watch on right hand
• Operating refrigerator/washing machine/mixer
• Turn on Car ignition (key or keyless)
• Use a gel/ink pen
• Wear a belt with buckle
• Use a laptop - power button, volume keys, arrow keys, etc.
• Scroll web sites on laptop/desktop
• Operate an ATM
• Sign in a checkbook, register, loan application form, courier acknowledgement form, payment console.
• Measure and mark on the ruler/set square in Mathematics classroom

You may ask what’s so special in these activities. Observe what hand you are using and try to do these with your left hand.
Yes, the group I am referring to is the Left Handed people on this world. Today , August 13th is left-handers’ day.

See I have only touched the tip of iceberg. I am not even talking about regular objects like knives, scissors, spiral notebooks, can openers, sports kits (like gloves), desk chairs, guitars,etc. You will be surprised how many things in our day-to-day life are designed for right-handed and how different an difficult the experiences for somebody who is ‘left’ out.

Many of us are not only left-handed but also have left eye and left-foot dominant. Have you ever tried to see through SLR camera viewfinder with your left eye? They are designed to be hold with right hand, view with right eye and click Shutter button with right index finger.

Couple of years ago, I stumbled across some questions on Quora, the Q&A social media - and I wondered about the lack of awareness and at same time curiosity about Left Handedness and left handed people and I started answering some. Believe it or not I answered 100 Questions on Left Handedness topic - it’s not about me answering them, but the varied and diverse range of questions asked on this topic.
Sharing for your read - https://www.quora.com/profile/Jyothi-Basu-Y/answers/Left-Handedness-1

#Happy Left Handers Day

How come many left-handed people tend to be slightly ambidextrous?

Left-handed people will be using their right hands more regularly and efficiently than the use of left hands by right-handed people. However, that does not make them ambidextrous.

Ambidexterity is the ability to use both the right and left hand equally well .

So, a left-handed can become comfortable using the objects designed for right-handed - like scissors, knives, can openers. A left-handed can be using the right hand for more activities/actions in a day.

However, he/she would be ambidextrous only if he/she could write legibly or play racket sports like tennis/badminton or throw/pitch a ball/basketball/baseball or play snooker/pool with either hand with reasonable skill.

Footnotes

Ambidexterity - Wikipedia

Holding phone with your right or left hand?

I hold my mobile phone with left-hand while talking. No preference of ear thought - If I have to hear with my right hand, still I hold with my left hand.

While browsing on phone, I hold the mobile with my right hand and swipe with my left hand. Only because, most phones are designed (placing of power, volume buttons, etc) for right handed.

Only when I write/take notes or using my left-hand for some tasks, I hold phone with my right hand.

I have an office landline phone - I am in meetings over phone for at least 2–3 hours a day - I hold the phone with my left hand naturally. Also, the landline phones are designed to dial with your right hand.

How do you use keyboard WASD & mouse if you are a left handed PC gamer

I started using a computer in late nineties - either shared computers in internet/cyber cafes or at my home, a PC that is shared with my dad and friends - - so, I got adapted to using the mouse with right hand.

And, as the arrow keys and game keys like (Home/PageUp/PageDown/End) in a typical keyboard are on the right hand, I got adapted to use them also with my right hand. I was easily using those keys in a word processor or a browser.

So, when it was time to play games - DOS games like Prince, Galaxy, Dave, etc that needed to use the keyboard extensively or Arcade games like Pinball, Ball of Steel, that needed to use mouse buttons to play the flippers or even Solitaire, Hearts, Minesweeper - it was natural for me to use my right hand only. Same with racing games like Road Rash, Motocross, Hard Truck - either use the arrow keys or mouse with right hand.

Even when we played in 2-player mode, where one was using arrows, and the other had to use the keyboard like WASD, Shift, Control - I would still use the right hand for the lack of space.

While playing killer/shooting games that would need to use mouse to navigate and the keyboard shortcuts for weapons, health, etc, - I would be using mouse with right-hand and keyboard shortcuts with left hand.

Appliances against Left-Handed

All refrigerators sold in India and few refrigerators I have seen in US during my stay there - all are designed to open easily with right hand with a handle at the top left corner. Applies to the freezer door inside too. Whereas microwave ovens are designed to open left as the Control panel (buttons/knobs/open switch) are on the right-hand side for the convenience of right-handed. Try operating that panel with left hand. Same applies to Washing Machines, Portable TVs

Can a baby be trained to be right or left-handed?

One can train a baby or train oneself to perform an activity with opposite (non dominant) hand. You can train the baby to write with a specific hand, do normal chores like brushing, shaving, open door with a specific hand, etc.

Like the way, I trained myself to eat, shake-hand, serving food, religious rituals, etc with my right hand.

But, you cannot curb the natural instincts. In most cases, a left-handed (right-handed) baby/person would use its left (right) hand for a reflex or natural or untrained activity - like pick a pebble from ground, pick a fruit, cover nose while sneezing, etc. Or an action that needs strength like using spanner for unscrewing/screwing, etc.

p.s: This answer is from my experience as a left-handed. Not endorsed by any scientific theory.

If you're right-handed, what are some of the things that you do with your left hand, and if you're left-handed, what are some of the things you do with your right hand?

I am left-handed, left-eyed, left-footed. I prefer left by nature and by choice if there’s an option.

Below are few things I use right hand for, by habit/adaptation/lack of choice (mostly the last one):

• While eating with hand (Indian). Will use spoon with right hand in public and left-hand at home. Sometimes, at home, I snack with left-hand if I am alone.
• Using computer mouse at work
• Turning on/off ignition key in car daily
• Steering as my left-hand is mostly on gear shift (Right-side driving in India)
• Scissors, nail cutters, knives
• Hindu religious activities when obligated - rituals like pujas, lighting lamps, putting tilak/bindi, ringing bells in temples, taking prasad/harati (arti)
• Serving food at family events (avoid as much as I can)
• Using ATM
• Dialing on my office VOIP phone
• Buttoning/unbuttoning my shirts/jackets/trousers -yeah, you can do easily with single right hand, but not with single left hand. Try yourself!
• Locking/Unlocking paddle locks
• Open refrigerator door
• Biometric reader (fingerprint scanner) at my office turnstiles entry that reads only my right index finger.
• Clicking (pressing shutter button) on my SLR camera needs my right fingers (by design), though I use my left-eye for view-finder - my nose bumps and smears the LCD screen

Do left-handed people and right-handed people buckle their belts differently?

As a left-handed, I used to do buckle the opposite way as a kid - insert to the left loop of my trouser first - so, the tail end stays to the left after buckling - like the kid standing on the left in the picture in the Question comment.
However, I slowly shifted/adapted to the common practice, like many other things, for few reasons -

• Wearing my school belt that way would show the school emblem/logo on the buckle in inverted way

• Same way with the general belt buckles - I have to find a design that would have a symmetric design when inverted. I cannot use the below one, but the following ones.

• Some belt buckles would have a button/pin on the bottom to loosen and release the belt. With the inverted way, the button would be on the top pressing into my belly.

• The second layer of belt would not let me to easily insert my ID card holder to the right-side of my trousers.

However, wearing this way (start by inserting into left) causes few inconveniences as a leftie -

• To remove the belt from the rings, i can pull only by my right hand. Pulling by left hand won’t remove the belt easily.
• I can unbuckle easily only with right hand. I have to remember that sometimes.
• The hanging second fold of the belt gets hit to my left hand which is the active one, especially while taking out wallet/phone from left pocket. Another reason to wear the watch on right hand.

Is it still considered Left handed, if you do all other tasks with left hand leaving besides writing and eating?

Yes. I consider one as a Left handed, if one does all other tasks with left hand leaving besides writing and eating?

Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion, not a scientific answer.

I think ‘Writing’ and ‘Eating’ should not be considered as the primary criterion in identifying the ‘handedness’ of a human.

Writing is an acquired skill and it depends on which hand you started training and learnt.

Similarly you can train yourself to write with a specific hand, learn to do normal chores like brushing, shaving, open door with a specific hand, etc. Like the way, I trained myself to eat, shake-hand, serving food, religious rituals, etc with my right hand.

One’s “natural”, “reflex”, “physical”, “instinctive” actions should distinguish that person as a left-handed or right!

· If I throw a dagger/stone at you, would you rise your left hand or right hand to block?

· If I offer you a bag of apples, will you pick with your left/right?

· When you sneeze, do you use your left/right hand to cover your nose? In some cases, this can be trained. I pick my nose with my right hand because my left hand would be busy most times like writing :-) Just kidding.

· I set/comb my hair with left hand

· In an action that needs strength like using spanner for unscrewing/screwing, do you use left/right?

Some websites talk about other ways like

•      “which thumb is on up side when you interlock your fingers?”,
•      “which palm is up when you clap while applauding?”,
•      “which hand is up when you hold hands on your back?”
•      “with which eye do you wink?”

I don’t believe in the above stuff.

Things I do with right-hand, though I am left-handed

I am left-handed, left-eyed, left-footed. I prefer left by nature and by choice if there’s an option. Below are few things I use right hand for, by habit/adaptation/lack of choice (mostly the last one): 

• While eating with hand (Indian). 
• Will use spoon with right hand in public and left-hand at home. Sometimes, at home, I snack with left-hand if I am alone. 
• Using computer mouse at work 
• Turning on/off ignition key in car daily
• Steering as my left-hand is mostly on gear shift (Right-side driving in India)
• Scissors, nail cutters, knives, peelers, can openers
• Hindu religious activities when obligated - rituals like pujas, lighting lamps, putting tilak/bindi, ringing bells in temples, taking prasad/harati (arti)
• Serving food at family events (avoid as much as I can)
• Using ATM
• Dialing on my office VOIP phone
• Buttoning/unbuttoning my shirts/jackets/trousers -yeah, you can do easily with single right hand, but not with single left hand. Try yourself!
• Locking/Unlocking paddle locks
• Open refrigerator door
• Biometric reader (fingerprint scanner) at my office turnstiles entry that reads only my right index finger.
• Clicking (pressing shutter button) on my SLR camera needs my right fingers (by design), though I use my left-eye for view-finder - my nose bumps and smears the LCD screen

What are some of the ways you can distinguish between left and right handed persons, besides Writing?

I think ‘Writing’ should not be considered as the primary criterion in identifying the ‘handedness’ of a human. Writing is an acquired skill and it depends on which hand you started training and learnt.

Similarly you can train yourself to write with a specific hand, do normal chores like brushing, shaving, open door with a specific hand, etc.

Like the way, I trained myself to eat, shake-hand, serving food, religious rituals, etc with my right hand.

One’s “natural”, “reflex”, “physical” actions should distinguish that person as a left-handed or right!

• If I throw a dagger/stone at you, would you rise your left hand or right hand to block?
• If I offer you a bag of apples, will you pick with your left/right?
• When you sneeze, do you use your left/right hand to cover your nose? In some cases, this can be trained. I pick my nose with my right hand because my left hand would be busy most times like writing :-) Just kidding.
• I set/comb my hair with left hand.
• In an action that needs strength like using spanner for unscrewing/screwing, do you use left/right?

Some websites talk about other ways like

• “which thumb is on up side when you interlock your fingers?”,
• “which palm is up when you clap while applauding?”,
• “which hand is up when you hold hands on your back?”
• “with which eye do you wink?”

I don’t believe in the above stuff.

Why do lefties face problems with day to day objects?

Wake up in the morning and do the following with your left hand.

• Unlock your phone - buttons are on the right side.
• Go to toilet - Flush button is on the right side. Tissue dispenser or water bidet are on the right hand side.
• Open your fridge door to pull milk sachet.
• Use scissors to cut the milk sachet.
• Unscrew the lid for sugar tin.
• Turn on/off the stove burner/knob.
• Drink coffee in a printed mug.
• Switch on the TV with power button on remote.
• Use a can opener to open your cut-fruits tin.
• Cut onions with a one-sided knife.
• Button up your shirt with one hand.
• Wear watch on your left hand. Wear belt the regular way - push first into the left side ring.
• Turn the keys to lock your home.
• Put a signature for a delivery boy.
• Use the lift/elevator buttons, which are kept on the right side of the door.
• Turn the ignition on your car.
• Go to ATM and withdraw money.
• Go to a super market or a shop, and sign on the PoS at the billing.
• Go to office. Shake hand or high-five your boss/coworkers.
• Switch on your laptop or desktop.
• Use a water pitcher or coffee machine.

Now, tell me what your experience is and whether there are any problems/inconveniences. Note the above is not an exhaustive list.