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An interesting anecdote that comes to mind is playing old computer games with arrow keys, which used my right hand. I got pretty proficient with this. Over the

• dhosek 4mo ago
  For this sort of motor skill, it’s definitely learned. For stringed instruments, for example, it’s the left hand which has the more finely managed manipulation than the right (it’s interesting to note that only guitar-family instruments are commonly made in left-handed versions, although some of that may come down to logistics of string ensembles where having one left-handed violin in the violin section would cause a bit of chaos with colliding bows that is less of an issue with guitar ensembles where there are fewer musicians and they’re less tightly packed in the performance space). Likewise, the fingering on woodwind instruments doesn’t really favor one hand over the other. In contrast, brass instruments are decidedly right-handed (I suppose one might be able to manage a trumpet left-handed, but I’ve never tried. I don’t think other brass instruments could be fingered with the left hand at all.
  • Danox 4mo ago
    This left-hander did, guitars can be used/adapted too if you’re left-handed, you might have to adapt like a certain well known person named Jimi Hendrix…
  • Tor3 4mo ago
    The French Horn is played left-handed.
• xenadu02 4mo ago
  I remember in elementary school being amused by the idea of handedness so I decided to practice writing with my left hand as well. I'm not great at it but even to this day I can write legibly with my left hand from that little bit of practice as a child. Anyone can get much better at using their non-dominant hand (if they have one) with just a bit of practice. The effect is much much stronger when you do so as a child.
  • kaashif 4mo ago
    Children have better neuroplasticity but worse persistence than adults. As an adult I just practiced writing with my left hand loads for basically no reason, it's not that useful, but I still did it for some reason. Now I can write illegibly with either hand :)
  • wincy 4mo ago
    I realized at some point as a leftie I could trivially learn to write a mirror image of what everyone else was writing so learned to write backwards. Since the motions are exactly what others do it’s actually easier in a lot of ways for me. Left handed writing is all scrunched up and annoying, and I got constant smudges on my hand. Frixion ink pens are the only pen I’ll buy because they don’t smudge at all. My guess is it’s actually because it’s heat reactive so it just vanishes on skin, but that works for me! (It doesn’t disappear on the page except the time I put a hot bowl of oatmeal on my hand written deployment reminder notes, which was a bit of a surprise. Took me about an hour to recover gathering data, haha).
    • Vachyas 4mo ago
      I also discovered the mirrored writing thing lol and it made me wonder what ambidexterity is since if ambidextrous people could presumably write non-mirrored with the other hand, aren't those completely different motions that neither hand has had any practice with?
    • admash 4mo ago
      FWIW, you can also put the paper in the freezer and it will become visible again, though usually not as strong as it was originally.
• kelipso 4mo ago
  Something super simple and revealing is try pressing on the brakes with your left foot.
  • ahurmazda 4mo ago
    A few of my relatives who grew up on a farm drives that way (right for gas, left for brakes)
  • Tor3 4mo ago
    That's because after you've learned to drive, everything the feet do is muscle memory. You don't consciously adjust the pressure (you just believe you do..), so switching around the pedals will need re-learning. And indeed it's common among rally cross drivers to learn to use the left foot with the brake pedal as well.
  • sph 4mo ago
    [dead]
  • Skwid 4mo ago
    I do this once or twice a year in a borrowed/hired auto car. Usually about 10 minutes into the drive when I've got used to it, and started to drive more naturally. Approach junction, throttle back, stamp full uncoordinate force of left foot on to 'clutch' pedal, send passengers through the windscreen.
  • tmtvl 4mo ago
    IMO heel-and-toe is harder than left foot braking.
  • jpfromlondon 4mo ago
    you get used to it within a couple of hours
  • whynotmaybe 4mo ago
    If you usually drive a manual transmission you might have a bad time if you try to brake with your left foot
• wincy 4mo ago
  I’m left handed and never understood left handed mice at all. I write with my left and swing and kick left handed, but all gaming stuff has always been the same way anyone else does. I’m pretty sure up down left right switching to wasd is a function of that setup being more comfortable with the mouse to the right of the keyboard, correct?
  • Vachyas 4mo ago
    correct, and I think games which needed action keys in addition to arrow keys (but no mouse) preferred arrow keys on the right so the left hand could handle the other moves and stuff. I write with my left too but using right handed peripherals feels natural. I also use my phone right handed.
  • hilbert42 4mo ago
    I'm left-handed too and frankly a left-handed mouse is a nuisance and awkward to use (I never use one), same with other peripherals. Still I prefer to use scissors with the left hand and most are right-handed. It's a damn nuisance as the loop handles are the wrong way around/wrong size for a leftie.
  • benhurmarcel 4mo ago
    I’m left handed and can use a mouse with either hand. It’s just a matter of habit.
• Danox 4mo ago
  Left-handed individuals living in a predominantly right-handed world possess the capacity to adapt and utilize their right hand effectively. While most right-handed individuals do not exhibit this ability unless they experience an extraordinary event, such as an injury to their right hand, left-handed individuals are compelled to learn how to use their right hand in a right-handed world. As a left-handed individual who employs a trackpad or mouse with their right hand, stick shifts are also possible, at least in the United States. Furthermore, left-handed individuals can switch-handed, bat from either side, and use both hands equally in a fight. This adaptability may be the reason why left-handedness remains prevalent in combat sports, including swordplay, tennis, boxing, and even wrestling. In certain combat situations, the initial blows are crucial for survival, especially in the past.
  • rym_ 4mo ago
    In fencing at least left handed fighters tend to get a bit further because there are so few of them they are a lot harder to play against. On a training night a left handed fencer might match up with 10 right handers while a right handed might only see one left hander!
    • yzydserd 4mo ago
      It’s similar in other sports. Around 30% of top cricketers are left handed. It’s 40% for some leading countries. The “hypothesis presumes that athletes in interactive sports are much more likely to play and practice against right-handed opponents. As a result, these athletes develop both greater familiarity and highly specific skills to anticipate the action outcomes of their right-handed opponents via attunement to crucial perceptual information” Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7424046/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7424046/
  • kranner 4mo ago
    > While most right-handed individuals do not exhibit this ability unless they experience an extraordinary event, such as an injury to their right hand, left-handed individuals are compelled to learn how to use their right hand in a right-handed world. As a person with severe hemophilia in the third world, where the condition is very under-treated (no prophylaxis, very little clotting factor and sometimes none), I've grown up facing this issue with the dominant arm being out of commission due to a bleed for days at a time. I gradually learned to do almost everything with the left hand: brush my teeth, shave, eat, shower, type with one hand (autocompleting IDEs help), even drive a stick shift (using the right hand to hold the wheel briefly while shifting, technically illegal I'll admit). It's not that difficult to adapt. The barriers are mostly mental because it feels awkward at first. There are some dexterity issues but if you don't mind going slowly, you can get by. Just sharing my experience, not meant to undermine the challenges faced by left-handed individuals in a right-handed world.
• Tor3 4mo ago
  I'm right-handed, I'm pretty sure of that. But it's also an observed fact that if there's something I'm not used to to yet then it doesn't really matter which hand I start doing whatever it is with, if it's the right hand that'll be the preferred hand for that activity in the future, or if it's the left hand then that'll be the one. Things I do "both ways" I can do.. both ways.
  • technothrasher 4mo ago
    I've found the same thing. I'm quite left handed for most things, including writing and throwing. But when I learned to shoot rifles, I learned right handed because 1) otherwise the ejected brass can hit you, and 2) I'm right eye dominant and its easier to shoot without crossed hand and eye. So now it feels very strange to shoot any gun left handed. But things like using a mouse or a stick shift car RHD vs LHD, I can use either hand and it doesn't much matter.
• wvh 4mo ago
  I've been playing guitar since I was a little kid. I wonder how learning "two-handed" skills such as playing music impacts how "handy" or "polydextrous" one is. There are left-handed guitar players that play right-handed, such as Nick Johnston, who claim the gaps in their technique or preference for certain left-hand-only techniques are informed by being left-handed; so it seems that a life-long of an insane amount of practice does not necessary change how comfortable one is using either hand for a given task.
  • postexitus 4mo ago
    Some of the best guitarists I have met are left-handed playing right-handed guitar ones. Which also makes sense - The more difficult part of playing the guitar is not fingering/picking, it's the fretboard. By using their dominant hand on the fretboard they have a genuine advantage. I've never understood why we formed the right handed guitar to have the dominant hand on the body. There must be a reason.
    • AlecSchueler 4mo ago
      > The more difficult part of playing the guitar is not fingering/picking, it's the fretboard. I would have said the opposite. The fretting hand only needs to press onto the strings in the correct places whereas the picking hand is responsible for all the subtlety of expression in terms of how you attack the string. Saying this as a professional mandolin player fwiw.
      • postexitus 4mo ago
        While true - left hand changes position all the time and has to go on the correct frets all the time - right hand is gentle and subtler, I agree, but is also a lot more forgiving.
    • vikingerik 4mo ago
      I think this reason is dependency. Anything I'm doing where the action of one hand depends on the other has to go left-to-right. I can only finger frets with the left and then pick with the right. Can't go the other way, can't have the right hand act before the left, even if the left has the more complex task. It's like Super Mario Bros. With a 4-way d-pad and 2 action buttons, why is the more complex 4-way on the left? Because most of the time you're holding a direction first with less requirement for precise timing, and then pressing the button at the correct instant depending on the movement. (We're talking general platformer play, not hyper precise d-pad moves for something like Super Metroid speedrunning.) Even typing on a keyboard, I never hold a right-side shift or other modifier key, it's always left-shift then the target key.
• ndsipa_pomu 4mo ago
  From my experiences, I think it's mainly learned. I'm right-handed, but I trained myself to use a mouse/trackball left-handed due to better ergonomics. I was getting back/shoulder pain and thought that it was related to computer use and realised that with the typical keyboard with numeric pad and a mouse setup, that my body was twisting more due to the mouse being more to the right than it needed to be. Using my left hand instead means less twisting as there's no numeric keypad on the left. It took probably a couple of weeks to get comfortable with left-handed mouse use and these days, I am fairly ambidextrous on a computer. The other thing that makes me think that handedness can be learned is learning to juggle. I found that it's easier to start doing a new movement (i.e. a trick) with my right hand, but once I learn it with my left hand, the left hand becomes more accurate than my right.
  • markb139 4mo ago
    I’m a leftie and I don’t think I learnt it. My mother said as a very young child she noticed I’d mainly used my left hand to take things - probably food :) These days the only real problem for me is scissors, especially the ones with moulded plastic handles.
    • ndsipa_pomu 4mo ago
      I didn't mean that most people don't have an innate handedness, but that it's quite possible to learn to do tasks with your non-favoured hand - it just takes a period of adjustment during which it feels incredibly clumsy to use that hand.
• hilbert42 4mo ago
  It's interesting that the piano is essentially a right handed instrument in that melody/the main theme is mostly played by the right hand. As a left-hander, it's very obvious to me. That said—because of the above point—my right hand is much stronger and more adept at playing. In short, I'm right handed when playing the piano. No sarcastic comments please, I well know more practice and playing those damn Czerny scales ad nauseam would have restored proper balance. :-)
  • olau 4mo ago
    Can I recommend playing Bach? The specialization goes both ways, though, I'm much better playing Alberti bass with my left hand compared to the right.
    • hilbert42 4mo ago
      I can play Bach to some extent with practice. I'd qualify that though by saying a multi-part fugue from say The Musical Offering would be a tall order. I've never had any pretense at being good enough to entertain people with those works as everyone knows them so well (from professional recordings). Even Mozart's a problem here. For example the Romance in the D Minor Concerto, K.466 looks deceptively simple (at least in parts) but it's anything but after hearing someone like Brendel play it. Everyone knows it so well it's not worth the embarrassment of even trying (except perhaps in secret). (Mozart has a habit of looking simple until one tries to play it, Bach is none of that—one knows what one's in for at pretty much first glance.)