Day 43/245

About a week ago, I went through a spell of "I'm sooooooo sick of this." My right hand seemed to have woken up, and was trying to reassert its dominance. The clumsiness in my left caused me to break a glass, make a mess on the stove, and nearly cut myself with a kitchen knife.

But I powered through, and the feeling passed. Yesterday, I noticed that my handwriting had improved dramatically over the last month. And not just the handwriting--the writing speed has increased as well, to the point that I'm at about 80% of my right-handed speed, and at a similar legibility level.

The biggest problem I still have with handwriting is consistency. Nine times out of ten, I'll form a letter the same way, but the tenth turns into a malformed, mutant aberration. It used to be one in five, and before that, one in two, so I'm getting better. (Of course, when I started, they were all like that!)

The more I do this, the more I come to understand that there are really two tasks I'm working on at once.

1. Habit
   
   I'm trying to rewrite a lifetime of habits that have built up, habits I didn't even know existed. Sometimes it's as simple and which side I put my briefcase on, or which hand leans on the couch when I bend over to turn on the table lamp. In fact, these small habits are the hardest to correct, because to change them, you have to be aware of laterality all the time. And that's hard to maintain.
   
   
2. Dexterity
   
   Even if you remember to use your less dominant hand, that doesn't mean it can accomplish the task with dexterity. That takes repeated practice. If I establish the right habits, then I will have ample opportunity to build that dexterity.

Of course, I don't want to lose sight of my eventual goal, either. I'm not trying to become left handed. I'm trying to become ambidextrous. So why, then, am I starting out by essentially living left-handedly? (Shut up, it's a word.)

My left hand has a long way to go before it is equal to the right in dexterity. If I start out trying to depend on it only half the time, it will take at least twice as long to achieve dexterity.

Also, I'm trying to establish habits for doing things left handed that are equally strong to the habits for doing it right handed. Once I've achieve that dexterity and those habits, the final stage of the plan will be to learn to analyze situations to see which hand would be most efficient to use. If I can start to do that analysis unconsciously, and use the appropriate hand for any situation with equal ease, then I will have achieved the goal of ambidexterity.

In short, I feel like I'm making progress. And I shouldn't expect too much yet--I'm only 17.5% through this experiment, after all.

Day 19/245

At first, I was worried that eight months might not be enough time. Now I'm thinking that it might not take that long at all.

I timed myself the other day. My left-handed printing is now at 80% of the speed of my right hand, and the penmanship is at least equal, if not a little better. The same thing holds for cursive writing (82%, to be precise), and the penmanship is much better. I can now sign my name with my left hand equally well, and what's more, the signature is virtually identical. This is good--I'd rather not be arrested for forging my own signature.

For certain tasks, I now use my left hand without thinking. These are the "every day" sorts of tasks, cooking and cleaning and brushing my teeth. For others I still experience some confusion, but it passes quickly.

Finally yesterday, I experienced something new. On a task that I had never tried before--filling a glass bottle with mead, if you're curious--I did it with my left hand without thinking about it first. This was a big step.

You see, one thing that was worrying me is this. It's one thing to master tasks that you've done before with a non-dominant hand. But what about developing skill and dexterity for new tasks? How can you practice developing skill in things you've never done before?

Logically, though, dexterity in certain tasks carries over to dexterity in others. The greater general dexterity I have, the greater specific dexterity I'll have as well. And without realizing it, I've taken the precise tactic necessary to achieve this. By forcing my non-dominant hand to behave as the dominant one in all tasks, I have begun to achieve specific dexterity in all these tasks, which then translates into a higher level of general dexterity.

There are certain tasks, though, at which my left side is woefully inadequate. Throwing, for example. I'm not awesome at throwing with my right side, for that matter, but my left is totally stupid. And it's not something I have an easy opportunity to practice.

Another is crochet. I have several projects that I need to complete at the moment, but I can't really switch in the middle. (Although, come to think of it, I'd love to see what it would look like if I did each alternate row left handed, then right handed. I've never seen it done, probably because no one can really do it. That would be worth trying out.)

I'm less than three weeks into this project, but in a way, it feels much longer. I'll just have to see how I progress after a few months have passed.

Day 14/245

I discovered something interesting yesterday. The signals from my brain that deal with writing just can't seem to not go to my right hand.

Here's what I mean. I was doing a project at work that required me to use two different colors of ink. After switching back and forth for a little while, I decided that surely one of the benefits of ambidexterity would be dual-wielding my writing instruments. So for the first time in over two weeks, I wrote with my right hand.

The work went much quicker that way, and I was congratulating myself on my ingenuity when I realized that as I wrote with my left hand, my right hand was twitching. I hadn't really noticed it before because it was usually holding down my paper or stowed in my lap where it wouldn't get in the way.

But now, I could see what was happening. As I wrote, the right hand twitched as if it were writing too. My brain was sending signals about writing, and enough of them were leaking through to the right side that the tip of the right pen was tracing out minuscule letters.

They were not mirror images. In fact, with a little practice I could probably write two copies of something at once. Thankfully, I'm no longer in school where I could be set to writing lines, so I can't imagine that skill would help me at all.

I just had to remark, though, on the amazing power of habit. I wonder if that twitch will go away as I improve? Or will it spread to the other side, so that lefty twitches while righty writes?

Day 6/245

I'm starting to establish some good habits. Already, I've got my left hand reaching for the toothbrush without having to think about it. I'm doing dishes with it too, and of course, I haven't written with my right hand in about a week now.

There's a lot more to do, though, old habits to break that I don't even realize I have. One problem that I keep running into is that everything is on the wrong side. I'm not really talking about the usual lefty complaints, like that the CD-ROM is on the wrong side, or that scissors won't work, or whatever. I'm talking about the things I can fix, like what side of my sink the soap is on, or where I keep the remote control.

I find myself having to rearrange half my life, and the new position isn't always as convenient. I'm not sure how much of what I'm experiencing is right handed ergonomics, and how much is my natural clumsiness with that side of my body. In a way, though, it doesn't matter. I've got to be able to deal with the world as it is, and as I increase my dexterity, I'll get used to the ergonomics and cure the clumsiness.

I'm having to retrain my right hand too, since it's not used to the support role. My usual tactic is to do something the way I'm used to and observe it, then try to mirror it. Ofter that results in my right hand trying to do its usual thing from the other side, but that's an impulse I have to resist.

Meanwhile, writing is going pretty well. My handwriting has improved even over this last week, although I still have to remember not to bear down so hard. Also, my handwriting degrades exponentially when I'm put into an awkward situation, like holding the paper in my other hand instead of at a desk. Still, it will come.

Day 1/245

This is gonna get old, but I'll do it anyway.

My slogan is "do it left or do it over." I did pretty well today, so far, but I have to say that it takes a lot of concentration. I keep finding myself messing up, and I have to switch back deliberately. Only in a few things do I react instinctively with my left hand--my mouse, for example, which has been lefthanded for years.

I rearranged a lot of stuff at my desk today. It was no longer conveniently located.

I also realized that I would have to get special equipment to convert all my activities to the appropriate side. Scissors and can opener were the two biggest ones.

I bought a set of lefthanded spiral notebooks, and they arrived in the mail today. I'm off now to do some writing.

Eight Months

That's all it takes, according to Wikipedia. In their article on left handedness, someone has made the following claim. Causes of left-handedness include:

Long-term impairment of the right hand: People with long-term impairment of the right hand are more likely to become left-handed, even after their right hand heals. Such long term impairment is defined as eight months or more.

Now, aside from the fact that this is tagged with a "citation needed" link, showing that it is unconfirmed, it raises some interesting points. That is, using one's non-dominant hand for a period of eight months is sufficient to develop dominance in that hand.

That's a major claim, and one that I intend to test for myself. I've already spent the last couple of days attempting complete left-hand reliance. I've even been writing entirely left handed at work--thankfully, I've gotten good enough at this now so that I can get away with it. As long as I keep thinking about it, I think I can develop the right habits.

Now, I just need to keep it up for eight months. In time for St. Patrick's Day of next year.

I think this is an entirely realistic project. I'm a touch typist (approximately 85-90 wpm), and both hands have equal dexterity. Actually, since I type on a qwerty keyboard, the left hand probably has greater dexterity. In other words, I know that complete dexterity is a skill that I can develop, with lots of practice.

Before I embark on this long project, I need to state to myself why I'm doing it. I remember telling someone once that I was tired of my left hand getting a free ride, and that's actually part of it. But I think the biggest reason is because I hate being clumsy at anything, and as of right now, I've got an entire half of my body that's nearly useless. (Sure, that's an exaggeration, but so what?) It's past time that I evened the playing field a bit.

Chopsticks

Supper tonight? Sushi. Chopstick use? Entirely left-handed. This wasn't my first time, but it was the first in about a year, and after a little initial clumsiness, I got into the swing of things pretty readily.

The tough part is remembering to do regular, everyday tasks left handed. Picking up a beverage, wrapping a computer cord, opening a door... I remember about halfway through that I should be doing it with the other hand, and force myself to put it down and start over.

The point at which I figure it out is getting closer and closer to the point where I start the motion, so in a few weeks, I should have the right mentality ingrained.

My Leftward Journey

Almost two years ago now, I started an ambitious new project--to learn to write left-handed. Although I used both hands equally for most things as a child, with writing I gravitated towards right-handedness. My dad is right-handed; my mom is left-handed. The difference is something I grew up with, and wondered about.

This was not my first attempt to achieve that goal. I fiddled around in middle and high school, off and on, never for more than a couple of days. My handwriting has never been good, and left-handed, I achieved utter illegibility.

In graduate school I renewed the effort, buying a coloring book and crayons, which I colored left-handed. I went through a goodly portion of the book, but never went further.

Finally, I left grad school and got a Real Job. One month, April of 2006, I was given a month long project which involved writing numbers on two different spreadsheets. I got tired of swiveling in my chair or turning my body from side to side, over and over, nine hours a day. I recalled my old project and decided to dual wield my writing instruments.

Thankfully, only I was required to read what I wrote.

Still, practicing on just numbers was a great way to start. The number of characters are fewer, and they involve some of the simpler shapes (1, 0 and 8, for example) as well as more challenging ones (I always had a hard time with 7's). By the end of the month, I had managed a lot of progress.

And that's because I worked at it every day, for hours. Now I knew how I had to progress with the task of writing. I didn't have hours a day for that, but that same amount of practice, spread over a longer period, would have the same effect.

So I worked a little each day, at lunch. Usually I wrote out the Lewis Carroll poem "Jabberwocky," since I know it from memory, and it uses every letter (as long as I spelled it "mimzy" instead of "mimsy").

I can now write at about a third grade level with my left hand, maybe fourth. I want to improve it, and expand my goal. Writing isn't enough. I eventually want to be fully ambidextrous in everything I do, from writing to cooking to crocheting to getting dressed in the morning. The best way of doing that is to try those things left handed first, build up my dexterity, then devise a way that uses that equal dexterity to best effect.

I'm going to use this blog to post my progress and thoughts on this project, and track my success or failure.