I’m right-handed but I mostly use my left for things like opening doors, picking up stuff, using phone, holding food… and my right hand for things that requires fined dexterity like writing, using utensils, using keys… My friends see me using my left-hand most of the time and kept asking me why I barely use my right hand. Some people who met for the first time actually thought that I’m left-handed for some reason.
Is it really that weird to not use your dominant hand as much? I’m sure I’m not born left-handed and trained to be right-handed when I was small, I’ve been right-handed for as long as I can remember.
It’s called Cross-dominance and is something I have as well. Certain tasks feel more “right” to perform with one hand over the other.
And it can be acquired through practice. I’m a lefty but I’m way more comfortable using a mouse with my right hand from years of practice. I worked in IT so it wasn’t feasible to always move the mouse to the other side when working on other people’s computers or on server KVMs.
Edit: this also applies to all handed devices like scissors, beveled knives, etc.
I’m like 90+% right hander, but I have to use my left to drive. Probably comes from having a manual transmission car for years.
Never actually thought about that, but your totally right… I too drive with my left… Allthough I’m not sure if that’s because of the transmission cars I drove until I got my Tesla 3 years back or just because I can rest my arm on the door while holding the wheel.
I’m the same way, but it started as a kid when riding my bike I couldn’t go one-handed on the handlebars with my right but could with my left. It’s like the left is steadier but less dexterous.
Since most pitchers are right-handed, left-handed batters enjoy a second advantage over their right-handed counterparts.
Fun sports fact: Barry Bonds was a left-handed hitter who used steroids, whereas Henry Aaron was a right-handed hitter who didn’t. Despite both of those advantages, and getting more expansion teams to face, and playing 162-game seasons his whole career, and access to multi-angle slow-motion video replays, and much more modern training/coaching/sports-psychology/conditioning/nutrition, Bonds still only “beat” Aaron’s home run record by a whopping seven homers. It’s oddly pathetic.
I definitely have cross dominance
It isn’t strange to use your non-dominant hand for things, no. Maybe most people do lean toward using their dominant hand for everyday tasks, but I think it’s a matter of habit for most things. “Non-dominant” doesn’t mean “nearly useless”.
I would say it is a bit strange for your friends to pay a lot of attention to which hand you use to unlock doors.
It’s not really your “off hand” any more, is it? You just need to understand which hand is dominant now.
The right one spanks the left one, so…right?
I might need a cold shower after all this talk of dominance and now…spanking…
I think that’s normal. I’m right-handed, but I have my phone in my left pocket and tend to use it in my left hand when using it with one hand. Last week I also had someone ask me whether I was left handed because I used my fork in my left hand to hold the food still and my knife in my right hand to cut the food. I honestly never think about these things, they just kinda happened over time because it worked for me. In my experience my dominant hand is obviously better for most things, but in the end it’s also a matter of training. If, for whatever reason, I use my non-dominant hand for something repeatedly instead of my dominant hand then my non-dominant hand will get better. It’s just that the dominant hand improves faster and has a higher “skill ceiling” in my experience.
Fork in my left hand and knife in my right hand
That’s the normal way for right-handed people! If there’s no knife then fork goes in the right hand.
Knife in right hand is the normal way to use a knife and fork if you’re right-handed. Did they use their knife in their left hand? Sounds a bit sinister.
They were left-handed and used the same hands as I did for the fork and the knife. It might simply be caused by the “normal” placement of the fork and knife next to the plate.
I’m right handed.
Shoot guns left handed because my left eye is better.
Fishing, when I was a child I had to learn how to reel left and cast right handed but at the time reeling with the right hand seemed more natural.
Shoot basketballs right handed but I used to practice with my left hand nonstop because I felt that most people only had one handed games, if you could drive to left or right right of the hoop, many times people asked me if I was lefty.
Not every post here has to be about masterbation.
Every guitarist:
No.
I bet everyone is hyper-conscious of which hand they are using to do what right now.
I’m left-handed, but I always use a mouse or other pointing device with my right hand.
such is just the natural way of computing
source: am left handed
I dont think hand dominance is universal, at least not with me it isn’t. While I am right handed most of the time, there are a fair number of things that I either prefer doing left handed or cant do right handed. Eg. I can’t use chopsticks right handed. In fights I prefer to block left handed etc.
Do you mean you block with your left hand or you block as a southpaw would? Blocking with your left hand is normal for right handed fighters.
I wanted to be ambidextrous when I was young, but i didn’t want to work too hard on it. So I just intentionally use my left hand on most things and that led to a habit. I still write with my right hand, but I mainly use my left hand for most stuff.
It’s normal for me, but I’ve been close to blind in the eye that matches my dominant hand for most of my life.
You may have a measure of cross-dominance or ambidexterity. Most right-handers use their left hands in a more assistive way, such as helping to balance a heavy object that the stronger right hand is holding.
Cross-dominance is where which hand is dominant depends on the task. That may describe you best. It sounds to me like for strength-based tasks, your left hand is dominant.
Ambidexterity differs from cross-dominance in that for most tasks you don’t really have a dominant hand, and can use either.
It’s also possible to be a mix of the two. You could have certain tasks you only feel comfortable doing with one or the other hand, while others are comfortable with either.
(Source: Am an ambidextrous guy. It’s not the super power some people think it is.)
I use whatever is most convenient at the time. The dominant hand is only really dominant in dexterity. Writing, using chopsticks, throwing stuff, uh… That’s really all I can even think of that I can’t do with both hands equally well 🤔
I have wrist repetitive stress issues, so I mostly just use whichever hand hurts the least. It does take a bit of conscious effort, though.
