Buzz
Training to use your left hand while being right-handed is both a fun and exciting challenge. If successful, you could become ambidextrous, like many great historical figures such as Einstein, Michelangelo, Harry Kahne, Tesla, Da Vinci, Fleming, and Benjamin Franklin. There are numerous benefits to being ambidextrous. For instance, in billiards, being able to use both hands gives you an advantage, as some shots are easier with the right hand, while others require the left. The same applies to tennis, where hitting with your non-dominant hand may cause the ball to go out of bounds, making it harder to reach and return it with your dominant hand. Learning to use your left hand requires time and patience, but it is definitely achievable with effort and dedication.
Left-handed people can also become right-handed by reversing the steps outlined in this article. For some left-handed individuals, switching to the right hand can provide additional benefits, like avoiding frustrations in a world where most tools are designed for right-handed people.
Steps
Practice writing
Practice using your left hand every day. Mastering your left hand is not an overnight task; it's a process that may take months or even years to complete. Therefore, if you want to learn to use your left hand, you must commit to daily practice.
- Spend time each day writing with your left hand. You don't need to dedicate too much time; just 15 minutes a day can help you progress at a satisfactory pace.
- In fact, it's better not to overdo it with daily practice, as this could frustrate you and lead to giving up.
- Practicing a little bit each day is the best approach.
- Try drawing characters in the air. Start by practicing with your right hand, then switch to your left hand and try to draw the same way. Afterward, transfer this skill to paper, and keep practicing so your muscles can adapt.
Proper Pen Grip. When learning to write with your left hand, it's crucial to hold the pen in a comfortable way.
- Many people tend to grip the pen too tightly, curling their hand around it. This tight grip causes tension, leading to stiffness and fatigue. With this technique, you won't be able to write well.
- Instead, relax your hand and hold the pen in a way that's the opposite of how you'd hold it with your right hand. Try to consciously relax your hand every few minutes while writing.
- The writing tools also significantly impact the experience of writing with your left hand. Use high-quality lined paper and pens with fluid ink that flows easily.
- Tilt your paper or writing surface at a 30-45 degree angle to the right. Writing at this angle will feel more natural.
Practicing Letters. Begin by writing both uppercase and lowercase letters with your left hand. Write slowly and carefully, ensuring each letter is as neat as possible. Precision is more important than speed at this stage.
- For comparison, write the letters with your right hand as well. Then, focus on making your left-hand writing just as perfect as your right-hand version.
- Keep these practice pages in a safe place. Whenever you feel frustrated or tempted to give up on your left-handed goal, you can look at these pages to see how far you've come. They will reignite your motivation to continue.
Forming Sentences. Once you're comfortable writing letters, you can move on to writing full sentences.
- Start with simple ones like "I am writing this sentence with my left hand." Remember to write slowly and focus more on neatness than speed.
- Next, try writing the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" repeatedly. This English sentence includes every letter of the alphabet, making it perfect for practice.
- Other sentences that contain all 26 letters include: "The five boxing wizards jumped quickly" and "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs".
Using Writing Workbooks. When learning to write, children often use workbooks to trace dotted lines to form letters. This method helps them control hand movements and write more accurately.
- When learning to write with your left hand, it's essentially like teaching yourself to write from scratch, both for your hand and brain. Using workbooks is not a bad idea.
- You can also create your own dotted lines on lined paper to ensure the letters have proper proportions.
Writing Backwards. In languages like Vietnamese and many others, people typically write from left to right.
- This is the natural tendency for right-handed individuals. This writing direction prevents ink from smudging on the hand as it moves across the paper.
- However, for left-handed people, this movement feels unnatural and often leads to ink smudging. Because of this, many left-handed people find writing backwards more comfortable.
- Even the famous Leonardo da Vinci was left-handed and often wrote backwards in his notes. He could read them by holding the paper up to a mirror.
- Try practicing writing backwards with your left hand. You'll be surprised to find that it's not as hard as it seems. Remember to write from right to left, and make sure to reverse the letters to get the true backwards effect!
Drawing Practice. Although the main goal is to learn to write with the left hand, drawing with the left can also offer valuable benefits. This is a great way to enhance control and strength in your left hand.
- Start by drawing simple shapes, like circles, squares, and triangles. Then progress to sketching objects around you, such as trees, lamps, and furniture. If you're feeling confident, try drawing people or animals.
- Drawing from top to bottom (also known as reverse drawing) with your left hand is another excellent exercise. This method not only improves your writing skills but also stimulates the brain, fostering creative thinking.
- Many great artists, such as Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Edwin Henry Landseer, were ambidextrous. This ability allowed them to switch hands while drawing or painting, especially if their hand got tired or they needed to paint at a certain angle. Landseer was especially famous for his ability to draw with both hands simultaneously.
Patience. As previously mentioned, learning to write with the left hand is a process that requires time and determination. You need to be patient with yourself and avoid giving up too easily.
- Remember, it took years of practice to master writing with your right hand, and while you won't need as much time to learn left-hand writing (since some skills can transfer), it still requires significant effort.
- Don't worry about speed at first. Focus on practicing with control and accuracy. Over time, your speed and confidence will naturally improve.
- Constantly remind yourself of the impressive and useful skill you'll acquire once you're able to write with your left hand. Maintaining motivation is the greatest challenge you'll face during the training process.
Building Strength
Use Your Left Hand for Everything. A certain amount of skill automatically transfers from the right hand to the left over the years, so initially, you won't find it too difficult to perform tasks with your left hand. Since part of the skill naturally shifts from one task to another, you'll develop proficiency in certain activities faster by doing everything with your left hand, rather than just one specific task. Persevere. Some people claim that it's harder to switch handedness as you grow older, but this is false. The idea that it's easier to change handedness when young stems from the fact that the more skilled your right hand is, the less patience you'll have to develop those skills in your left hand. In fact, as you get older, you'll spend less time building absolute skills with your left hand. The simplest yet most important thing you can do to strengthen your left hand is to use it for all the tasks you would typically do with your right hand.
- Try holding a toothbrush with your left hand. You can also brush your hair, hold a coffee cup, spread butter on bread, and open doors with your left hand, among many other daily activities.
- Try throwing darts (in a safe space), playing billiards, or tossing and catching a soft ball with your left hand.
- If you tend to forget and use your right hand out of habit, try tying the fingers of your right hand together. This will prevent you from using your right hand and force you to rely on your left hand.
Lifting Weights with Your Left Hand. Weightlifting is one of the best ways to strengthen the left arm and hand, addressing the imbalance between your dominant and non-dominant hands.
- Hold a dumbbell in your left hand and perform exercises such as bicep curls, reverse press, hammer curls, and overhead presses.
- Start with light weights and gradually increase the load as your strength improves.
Learn to Juggle. Learning to juggle with three or even four balls is an excellent way to improve your left-hand strength while also providing a fun party trick!
Practice Ball Bouncing. Another great exercise to boost the coordination and strength of your non-dominant hand involves using two rackets with two balls, bouncing them with both hands simultaneously.
- Once you're proficient, you can switch to a smaller racket or even a wide-headed hammer.
- In addition to enhancing your left-hand skills, this exercise stimulates your brain as a whole!
Play a Musical Instrument. Those who play instruments (requiring the use of both hands) are, to some extent, ambidextrous.
- Therefore, choosing an instrument such as the piano or flute and practicing daily can significantly improve the strength of your left hand.
Swimming. Swimming is an activity that requires both hands and has been proven to help balance the two hemispheres of the brain, making it easier to use your non-dominant hand.
- Go to a pool and swim a few laps to strengthen the left side of your body. Additionally, it’s an excellent cardio workout!
Wash Dishes with Your Left Hand. Washing dishes daily with your left hand is a simple and safe way to enhance the dexterity of your non-dominant hand. Over time, this becomes not only a useful exercise but also a fun and rewarding task beyond just cleaning dishes.
Start with Detailed Tasks Like Writing Backwards, Playing Pool, Picking Shrimp Threads, and Throwing Darts with Your Non-Dominant Hand, Then Work Your Way Up to More Challenging Exercises. This approach helps you further develop the ability to smoothly transfer skills from one hand to the other. By practicing tasks you usually do with your dominant hand using your non-dominant hand, you'll improve faster than you might expect. It might take years for your left hand to match the dexterity of your right, but often within two months, your left hand will become almost as skillful as the right one. Once the left hand becomes proficient, there's no reason to lose patience with it, even though it might not be as polished as the dominant hand. If you're eager to speed up the process, you can skip steps 2-7 and avoid the slow pace of initial training.
Always Use Your Left Hand. The skills of your dominant hand are deeply ingrained in your brain, making it automatic to use without thinking. This presents a challenge when trying to become left-handed. To overcome this, you need to come up with reminders that encourage you to use your left hand whenever you need to perform a task.
- For example, write the word "left" on the back of your left hand and "right" on your right hand. This will serve as a visual cue whenever you pick up a pen or complete a task.
- You can also try wearing your watch on your right wrist instead of your left. This will subconsciously remind your mind that you're trying to switch hands.
- Another tip is to place sticky notes on items like your phone, refrigerator, and door handles. These will serve as prompts to use your left hand every time you touch them.
Advice
- Practice writing with your left hand only at home. When you're at school or work, stick to using your dominant hand until you can write neatly and quickly with your left hand. This will save time and prevent smudging your assignments or paperwork.
- When learning to write, adjust your sitting posture to suit the way you hold the pen with your left hand.
- Avoid using your right hand as much as possible when you're starting to use your left hand more frequently.
- Incorporate your left hand into daily tasks, such as playing volleyball, eating breakfast, etc.
- Regularly practice writing the sentence "quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" as it includes every letter in the alphabet.
- Focus on using your right eye when practicing writing with your left hand.
- Start switching your dominant hand when you're older, say around 20. If you're serious about making your left hand your primary hand for all complex tasks, remember that your right hand has developed better skills over time, so the left hand will only be second in proficiency.
- Use your left hand exclusively when using your phone.
Warning
- Understand that this goal will take time to achieve, so be patient with the process.
- Don't force yourself to use your left hand for tasks until you have become proficient with both hands.
- Avoid attempting to slice cucumbers thinly with your left hand and guiding the blade with your finger joints, especially not trying to cut quickly until you are fully skilled with both hands, as there's a risk of accidentally cutting your fingers.
- Switching hands for tasks can cause confusion, so take it slow to get comfortable with the new hand coordination.
