Ambidexterity

I am right handed. But being a painter for many years I trained myself to paint left handed. I can paint just as well with either hand. We can do more than we think. I practice pistol shooting weak hand as well.
 
For those of you who are ambidextrous, which hand do you favor or use the most when doing things like shooting, writing or tossing a ball and why? I have always been curious about this.
Now get this and I can't explain it for sure. I've always been a left hand writer with a very neat handwriting. Bowled as a child in a league righty. Played hockey goalie as a teenager righty. Random sports that I did once in a while like golf left, baseball left, shooting a puck left, tennis ambi, badminton ambi. Then I took a job for 15 years where I had to use a scanning gun righty because I had to be able to write and be fast and not put my pen or the scan gun down to be as fast as possible. Then at age 65 I decided to learn to shoot. I noticed in NRA class that it felt natural to shoot right (and I have left eye dominant.) Just in case, when I bought my first gun it was an ambidextrous H-K VP9sk. So I still shoot right but at times I try to shoot left and it feels really odd. So I'm left right and ambi. And I can't use a left hand scissors to save my life. When I do something new, I never have a preconceived notion of which hand...I just grab it and figure it out spontaneously. Weird, huh?

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I write left-handed. I eat left-handed. I kick left-footed, but I throw a ball right-handed because when I was three, an older boy who lived next door taught me how to throw and he made me use my right hand. There was a time in high school when I could pass a football with either hand.



I have a dominant right eye, so I shoot right-handed. When I shave, I shave the right side of my face with my right hand and shave the left side of my face with my left hand.



When I use a hammer, I just use the hand that gives me the best angle...sometimes my right hand, sometimes my left.



A good friend of mine once told me, "You're not ambidextrous. You're just so screwed up that you don't know which hand to use!!" The more I think about it, he was probably right.:p
Me too!

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I became amber dexterous from working under dash boards on cars since 70’s changing light bulbs. I can work with either hand turning things. I can shoot either hand. I use my right hand but I’m good with my left hand.
My only problem today is a quad accident two decades ago hurt my left shoulder. I’m as good once as I ever was.
 
The reason I have two hands is to make my body look balanced, other than that I am only right handed.

Just because I am a nerd I have to add that ambi = all and dextrous = right handed, or you have all right hands.
 
In the early 70s I broke my right wrist and arm and due to complications it took a long while (think years) for me get the right wrist and arm to 100%.

I taught myself to be left handed for everything while the right arm was in a cast, going through PT, and while the right arm and wrist were weak.

To this day I can shoot better from the left with handguns, with rifles leftie seem odd so I shoot rifle from the right, baseball I switch hit, football can throw passes with either hand, normally write right handed because I find only my old lady or myself can read my left handed chicken scratches.
 
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Just because I am a nerd I have to add that ambi = all and dextrous = right handed, or you have all right hands.

And since I’m also a nerd, I might add that the technical term for mixed-handedness is “cross-dominance”.

But I don’t like using that. People who aren’t psychology majors look at you funny if you say that you are cross-dominant; it has a vaguely kinky sound to it :D
 
My daughter is ambidextrous. She wrote lefthanded and batted left. Served a volleyball right handed as no one could show her the moves any other way. She shot left handed as she was left eye dominate.
In an attempt to increase my sons abilities as an 8 or 9 year old we frequently played long toss throwing with our left hands. He had a great arm and soon did OK as a lefty.
 
I am somewhat lefty. I shot tournament archery left handed for about 10 years, I write right and can't scribble legibly with a left hand. I start any nuts and bolts with a left hand,I use the computer mouse with my left hand, I use most mechanic tools with either hand, when I reach to pick up something from the desk or floor I instinctively use the left hand.
 
Playing baseball as a youngster I could bat left handed at least as well,
and maybe a bit better, than right handed. But in everything else I am
right handed.
 
My dad was left handed and I seemed to be heading towards being left handed too, but suddenly at about 3, I started doing most stuff right handed. If I take the time, I can write much much better left handed, but it's just not "right", so I just write very badly with my right. I bat right, left just seems totally wrong.

When I hurt my hand a while back(My friend's dog slammed his head into my arm while I was driving, and I bent my wrist way more than I thought possible without breaking it, and my thumb was bent back more than it should be too.) I had to use my mouse with my left hand for a while, and about the time I got good with it, my hand had recovered and I went back to the right. That dog is a great dog, but he's hurt me several times over the last 6 years or so.
 
It's really not something I think about. Whichever hand I reach with is the one I use. The only thing I can only do with my left hand is write, so I consider myself to Left handed but I shoot right handed (rifle, pistol and Howitzer). I carry my gun on my right side and my knife on my left but I can use either hand for either tool.
 
I'm right handed. I can hardly even pick my nose with my left hand, but for some reason I can play ping-pong quite well with either hand.
 
Left handed, right eye dominant.

I shoot long guns from the right shoulder, prefer hand guns on the left side, but can shoot them weak handed as well.

I eat civilized fashion, with fork in left hand, knife in right, spoon in right. Something that I picked up living in England as a child.

Playing sand lot baseball, I batted right, not knowing any other way. Had to use a right handed glove, juggle the ball while throwing off the glove to throw left handed. No way that I was ever going to make it to the "bigs".

Being an Army brat, we moved between learning to print and learning to write cursive. New school had already taught cursive, and the teacher wasn't about to invest any time in a left handed kid who wouldn't be around long. As a result, my handwriting is atrocious. First elective I took in HS was typing, and I became a very good touch typist.

Have I mentioned that I am really screwed up?
 
I’m a fairly dedicated righty, but have adapted in the past due to a right hand injury, and the fact that guitar taught precise movements with the left hand.

One of my sons is a hardcore lefty. I caught one of his teachers trying to “correct” him once. She thought it was just easier to make him do what she did with the right hand. That didn’t go over well.

The only thing he does right handed is swing a golf club, and that’s only because I can’t afford to keep him fitted with lefty clubs.
 
I'm a dedicated south paw. But many power tools, chainsaws and the like are designed to be used right handed and that's how my Dad taught me to use them. I also think the SAA is easier to shoot and load left handed.
 
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