On being left-handed

I am one of those people who is left-handed. I've spent almost all my life adapting to a right-handed world, but also enjoying some of the benefits that come from being left-handed. What benefits you ask? Well there aren't that many unless you play sport. In any racket sport there seems to be a presumption that playing against a left-handed opponent is more difficult. Probably because it's all reversed, so what you think should be their fore-hand side turns out to be their back-hand and vice versa. The end result seemed to be that the right-handed opponents spent so much time trying to remember this that they forgot the simple principle of playing the game.

Anyway, I decided it was time to strike back and I've treated myself to some left-handed things. First up are the scissors. Made with the blades reversed, I'm having to relearn how to cut. It's nice to be able to see what you're doing without the blade getting in the way, but after all these years of manipulating right-handed scissors, it's a bit odd having some specially made for my south-paw world. Second on my list was a left-handed can opener. This is going to very practical, I've always felt awkward working the conventional ones, but I think just having it in the drawer and watching right-handed people pick it up and try to use it is going to give me a certain degree of pleasure too!

Next up was a left-handed ruler. Yes they really do make these along with tape measures, protractors and other measuring devices. It's marked from right to left so that you can read it without your hand getting in the way. 

Two fun things I bought are the left-handed note pads and the left-handed pencils. The pencils have a motto on them that you can only read properly when you hold them in your left-hand, there's really no such thing as a left-handed pencil.

It's funny really because you don't notice how many things don't suit left-handedness for the most part. For example, automatic ticket barriers invariably require you to use your right hand to insert your ticket.

What started all this was my interest in handwriting and how to improve my own. Being left-handed is often treated as simply a matter of doing things "the other way around" but actually that's not true. Forming letters following right-handed practice is quite unnatural for most lefties. And it was almost always assumed that by being left-handed your were destined to have bad hand writing. But I like using a pen and paper, and have developed a rather unusual personal style. The easiest way to describe it to imagine a pad of paper on your desk, then turn it 90 degrees anti-clockwise and then, using your left hand, write vertically up the page! The only problem is that I can't write on a flip-chart or an interactive whiteboard.

In my search for left-handed handwriting tips I came across some really interesting helps. There is a mat that you can buy that teaches left-handed writers to write more conventionally, along with books and pens designed to learn writing skills from a left-handed perspective.

If you are left-handed or have young left-handed children, you may want to check out some of these resources. You might even consider getting some for your local school to encourage them to see left-handed writing from a new perspective.

So with that in mind I think I might rearrange a few things around a left-handed view of the world and see who notices!