Wondering is people like AnthonyGatto and the others great juggler out there are ambidextrous in nature or had just become one because of learning juggling?:)
> I practice ambidexterity or however you would call it daily, hoping that I > get a better juggler by it.
> With this I mean that I can now brush my teeth, peel potatoes, stir, saw, > and lots of other things with my left hand.
> These are all things you can not do automatically it seems, and my left > hand is just a few years (15 I guess) behind in practice.
> If I activate my brain and my muscles this way with daily things, I hope > my juggling gets better from it too.
> Good luck becoming ambidextrous too guys! > Daniel
Good point! I agree with you. I'd practice brush my teeth with my non dominant hand too (left hand), and I can do it quite comfortably. I did that long before I decided to learn juggling. That was because I want to do something called brain gym.
> > I practice ambidexterity or however you would call it daily, hoping that I > > get a better juggler by it.
> > With this I mean that I can now brush my teeth, peel potatoes, stir, saw, > > and lots of other things with my left hand.
> > These are all things you can not do automatically it seems, and my left > > hand is just a few years (15 I guess) behind in practice.
> > If I activate my brain and my muscles this way with daily things, I hope > > my juggling gets better from it too.
> > Good luck becoming ambidextrous too guys! > > Daniel
> Good point! I agree with you. I'd practice brush my teeth with my non > dominant hand too (left hand), and I can do it quite comfortably. I did > that long before I decided to learn juggling. That was because I want to > do something called brain gym.
> Eddy
I find it really difficult to brush my teeth with my dominant hand. It feels really clunky, and I end up dribbling everywhere, including down my hand, which of course makes everything slippery, and therefore even harder.
I can't think of anything else I do with my left hand by default though.
> Wondering is people like AnthonyGatto and the others > great juggler out there are ambidextrous in nature or > had just become one because of learning juggling?:)
> Hm... btw, maybe it's bit off topic.
> Regards,
> Eddy > Juggling Newbie
I don't think you really become ambidextrous by juggling, your non-dominant hand just gets really good at juggling. I can briefly run four clubs in my left hand, but definitely can't brush my teeth with it.
> > > I practice ambidexterity or however you would call it daily, hoping that I > > > get a better juggler by it.
> > > With this I mean that I can now brush my teeth, peel potatoes, stir, saw, > > > and lots of other things with my left hand.
> > > These are all things you can not do automatically it seems, and my left > > > hand is just a few years (15 I guess) behind in practice.
> > > If I activate my brain and my muscles this way with daily things, I hope > > > my juggling gets better from it too.
> > > Good luck becoming ambidextrous too guys! > > > Daniel
> > Good point! I agree with you. I'd practice brush my teeth with my non > > dominant hand too (left hand), and I can do it quite comfortably. I did > > that long before I decided to learn juggling. That was because I want to > > do something called brain gym.
> > Eddy
> I find it really difficult to brush my teeth with my dominant hand. It > feels really clunky, and I end up dribbling everywhere, including down my > hand, which of course makes everything slippery, and therefore even harder.
> I can't think of anything else I do with my left hand by default though.
> Guy
You should use your non-dominant hand to use your computer mouse, It helps a lot. I wasn't to weird for me to brush my teeth with my left hand but the mouse was a little more awkward. Making a conscious effort to open doors with your left hand and keeping your wallet on the non dominant side of your body seems to help as well, though I have been slacking at those things lately.....
> > I practice ambidexterity or however you would call it daily, hoping that I > > get a better juggler by it.
> > With this I mean that I can now brush my teeth, peel potatoes, stir, saw, > > and lots of other things with my left hand. > Good point! I agree with you. I'd practice brush my teeth with my non > dominant hand too (left hand), and I can do it quite comfortably.
Good for you guys! You are turning yourselves into a couple of Penwalds!
If you want to come closer to being ambidextrous, you need to do some large movement activities, too, like throwing a baseball or football; kicking a soccer ball with left foot; playing tennis using the left, etc.
Ben is partly right in that juggling doesn't automatically make you ambidextrous, but I think it helps. Lefties have an easier time using both hands because they are forced to use their right side more than us righties have to use our left, but I think there are a lot of benefits of using both sides. It might cause better brain function, since both side of the brain are used more.
Besides juggling, I am working on playing tennis with both hands. I'm making good progress and I do think it's going to help my juggling and I think my juggling is helping me learn to play tennis on both sides easier than a tennis player that doesn't juggle.
> > > I practice ambidexterity or however you would call it daily, hoping that I > > > get a better juggler by it.
> > > With this I mean that I can now brush my teeth, peel potatoes, stir, saw, > > > and lots of other things with my left hand.
> > Good point! I agree with you. I'd practice brush my teeth with my non > > dominant hand too (left hand), and I can do it quite comfortably.
> Good for you guys! You are turning yourselves into a couple of Penwalds!
> If you want to come closer to being ambidextrous, you need to do some > large movement activities, too, like throwing a baseball or football; > kicking a soccer ball with left foot; playing tennis using the left, etc.
> Ben is partly right in that juggling doesn't automatically make you > ambidextrous, but I think it helps. Lefties have an easier time using both > hands because they are forced to use their right side more than us > righties have to use our left, but I think there are a lot of benefits of > using both sides. It might cause better brain function, since both side of > the brain are used more.
> Besides juggling, I am working on playing tennis with both hands. I'm > making good progress and I do think it's going to help my juggling and I > think my juggling is helping me learn to play tennis on both sides easier > than a tennis player that doesn't juggle.
> Dave Altman
Careful Dave . . . too much encouragement and we'll start to see a situation like this appear more often . . .
Do you play tennis two handed or one handed? I would think individuals with a two handed backhand (and forehand) would have an easier time giving it a go with their "off" hand. I do ok at table tennis off handed, but I'm sure I'd be a disaster trying to play tennis off handed. My serves give me enough trouble as it is ;-)
David Sallee (feeling obligated to say "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous" for some reason . . . :-)
> Do you play tennis two handed or one handed? I would think individuals > with a two handed backhand (and forehand) would have an easier time giving > it a go with their "off" hand. I do ok at table tennis off handed, but > I'm sure I'd be a disaster trying to play tennis off handed. My serves > give me enough trouble as it is ;-)
When I first started playing around with tennis with my left hand, I did use a two-handed backhand. My girlfriend insisted that I play her left-handed to make it more fair, which I didn't mind. That was a few years ago, but I'm seriously trying to learn to play left-handed, now. Since I use a one-handed backhand with my right, I decided to use a one-handed backhand with my left.
I'm focusing on my ground strokes at the moment, but serving with either hand is going to be a great benefit. Serving wide on the ad side left-handed will make the ball curve away from the receiver, which is hard to do right handed, and it will make that serve more effective, even if it's not served as hard.
Another benefit of being able to serve with either hand is avoiding looking directly into the sun. Sometimes the sun is exactly where your toss is, so it makes it very hard to see the ball, but if you can turn your back and face the other way, the sun won't be a problem.
I've mentioned it before, but I taught a college basketball class where I forced them to use their non-dominate hand. They hated it, but at the end, they give me very high reviews and thanked me. In ten weeks they could play just about as well with their left hands as their right hands. I had them hold a stage ball in their right hand so they would have to dribble left-handed. They could still use their right hand to help them shoot, just like a right-hander would use their left hand to help hold and guide a right-handed shot.
It was a great equalizer, too. That was a benefit to the class that I hadn't counted on. The bad players could play about as well with their left as their right. They sucked on both sides. The good right-handed players were practically starting over, but the more they played left-handed, the closer their skills came to their right hand.
Actually i have been ambidextrous all my life. It was natural for me to not really have a dominant hand. But the thing is not that i can do all the things as good with both hands, but that my body, have choosen always one that becomes the dominant, that could be left or right...
For example, when i play tennis, i will serve always with th right hand, then switch and play with the left. If there is a ball i will not be able to reach with the left, i will switch back to the right just for that one. I can really play tennis with the right hand, just feel more confortable doing it with the left.
Ping pong i will play it with the right always, but if i want to fool around i will use the left, no problem.
soccer im more confortable dribbling with the right, receiving passes with the right and making passes with the right, but when it comes to shoting, i prefer doing it with the left... (i still can do all of it with both, but my body chooses a dominant one)
For juggling is the same, some tricks my body prefers right handed, some other left handed.
So well if i wanted to practice both hands im pretty sure i could do things the same with boths, but my body always choose a dominant and im ok with it.
> > > I practice ambidexterity or however you would call it daily, hoping that I > > > get a better juggler by it.
> > > With this I mean that I can now brush my teeth, peel potatoes, stir, saw, > > > and lots of other things with my left hand.
> > Good point! I agree with you. I'd practice brush my teeth with my non > > dominant hand too (left hand), and I can do it quite comfortably.
> Good for you guys! You are turning yourselves into a couple of Penwalds!
> If you want to come closer to being ambidextrous, you need to do some > large movement activities, too, like throwing a baseball or football; > kicking a soccer ball with left foot; playing tennis using the left, etc.
> Ben is partly right in that juggling doesn't automatically make you > ambidextrous, but I think it helps. Lefties have an easier time using both > hands because they are forced to use their right side more than us > righties have to use our left, but I think there are a lot of benefits of > using both sides. It might cause better brain function, since both side of > the brain are used more.
> Besides juggling, I am working on playing tennis with both hands. I'm > making good progress and I do think it's going to help my juggling and I > think my juggling is helping me learn to play tennis on both sides easier > than a tennis player that doesn't juggle.
> > > > I practice ambidexterity or however you would call it daily, hoping that > I > > > > get a better juggler by it.
> > > > With this I mean that I can now brush my teeth, peel potatoes, stir, saw, > > > > and lots of other things with my left hand.
> > > > These are all things you can not do automatically it seems, and my left > > > > hand is just a few years (15 I guess) behind in practice.
> > > > If I activate my brain and my muscles this way with daily things, I hope > > > > my juggling gets better from it too.
> > > > Good luck becoming ambidextrous too guys! > > > > Daniel
> > > Good point! I agree with you. I'd practice brush my teeth with my non > > > dominant hand too (left hand), and I can do it quite comfortably. I did > > > that long before I decided to learn juggling. That was because I want to > > > do something called brain gym.
> > > Eddy
> > I find it really difficult to brush my teeth with my dominant hand. It > > feels really clunky, and I end up dribbling everywhere, including down my > > hand, which of course makes everything slippery, and therefore even harder.
> > I can't think of anything else I do with my left hand by default though.
> > Guy
> You should use your non-dominant hand to use your computer mouse, It helps > a lot. I wasn't to weird for me to brush my teeth with my left hand but > the mouse was a little more awkward. Making a conscious effort to open > doors with your left hand and keeping your wallet on the non dominant side > of your body seems to help as well, though I have been slacking at those > things lately.....
The mouse I use at work (i.e. most of the time) is very much right-handed, so that's definitely out. I've always thought that I should learn to write with my left hand, but it just seems like too much effort. The wallet idea is a pretty good one, although I think it'd feel weird on my leg. Plus I'd constantly be touching my right pocket and panicking slightly until I got used to it. Maybe I'll try it out right now.
Yeah, that feels wrong. Still, I'll see how I feel by this afternoon
> The mouse I use at work (i.e. most of the time) is very much right-handed, > so that's definitely out.
That is a problem. I switch the mice at my school to the left because it feels more comfortable at this point, but I put them back to the other side when I am done.
>I've always thought that I should learn to > write with my left hand, but it just seems like too much effort.
It is a lot of effort but it helps somewhat. I practice it occasionally but not regular enough for my left hand writing to be REAL good.
>The wallet idea is a pretty good one, although I think it'd feel weird on my > leg. Plus I'd constantly be touching my right pocket and panicking > slightly until I got used to it. Maybe I'll try it out right now.
Having my phone in my left pocket felt weirder than anything to me, I would forget I had it.
I agree with what Dave said about doing larger activities with your non dominant side as well. I think playing billiards or pool is the most awkward thing to do with my left side providing the force and my right side guiding. But it probably helps.
> For example, when i play tennis, i will serve always with th right hand, > then switch and play with the left. If there is a ball i will not be able > to reach with the left, i will switch back to the right just for that one. > I can really play tennis with the right hand, just feel more confortable > doing it with the left.
I would suggest you learn to serve left, too. It probably wouldn't take you too long to learn and it would really mess the receiver up, especially serving wide on the ad side. The ball will curve away from them and force them into a bad court position.
> For juggling is the same, some tricks my body prefers right handed, some > other left handed.
My girlfriend is bilingual and she speaks the same way you decide to do something with your left or right hand. It might be that she learned a word for something in one particular language or she likes the sound of the word in one language over the other. Sometimes one word will trigger what language she talks in if she is talking to another bilingual person.
> So well if i wanted to practice both hands im pretty sure i could do > things the same with boths, but my body always choose a dominant and im ok > with it.
I'm fine with being right-handed most of the time, but switching sides makes sense in certain situations and it is better for body symmetry. For juggling, it makes a lot of sense, artistically and physically.
On 2009-11-12, Sam Malcolm <samuel_malcolm_fire_danc...@rocketmail.com.nospam.com> wrote:
>>The wallet idea is a pretty good one, although I think it'd feel weird on my >> leg. Plus I'd constantly be touching my right pocket and panicking >> slightly until I got used to it. Maybe I'll try it out right now.
> Having my phone in my left pocket felt weirder than anything to me, I > would forget I had it.
My phone lives in my right (dominant) pocket, and my wallet lives in my left (non-dominant) pocket. My bus pass and loose change lives in my back left pocket and my keys my back right pocket. [1]
All four pockets get roughly equal use, so there's no real "handedness" in my daily pocket outine, but if I'm honest, the prospect of putting my wallet somewhere else fills me with dread.
I have a system, I stick to my system, deviation from the system is wrong.
I can't be the only person who obsesses over pocket management, although I suspect my habits stem from my magician days. To a magician, if an item is not in the correct pocket you have to think about where it is.
Thinking leads to slowness, and slowness leads to tells. Tells distract from (mis)direction [2] which ultimately detracts from the performance, ruining the moment of astonishment [3]
-Paul [1] Which means the important, stealable stuff is in the harder to pick pockets, and the less important or less nickable stuff lives in the easier to reach pockets.
Not that I've ever stood behind someone on an escalator, carrying their wallet in their back pocket and thought "I could have that" - oh no.
[2] I much prefer the term direction to misdirection. I would rather tell someone where to look than tell them where not to look.
[3] Because "astonishment" is the goal I shoot for in magic.[4]
[4] It's also the reason I don't perform any more.
Little Paul wrote: > loose change lives in my back left pocket and my keys my back right pocket. > I have a system, I stick to my system, deviation from the system is wrong.
I agree that a system is good, but change and keys in the back pockets? That seems wrong to me. First of all, I don't carry loose change. I kept a little bit of change in my wallet, which I normally don't put in my back pocket. If I have a jacket on, I'll put it in the side pocket of it, but since I wear shorts most of the time, I'll put my wallet in the front pocket because a lot of my shorts don't even have a back pocket.
Anyway, I wouldn't want to sit on keys and loose change.
> > loose change lives in my back left pocket and my keys my back right pocket.
> > I have a system, I stick to my system, deviation from the system is wrong.
> I agree that a system is good, but change and keys in the back pockets? > That seems wrong to me. First of all, I don't carry loose change. I kept a > little bit of change in my wallet, which I normally don't put in my back > pocket. If I have a jacket on, I'll put it in the side pocket of it, but > since I wear shorts most of the time, I'll put my wallet in the front > pocket because a lot of my shorts don't even have a back pocket.
> Anyway, I wouldn't want to sit on keys and loose change.
> Dave Altman
It was the keys in the back pocket that surprised me. If I'm going to sit one something (and I do - my wallet), I like the relatively smooth and even shape. My layout is: phone front left, keys/work swipe card front right, wallet back right. And as you say, any deviation from the system is wrong. If my wallet's not in my back right pocket, I can feel that it's not there and it feels very awkward. At times, I'll even have a little panic that I've lost my wallet, when all I've done is take it out of that pocket, and I'm now holding it in my hands!
Oh, and as for loose change - that going in a pocket in my wallet, but I try to carry very little of it around. I've got change jars at work and home that get dumped into, any time I have coins.
> > > loose change lives in my back left pocket and my keys my back right > pocket.
> > > I have a system, I stick to my system, deviation from the system is wrong.
> > I agree that a system is good, but change and keys in the back pockets? > > That seems wrong to me. First of all, I don't carry loose change. I kept a > > little bit of change in my wallet, which I normally don't put in my back > > pocket. If I have a jacket on, I'll put it in the side pocket of it, but > > since I wear shorts most of the time, I'll put my wallet in the front > > pocket because a lot of my shorts don't even have a back pocket.
> > Anyway, I wouldn't want to sit on keys and loose change.
> > Dave Altman
> It was the keys in the back pocket that surprised me. If I'm going to sit > one something (and I do - my wallet), I like the relatively smooth and > even shape. My layout is: phone front left, keys/work swipe card front > right, wallet back right. And as you say, any deviation from the system > is wrong. If my wallet's not in my back right pocket, I can feel that > it's not there and it feels very awkward. At times, I'll even have a > little panic that I've lost my wallet, when all I've done is take it out > of that pocket, and I'm now holding it in my hands!
> Oh, and as for loose change - that going in a pocket in my wallet, but I > try to carry very little of it around. I've got change jars at work and > home that get dumped into, any time I have coins.
> Cheers, > Dave
I agree with the keys in back pocket part, that seems very awkward.
I don't use my back pockets at all though, it causes misalignment in posture.
I'm somewhat surprised this discussion turned into "what pockets we keep things in". Pretty soon we will all be talking about suspenders......
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