Left handed people

[Dogart1983]

I saw this thread https://omegaforums.net/threads/seamaster-300-heritage-which-look.159691/ that gbesq started and in it he mentioned he wears his watch on his right because he’s left handed. Just curious to all the lefties (left handed not the political term) are on here AND this is more of what I’m looking for, are you completely left handed?
I ask because I’m left handed in some things. If you’re right handed you’re probably thinking what in the world is he talking about. That seems to be the quirk with us lefties. Read to the end for the weirdest one. For example some of my oddities are:
Left handed:
Write /Draw
Throw
Stronger side (like lifting things)
Watch side

Right handed:
Shooting my hand gun and rifle
Boxing stance (called orthodox where your lead foot is left and it’s forward, helped out since my jab is on the left it was stronger then most)
Scissors

Now to the grande finale. I’m a police officer and carry a gun. I carry it on my right side. I can shoot with my left, but it feels slightly more comfortable on my right. Just wait. I use my left eye to aim for my pistol. In shooting you have a naturally occurring dominant eye. It’s not uncommon for people to be cross eye dominate. Shoot right handed and use their left eye to aim and vice versa. But I shoot my rifle right handed and use my right eye to aim. Growing up I always shoot BB guns and always thought I was right eye dominate till the academy. All those years using my right eye for my BB guns just takes over whenI pick up a rifle. When I switch to hand gun my left eye takes over. It works for me. Some people I know switch the rifle to their left side to use their dominate eye but that’s weird to me lol

 

[YY77]

Left handed all the way except when using a mouse.

 

[Aroxx]

I’m a righty but I’m also cross eye dominant and have the same shooting pattern as you.

Many people don’t know their dominant eye. There’s an easy way to find out. Take your thumb and index finger and make a tiny circle. Kind of like you’re making the “OK” sign. Extend your arm out and with both eyes open stare through the circle. Slowly move your hand back towards your eyes until it’s touching your face. There’s your answer.

Not trying to derail into an eye thread but I didn’t learn this until I was much older and started getting more into shooting.

 

[Paedipod]

Aroxx

I’m a righty but I’m also cross eye dominant and have the same shooting pattern as you.

Many people don’t know their dominant eye. There’s an easy way to find out. Take your thumb and index finger and make a tiny circle. Kind of like you’re making the “OK” sign. Extend your arm out and with both eyes open stare through the circle. Slowly move your hand back towards your eyes until it’s touching your face. There’s your answer.

Not trying to derail into an eye thread but I didn’t learn this until I was much older and started getting more into shooting.

also not trying to derail this thread but this is a tidy test! As a teen I did a lot of trap/skeet shooting and eventually gave up as I was taught to shoot "right eye/right shoulder" and I just could not hit more than half the targets. A few years ago went out for a day of sporting clays with some buddies and safety guy said try the opposite.....et voilà a much better result and a new "hobby".

and back to the main discussion.....I have three (out of four) left handed sisters who are strongly left-handed for most activity and all wear their watches on their left wrists. All Apple watches though. One of them played field hockey at national level and that was a bit of a do as sticks are only right-handed. She also shoots and fences "lefty". But they all throw like girls....left handed girls.

 

[Dogart1983]

YY77

Left handed all the way except when using a mouse.

I have one friend like that’s lefty all the way and then the rest of my lefty friends and even my brother are a mix

 

[Donn Chambers]

I’m right handed in most things, but for some reason I started tossing a frisbee when i was a kid with my left hand and that feels more natural to me now.

 

[Arancio601]

I use two mice! Left one is a 3D space mouse.

I’m a lefty for throwing, writing, strongest grip, but right handed batting. Right footed too.

 

[felsby]

Righthanded: write, throw, fine mechanics
Ambidextrous: most tools dealing with larger objects, PC mouse
Lefthanded: brain wiring (see below), catch

The thing is: skills learned with your non-dominant hand is transferable to your dominant hand without additional training.
I found out that I could write mirror-imaged handwriting effortlessly with my left hand. In that way, I found out that I was wired left-handed.

 

[Canuck]

I play violin. My instrument strings are, going left to right, G, D, A, and E. The LEFT hand holds the neck of the violin, and the fingers on the left hand play the notes on the strings. The BOW is handled by the RIGHT hand. I have never met a LEFT handed violin player. But they exist. The strings on their violin, are, going left to right, E, A, D, and G! Their RIGHT hand holds the neck of the violin, and fingers of the right hand, play the notes. The bow is held in the LEFT hand! How they can do that, Heaven knows!

 

[Aroxx]

Canuck

I play violin. My instrument strings are, going left to right, G, D, A, and E. The LEFT hand holds the neck of the violin, and the fingers on the left hand play the notes on the strings. The BOW is handled by the RIGHT hand. I have never met a LEFT handed violin player. But they exist. The strings on their violin, are, going left to right, E, A, D, and G! Their RIGHT hand holds the neck of the violin, and fingers of the right hand, play the notes. The bow is held in the LEFT hand! How they can do that, Heaven knows!

I am also a violin player and that is the strangest thing I've ever seen. Although, I guess it shouldn't be because I've seen left handed guitar players.

 

[CPRwatch]

YY77

Left handed all the way except when using a mouse.

Same here , seems strange but I cannot use a mouse left handed .

 

[gbesq]

My experience is that most left handers do some things right handed simply out of necessity. A common example is using scissors, which I do right handed because left handed scissors aren't commonly available and they certainly weren't being given to us left handers when I was in elementary school. If you grew up, as I did, at a time when elementary school teachers were still trying to "convert" left handers to right handers (which was done to me in first grade until my mother came to my school and rather forcibly told my first grade teacher to stop it), then chances are good that you are now at least partially ambidextrous as an adult. That's the case with me. I write, bat, golf and play tennis left handed; kick soccer and footballs with my right foot; shoot a gun and draw a bow with my right hand/arm; use a fork with my left hand, but a cup with my right hand; strum a guitar with my left hand, but open jars and bottles with my right hand; and for some tasks I can use either hand wth the same degree of dexterity. In some respects, left handers are more adaptable than right handers because they have had to be, but I still resent the fact that change was forced upon me at an early age because I was "doing it wrong." Thankfully, common sense eventually prevailed among our educators and that's no longer done, but if my first grade teacher, Mrs. Knopf, is still alive and reading this, I want her to know that she screwed me up for life. Know-it-all, right handed, child tormenting bitch . . . 🫨

Edited: May 21, 2023

 

[Togri v. 2.0]

Dogart1983

I saw this thread https://omegaforums.net/threads/seamaster-300-heritage-which-look.159691/ that gbesq started and in it he mentioned he wears his watch on his right because he’s left handed. Just curious to all the lefties (left handed not the political term) are on here AND this is more of what I’m looking for, are you completely left handed?
I ask because I’m left handed in some things. If you’re right handed you’re probably thinking what in the world is he talking about. That seems to be the quirk with us lefties. Read to the end for the weirdest one. For example some of my oddities are:
Left handed:
Write /Draw
Throw
Stronger side (like lifting things)
Watch side

Right handed:
Shooting my hand gun and rifle
Boxing stance (called orthodox where your lead foot is left and it’s forward, helped out since my jab is on the left it was stronger then most)
Scissors

Now to the grande finale. I’m a police officer and carry a gun. I carry it on my right side. I can shoot with my left, but it feels slightly more comfortable on my right. Just wait. I use my left eye to aim for my pistol. In shooting you have a naturally occurring dominant eye. It’s not uncommon for people to be cross eye dominate. Shoot right handed and use their left eye to aim and vice versa. But I shoot my rifle right handed and use my right eye to aim. Growing up I always shoot BB guns and always thought I was right eye dominate till the academy. All those years using my right eye for my BB guns just takes over whenI pick up a rifle. When I switch to hand gun my left eye takes over. It works for me. Some people I know switch the rifle to their left side to use their dominate eye but that’s weird to me lol

Sounds like I am like you and then not 😀 I write/draw with my left hand but I hold a tennis racket in my right hand. I also shoot with my right hand and box with my right hand as the dominante one. My right arm is also the strongest.
But I kick a football with my left leg better than my right al though I can kick okay with my right.

And of course I wear my watch on my right wrist 😀

Here is the proof 😁

 

[Scooterino36]

Lefty all the way, including mouse and eye test.

 

[Canuck]

Apparently, the left side of the brain controls the right hand, and vice versa. Using a right-handed violinist whose fingers on the left hand form the notes, for example, I am astonished at what I can do on the violin with the fingers on my left hand. But tie a shoe lace? No way! Ambidextrous folks like @gbesq have proven that a natural bias, brain wise, can be overcome. Violinists do it regularly.

 

[Poppyboy]

Lefty only for writing. I throw, shoot, use the mouse and wear my watch on the right.

 

[BAJJ]

Lefty here, about 70%, writing, guitar playing, watch wearing, cooking, etc. A couple of things I do right handed are throwing, golf, tennis. Not ambidextrous as I can't possibly even attempt to write with my right hand or chop food etc. Right hand mouse but left hand track pad... All a bit odd really

 

[pkaye6]

I was born left handed. An incident in Vietnam made using my left hand very difficult and I started using my right for more and more as my dominant hand. I still wear my watch on my right, I use my DSLR cameras with my right but, sight with my left eye. I shoot with my right hand and eye. I still eat with my left and use two mice on my computer, one for each hand. Actually one mouse and a ball for the other. I write with either although when using my left it sometimes is backwards!

 

[TimeODanaos]

Great thread, thanks! I have always been strongly right eye dominant, and I would love to know whether my handedness or my visual bias "came first" and whether there was a neurological consequence from it that wired me up the way I am. Physically, my right side is stronger, and I throw/pitch/bowl right-handed. But my batting was mediocre until I went left-handed and so started getting a better sight of the ball. I play tennis right-handed, because the modern game uses an "open" stance where there is less of a "lead" eye, and anyway the connection point with the racquet is more out to the side of the body. I box southpaw, because the stance is more closed and the front eye is important. (FWIW I also feel that a jab from the dominant hand gives a double advantage of power and shorter reaction distance and hence time for the opponent, among other things, although that's not strictly a point about handedness of course.)

I think the finest motor skills are probably something you're stuck with, and I could not conceive of writing left-handed. (I felt practically queasy reading the appalling childhood experience of @gbesq .) But I have managed a degree of conversion. My work has always involved using desktop computers a lot, and I took a deliberate decision early on to train myself - successfully - to use a mouse left-handed. That was because I didn't want to risk spending 20 years getting my right hand and arm wrecked with RSI in return for spit-all compensation from my employers; fortunately, my left hand has not suffered, but you could say it was the one elected for the sacrifice if necessary.

I guess that, provided the visual senses are OK and the movements required are sufficiently large, it's possible to make a positive election which limbs will do what. With that, I leave the floor to one of the world's most admired right-handed autograph signers...



(OK, not that keen on the watch though)

 

[Dogart1983]

pkaye6

I was born left handed. An incident in Vietnam made using my left hand very difficult and I started using my right for more and more as my dominant hand. I still wear my watch on my right, I use my DSLR cameras with my right but, sight with my left eye. I shoot with my right hand and eye. I still eat with my left and use two mice on my computer, one for each hand. Actually one mouse and a ball for the other. I write with either although when using my left it sometimes is backwards!

I’ll admit when I read the part about your camera and using your left eye to sight but then use your right eye to aim when you shoot guns I thought that’s weird but then realized it’s essentially me too but with a rifle for one eye and a pistol with the other lol