Left-handed people have always existed and will always exist. We are happier, healthier, more capable when we just use our dominant hand (or hands) to write, and do complex tasks.
It's possible to try to force everyone to use the same hand this leads to frustration, can hinder education. It is […]
It's possible to try to force everyone to use the same hand this leads to frustration, can hinder education. It is […]
Comments
Thanks to you and all the commenters sharing stories of their experiences: it’s important to recognize the harm done enforcing right preference in children.
My connection to this is tricky, because I teach violin and viola to youngsters, and consistently get the expected […]
It not just that the strings are in a particular order on an otherwise symmetrical platform, but *within* the body of the instrument all of that apparently symmetrical carving is tweaked based on the assumption the high string will be *here and the low string *there.
This is why […]
So, the challenge for me is that I am the ones who starts these kids down the road, a road that quickly includes so many sunk costs that switching is literally starting over again, I start them with a distinct disadvantage: the bowing motion is mechanically and neurologically much […]
The only alternative is to start custom building left-handed instruments, but then there is a need to continue commissioning left-handed instruments (and for parents to pay for them as the kids size up and grow. And the kicker is that because the skills are so specialized, a child […]
The other side of the coin is that on the violin it is the left hand that is the dexterous one (yes, I recognize the irony in the term), so to some extent every person who learns the violin with a very strong preference is at a disadvantage over relatively more ambidextrous peers.
5/
Thanks for letting me interject on your thread. This was on my mind Friday as I taught a pair of 6yr old left-handed twins who are *finally* settling in and developing some beautiful fluency about 18 months into their viola journey.
6/f
... unless we're sword-fighting.
... in which case _so many things have already gone wrong it […]
Slightly edited with the objective of sharing to LinkedIn.
Do I have your permission?
Yes!
Reading this and the comments make me wonder why? Why so much energy spent amd trauma created to eliminate left handedness.
Then I thought a bit more... Left handedness is a bit of bother when writing in ink... And also to use specific tools. But this can be easily worked around […]