(Video link here.) We find this video of guys throwing balls with their “other hand” is both hilarious and curiously illuminating. It’s really funny how cockeyed throwing with the other hand makes these guys, and how off their aim. But intentionally switching handedness — or any practice we do routinely — can be a kind of training. It forces you to be present, see things differently and engages different parts of the brain. We’ve found that writing with our “other hand” produces a very different kind of writing: wilder, more personal, another voice within us.

It’s just on other way of waking ourselves up.

Via the great Manny Howard, author of My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm, a true-life tale that would make a perfect holiday gift for the urban farm fantacists on your list. 

manny

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3 replies on “what happens if you throw with your other hand?

  1. Lost the use of my dominant (left) hand in a terrible accident last year. This was a great lift for my sometimes weary spirit.

  2. Hi Maris, When I was a kid, I was changed from left to right. I only learned of it when I was about 20; a family friend observed me doing something and said: “I didn’t know you were left handed”, because of the way I was holding a glass, and my mother told the story.

    In the course of my life, two accidents have resulted in my once-dominant hand being very cockeyed:it doesn’t have full range of motion and some fingers are numb, though it basically works, thanks to a brilliant microsurgeon. One accident resulted in my not having use of it at all for several months, in itself quite a shift of gears; I had to improvise like crazy to get through that time, and then deal with that hand being severely disabled for quite a while. But I found that gradually I adapted and devised new ways of navigating. And from time to time, when I do consciously switch to it, and write or draw with it, it truly IS as though it accesses a different part of myself. If I really get into the discipline of using it as my dominent hand, it definitely gets stronger and more able despite all that’s happened. So that is I guess why the left-handed throwing post resonated so much, and reminded me of the possibilities…. Wishing you continued healing. Sally

  3. I trained as a magician from age 11 and have always practiced far more with my left hand than my right (dominant) hand. As a result, my left hand is now more sensitive, agile and supple than my right, which is still stronger.

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