How It Started

One day I wondered, what if I’m supposed to be left-handed but got taught to use my right hand for everything? Also, could handedness be a myth? From there, I started an experiment of learning to write with my left hand.

This is perhaps the most useless side project I’ve done, but I loved it a lot!

The Method

A few months ago, I discovered this lovely granny’s handwriting method. I got a copy of her booklet for improving adult’s handwriting from her website. I thought this was a suitable training program for this experiment.

Using her method, I practised about 20 mins per day, for 14 days. Here’s what happened.

My left hand’s handwriting improved significantly, from impossible to slow but usable. I was impressed.

Day 1 & Day 2

On day 1, I thought it was impossible. I thought it’d be good if I just get comfortbale with drawing something on paper with my left hand. It looked and felt a bit crazy.

On day 2. I felt more comfortble with the idea of drawing straight lines with my left hand. I attemped to write a couple letters very slowly.

Day 3 & Day 4

There were significant improvements during these couple days. My hand feels a lot more comfortbale with the motion of writing. I was surprised by how well some letters turned out, although it was still very difficult.

Days Between

The improvement seemed to have slowed down. My speed improved from a snail to a sloth. The important part was that my hand motion became a lot smoother. The lines became less wobbly.

Day 13 & Day 14

The letters look much better now. It’s still too slow for me to take notes with my left hand. But I slowly wrote a couple lines on my journal and felt good about it.

Conclusion

With the sample size of one, I can’t draw a conclusion on whether handedness is a myth. To me, it seems possible that handedness is more related to practice than natural abilities.

I don’t know if I chose the wrong dominant hand either. I plan to continue practising handwriting with my left hand until it’s as fast as my right hand, then see if a preference arises.

There is another interesting observation. My right hand’s handwriting improved without practising it. It could be the result of I becoming more patient with my handwriting. Or it could be that through training my left hand, I trained some areas in my brain that are used for both sides of my body.

I enjoyed this experiment a lot. It’s fun to allow myself to be horribly bad at something. As the days went by, I noticed that I started to expect more. Then it became a practice of letting go of tension and expectations. I found it relaxing to focus on drawing the shapes.

If you’d like to repeat this experiment, have a chat with me! I’d love to know what happens!

• experiment
• handedness
• handwriting