Comment by bradley13

I do many things in what is considered the right-handed way, but others the left way. I do a bit or martial arts (badly, but I enjoy it) and there are some things that work better for me the left-handed way there too. For a few things I'm just as good with either hand.

I think I was destined to be ambidextrous (well, ambiUNdextrous!) as I used to write the left side of the page with my left and switch over, and you'd be hard-pressed to spot where the change had happened. If teachers encouraged me to pick a side, the quality of my writing dropped on the other side of the page. I only started to favour the right when my eyes started going “properly funny” (I have a couple of faults there which interact in interesting ways) which meant to be comfortable I tended to turn what I was writing on clockwise (which made writing with the left much less comfortable/practical).

> I was a very awkward and uncoordinated kid

Same. And no different as an adult! (even worse now I get recurring vertigo…)

In my case I think it is largely due to my eyes though: my assumption being that because the faults with them changed a lot at the same time I was developing & growing generally, my body/brain were a bit hindered wrt working out the hand-eye coordination and general proprioception businesses.

One interesting note is that mix-handedness is more common than you might think, and it can confer an advantage in some sports and other areas just as full ambidextrousness can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dominance

Which is your dominant eye? I'm right-handed (confirmed by the semester I broke my right wrist in college), but pretty strongly left-eye dominant. I do everything right-handed except shoot a gun (and presumably a bow, if I were to do so). I had no idea of this until the first time I picked up a rifle in my teens.

I could see (pun intended) feeling at loose ends trying to do eye driven tasks opposite handed, especially if you are naturally left-handed.

Plenty of us righties out there like this. I write, catch, throw, kick etc. as a right hander, but surf, play the drums, jump etc. like a left hander. When I learned to box as a teenager I settled for orthodox, but it could have gone either way. Never had a problem with coordination.

I think it's genetic, and probably a spectrum. My mom's family has a few lefties, and a number of righties that play traditionally left handed positions in team sports.

Same for me, but in the opposite direction. I had a revelation a few years ago that this is probably why I mix up left and right more than what seems like normal.

I too am mixed regarding doing things with different hands - for finer movements (writing, holding a spoon) I prefer using the left hand, while for stronger movements (punching, throwing a ball) I prefer using the right hand. Not sure why though, I never underwent any "retraining".