Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Writing Right: One Month Mark!

I’ve been practicing writing and drawing with my right hand for one month now! One of the things I’m doing to measure progress is recording a video of myself drawing the Two Hands Two Crowns logo on the first day of the month. The new video is up, check it out! Also here are some lists related to my new pass-time.

AMBIDEXTROUS OBSERVATIONS:

1. It is surprisingly fun, I look forward to my lesson every day!
2. When I practice in a waiting room or on a bus, people can’t help but stare and formulate ideas. I assume they assume I grew up in the wild and just enrolled in elementary school.
3. Cursive is easier than printing because you don’t have to lift the pen, however is doesn’t look as neat.
4. Its very annoying to write while wearing a watch, I’ve started removing it before each lesson.
5. When drawing with both hands, even if my brain can send two messages to my hands, I still only have one set of eyes.
6. I hold pens differently in my left hand than I do in my right, soon as a let my right hand hold a pen the way it wanted to, things got easier.
7. When using both hands simultaneously, drawing is easier if the hands are mirroring each other, however, when writing it is easier if the hands are doing the same action.
8. I’m mildly better at basic mental math, perhaps this is because of my left brain is more simulated.
9. It’s not hard to make your printing look perfect, but very difficult to make it look perfect while writing at a reasonable speed.
10. On February 9th, CBC’s radio program Q featured Gwendolyn Bounds, a specialist who talked about the benefits of handwriting on the brain. This made me feel infinitely superior to the average person.

NEW EXERCISES FOR THIS MONTH:

1. Designating one day every week where I only write with my right hand.
2. More simultaneous exercises, both mirrored and identical motions.
3. Start making the switch from pencil to pen.

The image above is of a simultaneous lettering, when I did it I kept my eyes mostly on the right sheet, trusting my left hand to know what it was doing. Normally (when writing with just one hand at a time) my penmanship is at least twice as good as what you see there. It seems by ordering my brain to do two tasks at once, each task is executed at half its normal quality. Interesting!

2 comments:

  1. you have one set of eyes but you also have two eyes. can you train them to operate independently of one another like a chameleon does?

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  2. Great suggestion Becky. I'll start working on independent eye mobility soon as I've mastered ambidextry. Just think of all the friends this will earn me.

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