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Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

ox.ac.uk

261–263 of 263 posts

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#261
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been playing guitar since I was a little kid. I wonder how learning "two-handed" skills such as playing music impacts how "handy" or "polydextrous" one is. There are left-handed guitar players that play right-handed, such as Nick Johnston, who claim the gaps in their technique or preference for certain left-hand-only techniques are informed by being left-handed; so it seems that a life-long of an insane amount o…

Some of the best guitarists I have met are left-handed playing right-handed guitar ones. Which also makes sense - The more difficult part of playing the guitar is not fingering/picking, it's the fretboard. By using their dominant hand on the fretboard they have a genuine advantage. I've never understood why we formed the right handed guitar to have the dominant hand on the body. There must be a reason.

I think this reason is dependency. Anything I'm doing where the action of one hand depends on the other has to go left-to-right. I can only finger frets with the left and then pick with the right. Can't go the other way, can't have the right hand act before the left, even if the left has the more complex task.

It's like Super Mario Bros. With a 4-way d-pad and 2 action buttons, why is the more complex 4-way on the left? Because most of the time you're holding a direction first with less requirement for precise timing, and then pressing the button at the correct instant depending on the movement. (We're talking general platformer play, not hyper precise d-pad moves for something like Super Metroid speedrunning.)

Even typing on a keyboard, I never hold a right-side shift or other modifier key, it's always left-shift then the target key.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were probably a left-handed person who was taught to write/use tools with their right hand in kindergarten. I got this treatment too.

When was that? I know it used to happen, but I haven't heard of or seen that in my lifetime, I'm nearly 60.

It happened to me, and I'm 60. I lived in a rural area, maybe that's why.

Re: Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm similar. I do very little with both hands, but I'm split between left and right on individual things. Throw is right, write is left. Where I especially get hung up is learning something to do with feet - surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, etc... I struggle to figure out which one is my preference. I usually find that I'm equally bad at both.

Our sports teacher in high-school would tell us to stand straight. Then he would shove us from the back a few times. The foot we would stop ourselves from falling would be our leading foot (for snowboarding). So if you catch your fall with your left foot, you're regular. Otherwise goofy. Don't know if that's a safe bet, but it seemed to work out for us back then. OTOH: I am convinced I can't snap my fingers with my r…

Our track coach would do the same thing! And he got really frustrated with me because the foot that I led with seemed to vary by day. I'd be fairly consistent on any given day, but another day I'd be consistently the other foot.
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