How to Become Left Handed

Training to becoming left-handed when you are naturally right-handed is a fun and interesting challenge. If you manage to achieve it, you will become ambidextrous (a person who can use both hands with equal facility), just like many great historical figures such as Einstein, Michelangelo, Harry Kahne, Tesla, da Vinci, Fleming and Benjamin Franklin. Learning to use your left hand will take time and patience, but it is achievable with a little effort and an open-mind!

Practice using your left hand daily. Becoming proficient with your left hand will not happen overnight - it's a process that could take months or even years to complete. So if you want to learn how to use your left hand, you will need to commit to practicing daily.

• Set some time aside each day to practice your left hand writing. It doesn't need to be much; even 15 minutes a day will help you to improve at a satisfying pace.
• In fact, it is better not to commit yourself to practicing for long periods of time, as you will probably get frustrated and be inclined to give up.
• Practicing a little everyday is the best way forward.
• Practice drawing letters in the air. Start by doing this exercise with your right hand, and then transfer it to your left hand by copying. Transfer the skill to paper later; sustained practice will be required to properly prepare your muscles.

Position your hand correctly. When training yourself to write with your left hand, it's important that you hold the pen or pencil comfortably.

• Many people are inclined to grip the pen too tightly, balling their hand up into a claw around it. However, this creates tension in the hand, causing it to cramp up and become tired easily. When this happens, you will not be able to write well.
• Keep the hand loose and relaxed instead, mirroring how you hold the pen with your right hand. Make a conscious effort to relax your hand every few minutes while you are writing.
• The materials you write with can also make a significant difference to how comfortable you find writing with your left hand. Use nice quality, lined writing paper and a good pen with free-flowing ink.
• Also tilt the paper or writing pad you're working with 30 to 45 degrees to the right. Writing at this angle should feel more natural.

Practice your ABC's. Begin by writing out your ABC's with your left hand, in both capital and lower case letters. Go slowly and carefully, concentrating on making each letter as well-formed as possible. Accuracy is more important than speed for now.

• As a point of comparison, you should also write out your ABC's using your right hand. From then on, you can focus on getting the letters you write with your left hand as perfect as those you write with your right.
• Hold on to your practice pages by keeping them in a folder somewhere. Then when you reach a point where you feel frustrated and tempted to give up on your quest to become left-handed, you can look back on these sheets and see how far you have progressed already. This should give you renewed motivation to continue.

Practice writing sentences. When you become tired with the ABC's, you can progress onto writing sentences.

• Start with something simple like "I am writing this sentence with my left hand." Remember to go slowly and focus on neatness rather than efficiency.
• Then try writing "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" over and over again. Since this sentence contains every letter of the alphabet, it's a good one to practice with.
• Other sentences containing all 26 letters are: "The five boxing wizards jumped quickly" and "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs"

Use writing workbooks. When children are learning to write for the first time they use writing workbooks where they can trace over letters made from dotted lines. This helps them to control their hand movement and gain accuracy.

• When learning to write with your left hand, you are essentially teaching both your hand and your brain how to write all over again, so using these workbooks is not a bad idea.
• You can also use copies with extra lines on the paper to ensure your letters are in the correct proportions.

Have patience. As mentioned above, learning how to write with your left hand is a process that will take time and dedication. You will need to be patient with yourself and prevent yourself from giving up too easily.

• Remember that it took you years to master writing with your right hand as a child and even though it shouldn't take you quite this long to write with your left (as some of the skills are transferable) the learning process will take time.
• Don't worry about speed initially; just keep practicing with as much control and accuracy as you can and you will become faster and more confident with time.
• Keep reminding yourself of what an impressive and useful skill it will be when you can write with your left hand. Staying motivated is the biggest challenge you'll face as you work towards becoming left-handed.