Lonedar wrote:
Numbuk wrote:
I am right handed. But I have trained my left hand to do a lot of things that most people's right hand does exclusively.
The biggest one is using a mouse. I use a mouse a lot at work and now that I am getting older, I noticed that between work and my recreation gaming at home, I began to get repetitive stress injuries. I don't relax with tv or movies. I relax with games. In fact, 9 times out of 10 when people ask me if I've seen X Tv Show, I say no. I just don't watch much of anything.
So when work was infringing on my hobby, I decided to do something about it. I took my microsoft mouse, placed it on the left side of the keyboard, swapped the buttons around, and started learning to use it left handed. I figured splitting up the mouse workload between work and home would help.
It did.
I wouldn't trust playing a first person shooter with it (though I think I'd do pretty well) but I can navigate windows and web pages with the same speed as anyone else.
Ya, know...I just might give this a try...
Some things I discovered that may be helpful:
- It was easier for my brain to adjust by swapping the buttons around too. So that "left clicking" is still done by your index finger... just on your other hand.
- I found that no matter how proficient I got with my left hand, I still could not match the same pointer speeds that my right hand can do. I had to turn the sensitivity down a bit for my left hand, though in my brain they both feel equal in terms of speed.
Something to Note: My right-handed mice are way, WAY more sensitive than the average bear. I have yet to meet someone who was comfortable using my mouse at my default speed. So I don't know if that will still scale for other people having to turn down their sensitivity or not. It's possible it won't.
- It will probably take a week or two of constant use to get used to it. It is probably the most frustrating the first couple of days. After that it gets easier.
- I originally even changed my mouse cursor, since the cursors always lean to the left (ie: even the cursor is built for right handers). I found that it helped my brain adjust at first. But over time it got to be a pain to change the cursor for all of my Virtual Machines I work with and I eventually got used to the normal right-handed cursor. I don't even notice which way the cursor is leaning anymore. If you only work on one machine, it's up to you what you want to do.
Your motor skills will develop. The biggest obstacle is getting your brain used to it. The closest analogy I have is that it's similar to learning to juggle. It's not just motor skills you're training, but your brain as well. After a couple weeks it felt normal, and the more I used it after that I don't even notice that I am doing it anymore and just feels as natural as when I am at home.
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