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Does anyone suffer from being left handed?

I don't mean that its an illness but everything appears to be tailor made to right handed people. It's okay to substitute left for right and right for left when reading instructions from books, but cards are generally made to show the pips in the top left corners, which can makes life a little difficult. For example, fanning the cards out results in a show of blank white corners! And more importantly, some other techniques which i won't mention, can cause problems.

We must have some left handed magicians. What do you do? Adapt to doing things in a right handed manner?
I'm quite heavily left handed. I've currently been practicing with a slightly awkward feeling deck that has pips in all corners so I've not before realised that I'm going to need to adapt for use of a proper deck.

Firstly I'm not actually left handed but I handle the cards as if I'm left handed e.g I hold the deck in my right hand.

I'm quite happy with using a deck of cards with pips in only two corners, which can be used to your advantage if you want to show that the deck is completely blank, but also isn't much of problem as I can always reverse fan the deck.

When it comes to learning tricks from DVD's I'm generally OK but when it comes to learning flourishes and fancy cuts I get really confused. I recently watched a flourishing DVD in a mirror so that it was the right way round for me to learn it, although it sounds crazy it did work!

Overall though things aren't much harder if you are left handed and most things can be adapted in some way.

MagicBell wrote:Does anyone suffer from being left handed?

Nope. I benefit greatly from it

Left handed all my life though I found the rappings of the cane on my knuckles helped me to develop the devil like ambidextorous abilities. It's great until you can't decide which hand you write with!

Seriously though, scissors and fountain pens....evil.

I am left handed and I posted this topic a while back http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic24187.php&highlight=. I was having the same problems. I finally gave into the fact that some tricks just dont produce the same effect when performed left handed. You just have to adapt to what feels right to you and gets the results that you want.

Now I dont view magic as right or left handed because most of the time you are using both anyway.

Big D

you think that's bad I'm ambedextrious I can't use either bloody hand (sorry poor lee evans joke) Actually I am ambedextrious but it's not particulaly great because I do some sleights left handed and some right handed it can actually be a pain but on the plus side I learn everything both handed now so it's a good benefit

I am right-handed for nearly everything (forget innuendo bingo ) but I seem to be left-handed for shuffling. I hold the cards in my left hand and shuffle into my right hand, which seems to be the opposite of what the books suggest. I can also write with either hand, but only because I have practised a lot during boring meetings.

I'm also left-handed but don't suffer!

Most tricks can be reversed easily enough. I know what you mean about cards, though. If you insist on working with cards, you'll just have to learn to fan them the right way round. (Ha ha -- "right" way -- see what I did there?) Keep practising until it comes naturally.

An example from my own life is scissors. I never had any left-handed scissors when I was growing up, so I've always used ordinary scissors in the right hand. Not through denying being a lefty, but just because that's all there was.

More extreme examples come from my mother and my husband, both right-handed but lost the use of their right hands (polio and stroke respectively). Both learned to use their left hands quite well for writing and everything else, because there was no alternative. So if they can manage that, you and I should be able to figure out how to hold a few cards.

Tomo - you find it beneficial to your magic?


I suppose where necessary, I'll have to learn particular skills the way the books suggest. Oh diddums...

On the topic of right handed scissors, why didnt you just use them in your left hand?
I did and now I cant use any kind of scissors properly.

I'm left handed as well. I admit that it is kinda hard at first, taking all instructions to the other hand...but never considered it as a big deal. I actually never thought of it again until I saw this thread.

There are certian peeks though that cannot be done unless you use the correct hand. I've learned to adjust to this as well by changing the handling...it looks very odd but it works for me.

MagicBell wrote:Tomo - you find it beneficial to your magic?

Well, lefties tend to think slightly differently, so I suppose it must affect the nature of our creativity. It's a misnomer to say people engage in right-brained or left-brained thinking because cogitation is a synthesis of both hemispheres, but as the left hand side of the body is associated with the right hand side of the brain, and because abstract thought is also more closely associated with that half, maybe there's something in it.

And of course, being "sinister" is a reward in itself!

Left-handedness is often connected with other neurological quirks and oddities. You'll find it more often than average among geniuses and highly creative people, for instance. Also psychopaths and mental defectives, so don't get too smug.

I'm an absolute bundle of neurological oddities, so no surprise at being sinistral as well. (Asperger's, synaesthesia, prosopagnosia, and disability at judging space/distance/speed, just to name what comes to mind.)

Robbie wrote:Left-handedness is often connected with other neurological quirks and oddities. You'll find it more often than average among geniuses and highly creative people, for instance. Also psychopaths and mental defectives, so don't get too smug.

There's a fine line between madness and genius

Tomo wrote:

Robbie wrote:Left-handedness is often connected with other neurological quirks and oddities. You'll find it more often than average among geniuses and highly creative people, for instance. Also psychopaths and mental defectives, so don't get too smug.

There's a fine line between madness and genius

So you're partial to "fava beans and a nice Chianti"? Fft fft fft fft....

Strep wrote:

Tomo wrote:There's a fine line between madness and genius

So you're partial to "fava beans and a nice Chianti"? Fft fft fft fft....

I certainly am!