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Are you? When it comes to fingering on the shakuhachi with holes in a straight line, how many of you can switch the top hand comfortably? Is there any real benefit in developing this skill? I have found that in other applications in life I like to be able to do tasks with either hand. Comes in handy (pun intended) when mousing, or hammering for example.
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Hi,
I'm a lefty but fairly ambidextrous when it comes to sports etc. I play right hand on the bottom though with shakuhachi, I'm just used to playing that way.
Yokoyama sensei played left hand on the bottom and my teacher Okada sensei made an effort for awhile to try to switch to left on bottom. It was a little easier to mimic the teacher that way and he could play some of the Yokoyama sensei's off-centered holed flutes with ease. Other than being able to play a flute that's made a for a lefty though there doesn't seem to be any advantage.
My teacher primarily plays right hand on bottom but he said that with really long chokan it's a nice switch physically because your body naturally develops the muscles needed to play in a certain position for long periods of time.
But other than giving yourself a new little challenge, as if we didn't have enough already , or if you fell in love with a left handed flute, there doesn't really seem to be any benefits. You're still using both hands so I doubt there is much difference with right/left brain activity, but I'm not a neuroscientist. By the way, Left handed people rock
even though we write backwards=sdrawkcab sometimes!
Other people may have found some benefit in it though. If so I'd like to hear about it too.
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There are advantages such as reducing the risk of repetitive stress. I play both ways but I only play simple stuff "left handed". If you are a beginner and start doing both regularly you will probably benefit more than if you try to change after being advanced.
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I'm ambidextrous, always did things like my teachers (mostly righties, but my main teacher was a lefty), never gave it much thought. When I got an injuri on my right arm, I continued playing the badmintoncompetition left handed, which was mostly a problem for my playing partners. The only nasty thing is that having no strong feeling for left and right, I easely turn left when people tell me to turn right. I've learned one lesson though: choose a site to do a certain thing with and stick to that, create a habit, continues changing askes for attention better used for other things.
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