As a kid, I always believed I had superpowers. A die-hard fan of Dragon Ball-Z, I always thought there was a Goku inside me. As time passed, I grew up to find out to my utter disappointment that I had none. Nevertheless, I started building some. It may sound funny (crazy that I am), I started to torture myself into forced adaptations. One of them was…what we commonly call AMBIDEXTERITY. In my case – forced ambidexterity.
Caution: Forced ambidexterity can cause tremendous mental stress. In some severe cases it may lead to mental retardation. Try at your own risk. I did and would STRONGLY RECOMMEND AGAINST IT!
The first few days…
The initial few days are both amusing and hugely challenging. It really feels like you are learning to write, all over again; takes a lot of effort to draw those circles, triangles and squares. Scribbling A, B, C, D seems such an arduous task. Accompanying it, is a funny feeling. It feels as if you are watching over a kid struggling with his grip on the pencil; your unconditioned hand assumes an identity of its own, it isolates itself from the conditioned body and brain. You realise what a nursery child has to go through; you understand his psyche, you understand his helplessness.
By the end of the 1st month (if you can somehow manage to make it that far) your letter formation and subsequently word formation improves considerably.
Just a random fact – In case of forced or adapted ambidexterity, your left hand and right hand writing doesn’t match; it MAY match if you are congenitally ambidextrous.
After 2-3 months…
Though your adapted hand continues to improve, your other hand begins to start de-functioning. Due to nervous re-circuiting your right hand writing suffers a major blow. You get confused more often while writing. Your letter formation goes haywire. You realise something is terribly wrong! There is a strong urge to drop the practise altogether. Thankfully, I persisted. But little did I know this was just the beginning…
Another 2-3 months later…
You get gifted with something absolutely remarkable! There comes a day when it suddenly dawns upon you …things, events, people, places are being registered in greater detail. You tend to RECORD practically everything that you see. Mark my words…RECORD (and recording and recollection are two different things). I don’t know why this happens. My guess…a part of your subconscious infringes into your conscious.
Now, whenever I tell this to people they start testing my memory skills. Guys, listen…once and for all…RECORDING and RECOLLECTION are 2 different entities. Let me explain it. If Nandu (forced ambidextrous) and Pappu (normal guy) both go to a psychiatrist, Nandu would be able to recollect more than a 1000 things on hypnosis whereas Pappu would struggle to give out even a 100.This is because Nandu’s recording was much superior to Pappu. Let’s just say Nandu recorded it in 1080p whereas Pappu in 180p (‘p’ stands for pixels). Accordingly, we require more buffering time to recollect. I hope I made my point clear.
Nevertheless not to disappoint my friends, I do try to recollect and recount the exact scene, event or object in great detail (and so can many ambidextrous people) and often leave them dumbfounded. But, the entire process takes a heavy toll on us. Believe me…it is very, very exhausting. In a nutshell, I can just say we have to play the part of both the hypnotist and the re-collector in this case but it takes 4 times the energy!
When I couldn’t take it anymore…
After 7-8 months of regular writing, I decided to move to the next level. I had seen many Youtube videos in which ambidextrous people used to write mirror images with their left and straight images with their right hand. I couldn’t wait to achieve this feat. Every day, whenever I had free time, I would sit down and write and write and write for hours together. The entire exercise had a debilitating effect on my vocals. My power of speech slowed down…I began to stammer. Being a passionate talker, I took notice of the imperfection in no time. I had no option but to quit… :(.
Within a day or two, the stammering disappeared. This further confirmed its causal action. I knew I had to abandon the exercise completely. I was far too terrified to continue.
There are people who tell me that you try to show off, try to stand out, you make up things etc. etc…. maybe I do. I NEVER ask you to believe me just as I never asked you to read through this lengthy article. But just in case you are thinking of trying out something very similar to forced ambidexterity, please do consult me. I will be more than happy to help you.
It has been more than 2 years since I dropped practising ambidexterity.How much of it do I still retain?…Well, I can still write on a whiteboard with both hands equally well, the superb recording power is still intact and even after 2 years and 3 months to be precise, I still pass both the tests for ambidexterity – the both-sided tongue flip test and the one-eye closed reading test. How credible are these tests I can’t say…but these seem to be the only ones we have right now.
If you want to know more about me and/or ambidexterity in detail, feel free to contact me via mail or post.
Nandu speaks 
Good one Nandish!! The fact that you wrote about something different and unique itself is laudable,I dont think anyone needs to doubt your efforts. Experimenting with the self is the biggest learning experience, and having the patience and perseverance to always push oneself to the limit is a great gift. Experiments such as these make us realise what all we are capable of, which we would never have had realised in the first place.As for me, I myself have tried my hand (literally :P) at ambidexterity. But I didnt strive for perfection, my only objective was to be able to write legibly with my left hand in case I confront a situation in which I need to use my left hand. Apart from that, I am a more than decent badminton player with my left hand (my natural playing hand being the right one); in fact I play with my left hand or right hand according to the level of my opponent, to always keep the match interesting :).
To begin with scientific facts – there is no reason why ambidexterity would make you better at noticing your surroundings or hamper your speech. Its just not causally possible. There are 2 types of ambidextrous people – one who are congenitally ambidextrous – these people have improper differentiation of brain functions – this manifests in many ways other than just the ability to write with both hands; they are more likely to be bisexual, they are at a higher risk of getting Attention Deficit Disorder, Schizophrenia, and other mood disorders. They have speech problems, are worse at maths, and problem solving. The other type are people who aren't ambidextrous neurologically – they are people who have a dominant hand, the other hand can never be as good as the dominant one. And it needn't be. This sort of acquired ambidexterity is also of different types – like Shivam said – one could play a sport or box with the other hand (grossly similar), play violin or piano (fine similar) or write or paint (very fine). Knowing one doesn't necessarily mean being good at the other. So its good that you can write with your non-dominant hand, but you shouldn't expect or even want it to be as good as your dominant hand. And writing with your non-dominant hand will not make you stammer. The way you've written, it seems that you made the forcible learning process very stressful. The stammer seems to be psychological (stammering is initiated by genetics and cultivated by psychological factors; there is no organic cause of a stammer).
Hi Ankit! Respect. I don't know what to say. These were my personal experiences. And like you said and I repeat…have you ever heard of someone trying to develop ambidexterity forcibly? No you haven't I guess… and neither had I… so both of us actually can't be sure of its ill effects although technically anyday you are more competent than me to examine the condition medically, I agree.Having said this, I would just like to add that it did cause some sort of schizophrenic behaviour but its too little to take notice…but yes if you have a serious phobia or fear, it can get aggrevated drastically.Also you tend to suffer a lot of frequent mood swings.After reading this article, another college kid, this time a girl has started to force herself into ambidexterity. I warned her of the consequences but she doesn't listen. Honestly, I feel she is tougher than me…(or atleast it does seem so through her replies..:P). I have asked her to pen down all her experiences day by day. Probably we'll have another set of ill experiences by the year end, and then again I would like you to comment on it.
Hi Shivam! I knew you would comment on this buddy…our frequencies match.Like you, I use both my hands to eat,play TT,brush,comb and play drums besides writing.But obviously in all cases my right hand is clearly dominant.I wanted to share another incident with you. I had once met a free-runner from Australia online who was attempting to run on all four limbs. He told me that he was often mocked at in the grounds, while practising.Still…if by chance you happen to come across people doing such crazy stuff, do get in touch with them.Maybe we can form some sort of group/team?