Having spent the past two weeks using my non-dominant left hand while my right hand heals, I thought I’d share my experiences. It was surprisingly hard! For the first few days I dropped a lot of things. My left hand was clumsy and uncoordinated. I knew practicing the awkward movements would wake up the under-used parts of my brain needed to get that left hand to cooperate, and eventually it did. I’m still clumsy, but it’s better.
This experience reminded me of my first encounter with “Swimming Dragon Stretches its Tail.” (For the uninitiated, that’s a Qigong movement where the hands and visual focus move in opposition to each other.) Because the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, and vice versa, this cross lateral movement feels quite tricky. But with practice the two hemispheres of the brain learn to coordinate smoothly until all the Swimming Dragon movement variations feel natural and harmonious. You undoubtedly have experienced this yourself as you’ve learned to master new movements.
To put it simply, the left brain is believed to be better at performing familiar movements, and the right brain is more skillful with new things. Like Yin turning to Yang, the two hemispheres switch dominance continually. Cross-lateral moves, i.e. reaching any of the limbs across the body to the opposite side, help strengthen the integration between the two brain hemispheres as well their functions. This helps with general physical coordination and balance, and is believed to contribute to creativity and overall cognitive function, as well. It’s a fascinating topic, still at the beginning of its research in the West, although Qigong/TaiChi and Yoga have taught these principles for centuries.
Here's a fascinating take on the topic from Dr. Dan Siegal, founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine:
