The Sporting Advantage When You Are Ambidextrous
For those that have never heard this term before it is someone who can use their right and left hand equally well. Many people can use both hands, but more importantly not equally which is the rarity.
Yesterday I was watching a cricket game and one of the bowlers could bowl using both arms which is very rare. Normally you will come across cases where someone fields and throws with one arm and bats using the other. Finding someone who can do both equally well using either arm is very rare.
Reading up on this people mentioned certain footballers who can use both feet ,but I feel using the arms is very specific and takes much more skill. I can kick a ball just as accurately and hard as I do my stronger preferred foot and this comes down to practice and not necessarily being ambidextrous.
The advantages of being able to use both arms in sport and I guess in life would benefit that individual immensely. Being left handed for sports definitely has an advantage not only the obvious, but also when people defend against your tactics as they are the opposite of what they are used to.
Just imagine being able to serve left or right hand in tennis and never not having to be playing the backhand as both left and right hands are the same strength with no difference. The cricketer yesterday was able to switch up bowing left and right arm depending on which side had the shortest boundary and whether he was bowling to a left or right handed player.
When I was in my late teens my mother mentioned to me one day that when I was much younger I favored my left hand. At my first school they informed my mother they were making me use my right hand which I think is kind of odd and in my book not right. I can kick a ball with my left foot about 80% as well as the right, but throwing with my left is definitely not great. When we chat about this topic she regrets not stopping the school at the time as I have never heard of others experiencing this. Why would a school think that left handed is so wrong to convert a child to become right handed?
I have often wondered what kind of difference this would have made as for one you would think differently to other right handers when facing a task. Lefthanders have to think differently in a right handed world leading to right brain development which benefits creativity and a different way of thinking.
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There is definitely a difference between practicing with a weaker foot and being naturally ambidextrous. Kicking a ball is one thing, but the fine motor skills required for throwing or serving in tennis are much harder to replicate.
I’m left footed at football and left handed at tennis but right handed a golf . although I’ve a stronger serve with my right hand at tennis even though I can play with my right. I’m all over the shop . I write with my right hand .
This sounds so mixed up and yet it works for you.
That is strange but not completely unheard of.
There are a couple of Aussie cricketers I know of (Shane Watson and Jason Berendorf) that bowl with 1 arm/hand and write with the other. There is a current England cricketer (Jack Leach) who bowls left arm but throws right arm. You'd have thought he should try and develop his skill set to be ambidextrous like the guy @cryptoandcoffee is describing.
In cricket there is a theory that you shouldn't class a batsman as right or left handed. Instead you should refer to them as top or bottom hand dominant. I don’t play golf but I suspect you could make a similar argument.
In Ireland that grip is called the Hurly grip and it is the plagued of Irish golfers as we all use the hurley grip starting in golf only to reach a certain handicap. It is rare that the hurley grip succeeds in the low handicaps . I see one pro with the hurley grip on the PGA and he is some journeyman. I changed my grip and I regret not staying with the hurley grip as I was bloody better. Now I'm shit
was there any real advantage to bowling with one arm or the other? Perhaps depending on which hand the batsman is using?
Yes and the size of the grounds and which way the wind is blowing. A bowler will try and get the batsmen to target the larger side of the ground into the wind as many wickets are not smack bang in the middle so the boundary sizes do vary. A right hand bowler to a left handed batsman and a left hand to a right handed batsman.