Fara Shimbo on tue 23 apr 02
and Teaching Lefties
Rick Hugel wrote:
> If
> you think that you may someday have left handed students, buy a wheel
with
> a switch that can reverse directions. I don't know if it's that easy to
> get them in the U.S. though, but here in Japan all wheels are built that
> way.
Reversible wheels are a blessing!
There's more to being right handed or left handed than
handedness. Whichever your dominant hand is will also
be your dominant eye, and your dominant leg. You look
directly at something with your dominant eye and the other
eye adds depth. Your dominant arm and leg will, unless
you take steps to prevent it, be stronger than the other
side. In fact, if you put your two hands and two feet
together, you're likely to find that your dominant hand
is slightly longer than the other. I know I'm an extreme
case but I'm told that while I'm six feet tall standing on
my left leg, if the left side of me were the same size as
the right side of me, I'd probably only be 5' 9" (that's
a difference of about ten centimeters for you in the real
world). Lefties also, very often, have their brains switched,
so that their "right brain" skills are on the left side and so
forth and switching a lefty to a righty can cause actual
damage (this is why changing handedness became illegal
in New York City in 1962 ... a year too late for me).
I've been potting for forty years or thereabouts, and
NOTHING has improved my pots more than being able to
use a reversible wheel so that my stronger/longer arm
and hand is doing all the work-- and my dominant eye is
always looking directly at the problem. I have a
Thomas Stewart electric. What I do is: center, open
and initially raise counterclockwise; shape clockwise;
center for trimming counterclockwise; trim and smooth clockwise.
This way, not only am I using my strong side for all
the work, I'm using my strong eye to see what I'm doing.
I know there is a big push to teach people to work on
either side. While you can, to some extent, train a
lefty to be a righty (and I have the scars on my knuckles
to prove it), you can't train someone who is left eyed
to be right eyed. There's too much brain re-wiring
going on.
If you're a righty and you need to teach a lefty,
you can try what a teacher of mine once did: turned his
wheel so that he was facing me, and said, "Do what I do."
I put my hands on the side his were on without even
thinking about it. (I realize some wheels weigh more
than the people who work on them so this may not be
practical, but where it is, give it a try.)
The upshot of it all is whether you're right handed or
left handed, experiment both ways and check on which
eye is doing the looking. Whatever works is wonderful.
The wheel is symmetric, it spins just the same either way.
What I teach is this: play the wheel to your strengths,
and most importantly, to your eye. Spin it in whichever
direction you are best able to see what you're doing.
Fa
--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Fara Shimbo, Certified Public Nuisance, Master Crystallier
Shimbo Pottery, Hygiene, Colorado, USA
crystalline-ceramics.info ++ shimbopottery.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"It's great to be known. It's even better to be known
as 'strange.'" -- Kaga Takeshi
Lee Love on tue 23 apr 02
and Teaching Lefties
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fara Shimbo"
> There's more to being right handed or left handed than
> handedness. Whichever your dominant hand is will also
> be your dominant eye, and your dominant leg.
I am left-handed, but right eye dominant. Not too much trouble shooting a
rifle, but it is does cause some trouble shooting a bow. My Kyuudo
teacher
(traditional Japanese archery) said it doesn't matter which side you shoot
from.
But the gloves used to pull back the string are only made for the right
hand.
:^)
--
Lee in Mashiko
"The lyfe so short, the craft so long to learne." - Geoffrey Chaucer
(c.
1340-1400).-
._____________________________________________
| Lee Love ^/(o\| Practice before theory.
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| Ikiru@kami.com |\o)/v - Sotetsu Yanagi - |
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"All weaves one fabric; all things give
Power unto all things to work and live." - Goethe -
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