Re: Learning to idle; The importance of learning ambidextrously
Shaun Arundell (shauna@au.ml.com)
Thu, 13 Oct 1994 14:56:58 +1000
kfuchs writes:
>I don't agree, the non-dominant side will take longer to learn a
>skill, since by definition the dominant side always learns faster.
>Perhaps what you really mean can be illustrated by the following
>example: A unicyclist who learned to ride one footed five years ago
>with his dominant foot, and just learned to glide with his dominant
>foot, decides its about time he learn to ride one footed with his
>non-dominant foot. So based on his accumulated experience over the
>past five years in other skills using both the dominant and
>non-dominant foot, learning to ride one footed with his non-dominant
>foot may now be a "piece of cake" (take less time than it did five
>years ago for his dominant foot.)
What you are talking about here is skill transfer from one system
to another (from the left hand to right hand, etc). There has been a
great deal of research done on this issue. I won't
bore you with it here, but there is a rather good article in
the juggling archives about skills transfer. The research
shows that working on a skill with one leg improves
the other leg (or had, or foot, or whatever). This means you
are allways better off getting a skill to a good level on the
dominant side, before learning the skill on the weak side.
The article is called "Whats the Best Way to Practise Juggling?" by
David Naylor, its in the juggling archives in a file called
naylor.practise. I've got a copy if anybody wants it.
shaun