Recently I've been experimenting with throwing left-handed (**hidarikiki, hidari = left, kiki= effective** in Japanese) instead of my natural right hand. Happily, I can report that so far so good! I'm improving my accuracy from being wildly inaccurate to getting a sense of where the ball is going, I'm getting a little bit of movement on it with spin, and the velocity is almost as good as my right hand throw (I think), as long as I put my body into the throw (the key for anyone who wants to get the full velocity, IMO). I hope to be able to throw with either hand and be ambidextrous (両手利き, ryoutekiki in Japanese) soon.
When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a left-handed pitcher. Maybe it had something to do with Tom Glavine and Randy Johnson being at the height of their prime, maybe the fact that it made me feel special if I could do something only 10% of the population was able to do, maybe it was the fact I wanted to be a baseball player and they said being a left-handed relief pitcher was one way to sneak into the big leagues. (unfortunately you still have to have a 90 MPH fastball with that) Even though I was born right handed and encouraged to be righthanded by my parents (thanks Chinese culture of "correcting" left-handedness), I fought it. I think my sister and probably many others have the same fascination of handedness when they're in their adolescence, part of a struggle to find identity and to be something special I guess ( I wished for superpowers all the time when I was a kid even until age 20 fueled by the TV series Heroes, which coincidentally is back on TV now in the form of Heroes: Reborn!)
Anyway, it's always been a desire of mine to be left-handed, and while writing left-handed hasn't worked out, throwing left-handed might actually work for me thanks to dodgeball. I'm inspired by MLB's only ambidextrous player, Oakland A's relief pitcher Pat Venditte, who can pitch from either hand. Theoretically he can switch to either hand based on the hitter to create lefty-lefty matchups, which is a pretty good advantage for a baseball team (unfortunately Pat didn't have a stellar year in his first season with a 4.40 ERA but I'm rooting for you Pat!) Throwing with either hand doesn't have any discernable advantage in dodgeball (I'm working on a almost-simultaneous left-then-right throw but it's not physically possible to go with both hands at full speed at the same time) except to save my arm during the course of a week, which for me might be huge with 3, 4, sometimes 5 days of dodgeball in a week. I'm already feeling some shoulder pain setting in in my right hand after 3 years of dodgeball, but I have a fresh one on the left!
I guess trying to become ambidextrous is just another skill that I want to pick up, to be good at, to make myself feel better about myself, to have a purpose to strive for, to make me feel special, like that 13-year old kid who wanted desperately to be Batman. I guess I might have to settle for throwing left-handed.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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