1. Most left-handers I met did not indicate difficulties at school, but I do remember meeting an older gentleman who was left-hand-dominant but wrote with his right hand – he alluded to his schooling influences, but I did not think to pursue the issue with further questions at that point and unfortunately never met the gentleman again.

A particularly interesting case I encountered was a gentleman who, although having a disfigured right hand, persisted in using his right hand for manual tasks (including writing) when his left would have been physically more capable. Again, I failed to pursue the peripheral research interest by asking this gentlemen if he felt social pressures to use his right hand or if he had simply never bothered to train his left. The gentleman did describe phantom-limb pain though and he was very relieved that I was able to explain to him what that was (to the extent that we can describe what phantom-limb pain is)…

2. In terms of hitting someone else, I never witnessed anyone hit another person in anger during my stay in Indonesia, (I found them to be very friendly people, many of whom express great pride in practicing patience during situations of adversity). I did, however, practice a martial art called Pencak Silat. It always fascinated me that a lot of the ‘traditional’ schools of Pencak Silat taught techniques that were almost entirely right handed. At the very least, techniques were usually initiated with a right hand or right leg attack. I did ask a lot of questions about this practice to many of my teachers. In my experience of all other martial arts, I have always found it very rare to practice one side of the body exclusively (all except perhaps medieval re-enactment).

One of my teachers said that the practice of training only the right hand side of the body was reminiscent of the fact that Pencak Silat was originally used to train soldiers.

Another of my teachers claimed that he encourages his qualified students to train both sides of their body. He said that teaching people the techniques on the right hand side of the body was easier and more efficient. “Once they had learnt it on the right”, he said, “then they could go home and teach themselves how to do it on the left.”

Another teacher actually discouraged me from practicing techniques on my left suggesting that it was aesthetically displeasing. I was unable to find a line of questioning that uncovered a reason why. I wish my Indonesian was better because then I would have been able to exclude the possibility that it was not my Indonesian which hampered my attempts to obtain an explanation. I suspect that the aesthetics of using the right hand WERE more pleasing to him but that it was the first time that he had consciously thought about this and been requested to verbalise his reasons.

A number of informants claimed that it was just the way things were done.

Only one of my Indonesian teachers taught me techniques on both sides of the body, but this teacher did not have a good reputation with his peers and the majority of his students were foreigners.

One practitioner, though not local, suggested that Pencak Silat is about learning the quickest and easiest way to fight. His firm belief was that the quickest and easiest way to learn how to fight is to use the more skilled side of your body.

Concerning practices of Pencak Silat in Indonesia i must rely on the opinions and beliefs of my informants as well as my own observations and experiences. On a personal note, however, I am convinced of the greater complexity and thus robustness achieved by ambidexterity. The ART of a martial art is the ability to be able to adapt to all situations. Hence, I train on both sides of my body.

No, because I really like being left handed.