Left, Left, Left Right Left
2018 01 24 | journal
Up until I started Iaido I'd never given too too much thought to how much I favoured the right side of my body. I'm heavily right-side dominant. It's all to do with my vision. My left eye is basically useless - the lights are on, but no one's much home. It led to me overcompensating way too much - and sometimes still a bit - with my sword. I always think I'm in the middle, but I'm not.
Last night, during karate, the sensei noticed that when we were doing exercises that favoured the right side of the body, I had my weight perfectly centered between both feet; but when we did exercises that favour the left side of the body, all my weight seemed to be on the right side.
I was telling this to my fellow dojo mates during Iaido this evening, and one of them said, "You don't trust the left side of your body." I"I'd never thought of it in quite those terms before, but he's absolutely right. I don't trust the left side of my body. I never have; never really could. I can't see anything coming from that side of the body. I can't read with that eye unless the text is large and my face is right against it.
It's taken a lot of diligent effort to compensate for this over-compensation. Forty some-odd years of habit to overcome.