Lefty??

My daughter decided she wants to learn sign language. She sat at a table with a wonderful 90% deaf woman, who is exceptional at lip reading, and thinks through math problems in sign language. You know, the kind of math that comes up in conversations. I can't think of an example now, but it happens... Anyway, she was cool, and it was fun to watch her signing away, even though we couldn't understand it. She does speak very clearly, so we got to know her that way.

Back to the point, I always say that the best way to really learn something is to try to teach it, so she found a web site...learned the alphabet, and proceeded to teach it to me. It's really fun. Some things I learned while trying to sign...I can play the piano for hours and notice only a slight tiredness in my wrists, same with typing...but signing?? Five minutes and my hand muscles were in serious danger of cramping up. They were still stiff an hour after my five minute lesson. Totally different muscles use I guess. The other thing I learned...about half way through my second lesson the next day...I was doing all the signing with my left hand. I'm completely and totally right handed. My husband says my left hand is only there for balance, and even then, it's not reliable. I can't even really play the piano with my left hand, mostly just octaves. So why am I signing with my left hand??? It's completely amazing to me. I tried it with my right hand, I can do that too, but my initial instict??? Left. Go figure.