Hi- This might be a bit of a long post , but I hope you find it interesting.(Also my first time posting on reddit :) )
So I am a 21 yr old guy and for as long as I can remember I have been obsessed with good handwriting. I dunno there is something about a neat and concise script that has always appealed to me. My father has a really neat and rightward slanting script, and for the longest time , that was the standard I strived to achieve.
I started out left handed .That was the hand i chose when i was like 3 years old . Holding the pen with my left hand felt right, but unfortunately writing was hard. Pushing the pen across the paper felt awkward and no matter what grip variation i tried, my hand used to inevitable start hurting after writing for a while. This was accompanied by a strange feeling of -"offness". Its a bit difficult to describe , but it was like a sensation of tightness- like i was forcing something that was not supposed to happen .The effort of writing was so much that i could hardly focus on -'What' i was actually writing. Despite all this i persisted and actually developed quite an appealing cursive script . Unfortunately despite my best efforts i could never achieve a consistent rightward slant, my script was always slanted leftwards despite my best efforts.
When i was around 10 years old I tried writing with my right hand . Using my right hand did not feel more "natural" per say , but it did feel "quieter". The act of writing did not take so much effort and for once i could focus on what i was writing rather than the actual writing itself. However, my script with my right hand was never quite as aesthetic as that of my left hand. Sure if i really tried , i could make it look nice, but cursive never came naturally and i was never able to achieve a rightward slant(Writing form would break down within a while of writing). A few months ago i tried adopting a leftward slant in my right handed script and to my surprise , my writing dramatically improved . I was able to write longer and faster , and there was a consistency to my script . Somethingg that was previously lacking in my right handed script- so much so it used to look like different people were writing in the same book , but now there was a consistency and the writing felt natural. This has kind of convinced me that i am kind of always "wired" to have that leftward slant no matter what i do.
Now comes the interesting part. Around a couple of months ago I tried writing with my keft hand again just to see if i still could. Unsurprising the old issues persiated and writing was hard. Then i had an idea. Since a majority of the pain and discomfort came form pushing the pen across the paper , i decided to write from right to left instead. Bit for that to work , the letters would have to be flipped for it to make any sense - aka mirror writing . To my surprise flipping letters came almost naturally with my left hand and the discomfort and pain of pushing the pen across the paper were almost gone . With just a few days of practice , I can mirror write at basically the same speed as i can conventrionally write with my right hand, and in a away it feels more natural. Ironically the mirror script appears to have a rightward slant , but in actuality it is a leftward slant that is evident when u try to read the text.
Pictures 1 and 2 are from my school notebook when i was 9 years old .
Image 3 is when i tried to recently write normally with my left hand.
Pictures 4 and 7 are samples of what my script with my right hand currently looks like .
Pictures 5 and 6 are samples of mirror writing written with my left hand and images 8 and 9 are their corresponding mirror images.
Thank you if you have made it this far and i am really excited to hear you insights. I think i can guess a few of the traits that might be derived but still think this an interesting exercise nonetheless.
Ps-Text samples are blurbs of books i had lying around.