Interlace your fingers into a double fist

Bullgrit · Jan 19, 2012

Put your hands together to make a double fist, with your fingers interlaced between each other.

Like this [photo from a Google search -- edit: wow, that image is bigger than I thought it would be]:

Now, pull them apart and do it again, but this time shift the interlacing. That is, if your left index finger was on top, (right pinky on bottom), when you did it without thinking about it, this time make your right index finger be on top, (left pinky on bottom).

Does the new arrangement feel weird? It kind of does to me.

When you interlace your fingers without thinking about it, do you put them together in the same way each time? I do.

When I put my hands together like that, I naturally do it so my left fingers are above the right fingers. I'm naturally right handed.

How about you? How do your fingers naturally go together, and are you right-handed, left-handed, or ambidextrous?

I've just spent the last 5 minutes playing with my hands and fingers about this while reading my computer screen.

Bullgrit

jonesy · Jan 19, 2012

I'm not ambidextrous, but I'm not that far from one either, and honestly it doesn't feel different at all. And which hand ends up in the dominant position has more to do for me with what their position was before the motion began.

Gronin · Jan 19, 2012

Interesting and perhaps a bit odd.

If I do it without thinking I always link them together with my left hand above my right hand. I am also right handed.

I'm not sure how relevant my handedness is to this though as I have never been sure that I am a natural right hander. I am left footed and left eye dominant and it is my understanding that the three are linked. I have often wondered if I changed my own handedness as a child by copying what I saw around me.

There was an article a long time ago (the 70s) that linked the ability (and specifically the distance between the fingers) of individuals to do the Vulcan "Live Long and Propsper" salute. With the idea that the hand with the greater space was the dominant hand. Again I seem to be an exception to this as the distance with my left hand is greater.

Dannyalcatraz · Jan 19, 2012

I'm ambidextrous- though I'm functionally a rightie- and I interlace with my left hand fingers above the right hand ones.

Stumblewyk · Jan 19, 2012

I'm naturally a righty, and I "naturally interlace" with my right hand on top.

Though, to be honest, it doesn't feel weird at all to switch it up. I attribute this to the fact that I've learned to do a lot more with my left hand/wrist than most people due to drumming, thought I'm hardly ambidextrous by any stretch of the imagination.

Bullgrit · Jan 19, 2012

By the way: don't do a Google image search for "double fist".

Bullgrit

Fast Learner · Jan 20, 2012

I noticed this at one point and actively made a point to do it the other way in order to try to get used to it but never succeeded (I'm a righty with my left-hand index finger on top).

Similarly there is a mudra, a symbolic hand "pose", used in some Buddhist and Yogic meditation called the Dhyāna Mudrā (in case those characters don't render right on your screen, Dhyana Mudra) where you rest one hand in the other like overlapping bowls, with your thumb tips touching:

The traditional pose is your left hand resting inside/above your right hand, but it's always felt crazy wrong to me while the opposite way, right above left, felt natural and was comfortable for hours.

It's weird how one thing feels so right and the other wrong, as with the interlacing.

(In looking for an image for this post, though, I did find tons of images with the right hand on top, even though the description that went with them usually specified left on top. FWIW, for the vast majority of meditators who use the pose there's no "magic" to doing it one way or another, or even in doing it at all; it's just a matter of tradition.)

Dannyalcatraz · Jan 20, 2012

Bullgrit said:
By the way: don't do a Google image search for "double fist".

Bullgrit

A warning worth it's weight in gold, I bet.

Jhaelen · Jan 20, 2012

Bullgrit said:
When I put my hands together like that, I naturally do it so my left fingers are above the right fingers. I'm naturally right handed.

When I put my hands together like that, I naturally do it so my right fingers are above the left fingers. I'm naturally left-handed.

It doesn't feel particularly odd to me, doing it the other way, though.

Cor Azer · Jan 20, 2012

I'm right-handed, but I actually tend to not cross my thumbs when interlacing fingers - typically they just end up side-by-side. Were I to extrapolate from the pattern of my fingers, then my left thumb would be on top, but the other configuration doesn't feel wierd.