Scissoring Left Handed

I am left handed.

As many left handed people know, we spend our lives adapting to a right handed world.

My mother was left handed.

I say 'was' because when she was going to Catholic school, the Nuns tied her left hand behind the chair to force her to write right handed.

To this day she writes with her right hand.

When I was in school, I was one of only two kids in my glass that were left handed.

I didn't really think a lot about it back then.

If I ran into trouble doing things left handed I would just switch to right handed.

That is what I did when I went to Grooming School.

My grooming kit came with right handed scissors.

I was told that they would try to get me left handed scissors, but I didn't want to fall behind in the class waiting for lefty scissors. (which never came by the way)

In a way, it was already natural to scissor right handed.

I  had already been using scissors in my right hand, at school and at home, because they would never cut when I tried with my left hand.

So for the last 28 years I have been scissoring dogs with my right hand.

I have always been on the look out for nice left handed scissors so that I could scissor both left handed and right handed.

I did buy a pair about 22 years ago, but did not like them once I tried to use them.

I was also still working on my right handed scissoring skills, and starting over with my left hand seem really daunting at the time.

For the last few years I have been looking at left handed shears at Groom Expo and Intergroom.

There really are not a lot to pick from.

I wasn't crazy about a lot of them either.

The other thing that bothered me was investing money in a pair of scissors that would be useless if I failed to teach myself to scissor left handed.

The last day at Groom Expo last year I found a pair of scissors that could be used in either hand.

They would be perfect, because I could scissor with them right handed if left handed didn't work out.

I also liked the feel of them.

The only problem was that I had already spent my limit, so I waited till this year.

 I bought one straight and one curved at Groom Expo this year.

They are shorter than I like to use, but they did not make them any longer.

Friday I decided to try them on this little Yorkie.

He is a simple clipdown #5F.

So I pulled out the scissors to scissor his face.

OMG it felt so strange!

I felt like I didn't have any control over the scissors.

I am naturally left handed, this should come easy, right?

Well, it didn't.

I felt like I was moving in super slow motion.

I don't remember it being so hard when I was in Grooming School.

I don't remember taking so long to scissor.

I don't remember feeling like I couldn't make the scissors do what I wanted.

I felt like I couldn't cut a straight line to save my life.

I was scared to death scissoring around the ears.

I felt like I couldn't even hold the ear right in my right hand.

I thought... was this what it was like when I first started grooming and I just don't remember?

 I think that I even scared the dog.

He looks scared doesn't he?

I am sure that he was picking up on my unease.

I have been grooming him every 5 weeks for a long time now.

I am sure that if he could talk, he would have asked me what the heck did I think I was doing.

Scissoring around the feet did not feel as strange.

But, I was still going super slow.

Scissoring the back leg felt really awkward.

I felt like I could not get the scissors to do and cut what I wanted.

My hand would suddenly jerk the scissor cutting more than I wanted.

I did not mean to scissor this chunk of hair out of the leg.

The scissors did it!

They had a mind of their own..I swear!

Thankfully I was able to fix it with my right hand. :)

 There was one other thing.

Can you see it in this picture?

Every time that I put the scissors down to comb or brush, I would pick them up and use the wrong finger to hold the scissor.

I also could not get my thumb to sit right.

It kept sliding too far through the hole, causing me to lose control of the scissor.

Needless to say, I only scissored one side of the dog left handed.

I could have scissored up a couple of Yorkies in the time I spent on that one side. :/

It felt so good to pick up my scissors in my right hand.

I am going to keep trying...at least once a day...if I have the time.

I will have to go back to the exercises that I learned in Grooming School to strengthen my left hand and fingers.

I am going to try really hard not to give up.

My goal is to post about a dog that I scissored entirely with my left hand.

Maybe by this time next year? :p

Happy Grooming, MFF