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The image caption is interesting: as a right-handed person myself, it had never occurred to me that handedness would matter so much in shodō. I wonder if Wester

• emaro 2y ago
  Not really sure about calligraphy specifically, but since western languages are written left to right, it's always harder as a left-handed person. Because you have to push instead of pulling, where the latter makes fluid shapes easier.
• NalNezumi 2y ago
  Left-handed calligraphy is slightly harder in shodo. The two main thing I've struggled over the years is how to end a line in a beautiful way. Usually, a line start with pressing slightly harder, then "drag" it while slowly lifting the pencil, making that end of the line more aesthetic by thinning it out. And at the end you move it swiftly. It's much easier to control this end movement when you're dragging towards your body, rather than away from it. For left handed, it's essentially the opposite in the way that what for right handed is dragging towards you(r right hand) is away, so all the details become the opposite. Apparently you can learn this as a lefthanded too, but in Japan it's quite common to "correct" lefthanded kids to learn to use both hands for writing, so not many people know the struggle or the remedy. (my mom used to point out that me and my younger brother wrote badly, and we are both left handed)