ABSTRACT

When I was 17, I fell in love with mark-making and calligraphy. Little did I know that being left-handed was going to cause problems for myself and for some tutors and professionals in helping an eager student to reveal the complexities of the broad-edge pen. Some of them even voiced it loudly and clearly that it was impossible to teach left-handers because the basic training system was developed for right-handers and lefties should just stay away. All this frustration originated because of two issues:

Trying to get the ink to flow using a broad-edge nib

Group teaching versus individual coaching

I must say I did feel for them. It just isn’t easy trying to get a group of people into the process of mark-making and letter-making: explaining the importance of posture, discovering new materials and focusing on the individual characteristics of these twenty-six letters of the alphabet can be overwhelming. There is so much to talk about and to show when students are starting out writing that one doesn’t want to spend time with just one student whose clumsiness is shown the minute he tries to write. The advantage of teaching right-handers is that in general, they will all be able to make a pretty good copy of the shape by demonstrating this once (Figure 5.1). Unfortunately, it usually doesn’t work for left-handers. Most teachers want their students to do well, and it just is not funny to see a left-hander struggle like mad to get the ink to flow, making a mess everywhere, and watch his frustration slowly move into anger. Both student and teacher could get quickly discouraged when at the same time most right-handers usually progress at a steady speed.