I was assaulted over the weekend at work and broke a rib. Of course it's my dominant side so pulling shots is definitely not fun with that arm at the moment. Honestly never tried this before but managed to pull an acceptable shot. Not near my normal pulls but drinkable. I will probably have to do this for a few weeks so I am going to use it as practice.

Anyone else ever try non dominant handed pulls? Obviously I need to retrain myself a bit but the differences in the cup made me wonder if my left will pull different shots even after getting some skill.

It takes time to train the muscle memory. Some claim 10,000 repetitions.

Broken collar bone required me to learn to bowl, shoot, draw and mouse with the left arm. Still mouse on the left.

I learned to drive on the right and shift with the left. Didn't slow me down at all.

Definitely takes time. The shots have all been decent just different tastes coming out from the same beans. Made me think that my left will probably end up more in the 6 bar range as that's probably close to what it feels like pulling.

Wow, that stinks. At work!? I hope the assaulter is getting what's coming to him/her.

I regularly pull with my non-dominant hand. It's more out of necessity with my kitchen layout. It's not nearly as challenging as say writing with the ND hand. I have a PPK on my LP, so that helps tremendously.

Have a speedy recovery. I use a Robot so that means I pull with both hands/arms. I don't think it would work very well one-armed, so I'd probably switch to one of my spring levers if I had to use my non-dominant hand to pull a shot. I'm not sure the shots would ever taste the same, but you could build up skill with your non-dominant hand to improve them.

I found out later in life that I was supposed to be left handed but my teachers got tired of me using both hands and picked my right hand for me. Seems it's too late to switch now for things like writing, but I do hold my fork in my left and my knife in my right and never switch back and forth like some.

Yes the assaulter was removed by police I believe to a psych ward as this was VERY out of character. All I did was bump a cart with water on it as I opened the walk in cooler. There was a good bit that happened after I left which I didn't see but heard about. They are lucky they didn't get killed by the police.

Back to the real topic. Luckily I am relatively ambidextrous if needed I can do most things with my left that the right can. Some of them better. Lol. My right is strong (ish) and my left is clever and much easier to do subtle things. The left is not as strong as I am not getting the heavy syrupy shots. Definitely more clear so must be somewhere in the 6 ish bar range.

Todays pulls so far (off day) have all been about on par with my right arm. I changed to an Ethiopian sidamo that is better as a normale over the ristrettos I was pulling with a Bali dp. Little easier to pull and focus on technique. And best of all didn't pull at my ribs. Lol.

Aside from having to move my machine around a bit to get a better angle of approach I think in the long run it wouldn't really affect flavor much using same techniques. May have been the painkillers the first day. Ha ha.

I recently started pulling with my non-dominant hand due to a shoulder issue I was having. It took a couple of days to get used to it (although not "comfortable"). The pulls on the first day were ok, not sink shots, but not great. Ever since it has been fine. My shoulder felt better within 2 weeks of switching. Prior to switching sides the injury was persistent for months. I currently switch sides periodically to reduce the stress on my shoulders.

That's a good idea, switching hands to cross train and prevent repetitive stress injury. Maybe I should think about switching mouse hands.

Sometimes I'll do some brews without benefit of scales to practice field brewing where I might not have all my gear, which seems related.

jtrops wrote:I recently started pulling with my non-dominant hand due to a shoulder issue I was having. It took a couple of days to get used to it (although not "comfortable"). The pulls on the first day were ok, not sink shots, but not great. Ever since it has been fine. My shoulder felt better within 2 weeks of switching. Prior to switching sides the injury was persistent for months. I currently switch sides periodically to reduce the stress on my shoulders.

My left shoulder is my bad shoulder usually. Which is why I never tried switching before. It's definitely not going to be pulling heavy full machine grip shots. Took the Ethiopian closer to a turbo today. Just a hair off. It made a nice cappuccino this morning. Maybe I will make my left my turbo arm after the right heals up.