Wrong Handed (NaBloPoMo #9)

My understanding is that most people are by nature right or left handed. It's a natural preference to use one over the other for particularly manual, dexterous  tasks. The occasional person is ambidextrous and goes both ways but that's fairly unusual.

On Tuesday I woke up with a really painful shoulder. It's kind of inside the shoulder, behind the scapula. It hurts when I do most things including typing so a short post. But knitting, using a mouse, sewing with my right hand - those all make it worse. It is gradually easing but it's bloody annoying in the meantime.

So I've moved my mouse to my left at work and tonight I tried sewing some patchwork pieces together using the needle in my left hand. It was about 1/4 the speed of my right but not actually that hard - and I've found the same thing with my mouse at work. It all has me thinking - is it worth training yourself to use both equally? Or at least to use your non-dominant hand competently.

Of course you still have to hold the fabric with your other hand so sewing with your left doesn't really help. I just can't bear sitting here doing nothing though.