I Met a Backwards Man
 

As some may recall, I teach dance in my spare time. A few weeks back I was filling in for someone, teaching an East Coast Swing class. One of the students was a very nice elderly black man, maybe 65 years old. I had been warned that he was having extreme problems, and was very slow in his progress.

When I taught the class, the warning was confirmed. Interestingly, in the process of teaching a move called a belt turn, I discovered why. In the belt turn the leader turns to his left, counterclockwise if you were looking down from above. I had emphasized this repeatedly as I taught the pattern. But he consistently turned to his right instead.

When I pointed out the problem (not that uncommon), he became flustered. He insisted that I had said to turn to his left. I said that I did, but that he was turning to his right. He insisted that he was not. I showed him the direction of the turn while standing next to him, and he said, "Yeah, that's to the right."

Now, at first I thought this was just some bizarre naming convention, like he's thinking that if his right hand is coming forward, then that's a "right hand" turn. But no! Half jokingly I asked, "So which is your right hand?"

He raised his left hand.

Now at this pint I am pretty nonplussed, and class is getting behind. But I turned and stood in front of him and raised my right hand and asked, "Which hand is this?" He correctly identified it as my right hand. I asked him to raise his right hand, and he again raised his left.

Then I stood next to him, on his right (his real right), facing the same direction as he was, and raised my left hand, and asked him which hand it was. He siad "Right, of course."

At this point, I had to get back to class, and he seemed to be getting insulted, so I just told him to turn to his right in the belt turn, and got back to class.

The reason that I bring this up now is that I have to cover that class again tonight, and I remembered this gentleman. It has occurred to me that this cannot possibly be something that has always been like this, or he would know that he had some sort of problem. This seems like there must be some sort of recent event, possibly a small stroke or something, that has brought this on.

Should I say something to the guy?

Also, this very much reminded me of "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat."

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

It might be kind of a sensitive subject, esp. if he seemed to be aggravated when you mentioned the problem in the previous class. Does anyone drive him there or come with him? It might be best to let someone close to him know.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

It might be best to let someone close to him know. I'm not a doctor but a stroke sounds about right.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

I think his wife was with him. Good point.

Thanks.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

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This seems like there must be some sort of recent event, possibly a small stroke or something, that has brought this on.

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Could be that or dementia.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

He might be dyslexic.

See: http://ask.metafilter.com/39271/Whic...is-my-left-one

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

Maybe you had it wrong.

[img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

Do the hokey pokey at your next class and see what happens.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

Seriously though, this is a known sign of learning disability in children (it's called right-left discrimination). If he hasn't always been this way, it could easily be a neurological problem.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

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I think his wife was with him. Good point.

Thanks.

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Letting his wife know is probably the left way to deal with it.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

Everyone has always been afraid to tell him due to fears that people will think they're racist.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

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One of the students was a very nice elderly black man,


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el oh el [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

I had this problem until I was 15 or so. Not this bad, but I could never remember which was left or right. I was 15 and watching a kid's show with a friend's brother when it clicked: "Left is the hand that makes an L when you hold it up". It was easy to visualize after that and a couple of weeks later it was natural. Watching myself think about it now, deciding left from right still requires the invoking of visual or kinesthetic memory from one of the times I've decided between left and right (such as visualizing a car turning or imagining myself writing. But it's instantaneous now as opposed to requiring thought.

Point being that you can do just fine for a long time without instinctively knowing left from right.

As for your dilemma, I'd mention it quietly to the partner. She probably already knows and if not should be the one to break it to him.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
I had this problem until I was 15 or so. Not this bad, but I could never remember which was left or right. I guess I never learnt it young. My cure came while I was watching a kid's show with a friend's brother. "Left is the hand that makes an L when you hold it up". It was easy to visualize after that and a couple of weeks later it was natural. Watching myself think about it now, deciding left from right still requires the invoking of visual or kinesthetic memory from one of the times I've decided between left and right (such as visualizing a car turning or imagining myself writing. But it's instantaneous now as opposed to requiring thought.

Point being that you can do just fine for a long time without instinctively knowing left from right. You can hide these things well.

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I actually had this with the doppler shift blue/red coming/going and attributed it to the binary ness of it I could never just remember it.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

he's [censored] with ya dude

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
I had this problem until I was 15 or so. Not this bad, but I could never remember which was left or right. I was 15 and watching a kid's show with a friend's brother when it clicked: "Left is the hand that makes an L when you hold it up". It was easy to visualize after that and a couple of weeks later it was natural. Watching myself think about it now, deciding left from right still requires the invoking of visual or kinesthetic memory from one of the times I've decided between left and right (such as visualizing a car turning or imagining myself writing. But it's instantaneous now as opposed to requiring thought.

Point being that you can do just fine for a long time without instinctively knowing left from right.

As for your dilemma, I'd mention it quietly to the partner. She probably already knows and if not should be the one to break it to him.

[/ QUOTE ]

I still have no idea which letter I am going to write when I intend to write a lower-case d or b. Its essentially random, unless I spend a considerable amount of time (5 seconds at least) visualizing and trying to figure out which one is which. I am pretty much incapable of memorizing which one has the circle on the left of the line and which one is on the right.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
I had this problem until I was 15 or so. Not this bad, but I could never remember which was left or right. I was 15 and watching a kid's show with a friend's brother when it clicked: "Left is the hand that makes an L when you hold it up". It was easy to visualize after that and a couple of weeks later it was natural. Watching myself think about it now, deciding left from right still requires the invoking of visual or kinesthetic memory from one of the times I've decided between left and right (such as visualizing a car turning or imagining myself writing. But it's instantaneous now as opposed to requiring thought.

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I have problems with this too. I have trouble telling a left turn from a right turn on an overhead map. And clockwise-counterclockwise gets me every time. I can use mnemonics or do it intellectually, but it takes many seconds and I'm never quite sure about it.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

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[ QUOTE ]
I had this problem until I was 15 or so. Not this bad, but I could never remember which was left or right. I guess I never learnt it young. My cure came while I was watching a kid's show with a friend's brother. "Left is the hand that makes an L when you hold it up". It was easy to visualize after that and a couple of weeks later it was natural. Watching myself think about it now, deciding left from right still requires the invoking of visual or kinesthetic memory from one of the times I've decided between left and right (such as visualizing a car turning or imagining myself writing. But it's instantaneous now as opposed to requiring thought.

Point being that you can do just fine for a long time without instinctively knowing left from right. You can hide these things well.

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I actually had this with the doppler shift blue/red coming/going and attributed it to the binary ness of it I could never just remember it.

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I have something somewhat similar with directions. When I give directions or say which corner something is on I visualize it on the city map of Austin, then I zoom out and look for California or the East Coast to determine which direction it is. It's an almost instant process, but unless I've seen a street sign that says East Highway whatever, or have traveled on it myself while considering the direction I need to see the map of the US in my mind before I can state which direction it is.

For whatever reason I don't have to do this with North/South I either don't think about it, or simply visualizing Austin is enough. Same thing applied when I lived in Madison, WI. OK, so I'm starting to think this is quite different than your situation or OP, but whatever, I've typed it already.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

My wife, who is 49 and very sharp, has started to mess up left and right a bit the past year or so. Not anything like this, of course, but forgetting which is the left and right, every once in a while, when I say "turn left at the light."

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

My first wife, in an infamous incident, was navigating while I was driving. She told me to turn right. There was no road there. Only trees. I was squinting, looking up ahead for the turn, when she began yelling at me with increasing frequency and fervor, "Turn right! Right, right, RIGHT!" I looked at her bewildered, and she was (of course) furiously pointing left.

I stopped the car and said, "Oh, THAT right."

Strangely, that marriage did not last.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
My first wife, in an infamous incident, was navigating while I was driving. She told me to turn right. There was no road there. Only trees. I was squinting, looking up ahead for the turn, when she began yelling at me with increasing frequency and fervor, "Turn right! Right, right, RIGHT!" I looked at her bewildered, and she was (of course) furiously pointing left.

I stopped the car and said, "Oh, THAT right."

Strangely, that marriage did not last.

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Racist imo.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
I had this problem until I was 15 or so. Not this bad, but I could never remember which was left or right. I was 15 and watching a kid's show with a friend's brother when it clicked: "Left is the hand that makes an L when you hold it up". It was easy to visualize after that and a couple of weeks later it was natural. Watching myself think about it now, deciding left from right still requires the invoking of visual or kinesthetic memory from one of the times I've decided between left and right (such as visualizing a car turning or imagining myself writing. But it's instantaneous now as opposed to requiring thought.

Point being that you can do just fine for a long time without instinctively knowing left from right.

As for your dilemma, I'd mention it quietly to the partner. She probably already knows and if not should be the one to break it to him.

[/ QUOTE ]
Feynman had the same problem, he had to feel for a mole on one of hands.

I don't think its the same problem as in the OP.

chez

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

A lot of these stories sound bizarre to me. I have trouble picturing what that must be like. Strike that. I can't picture it at all.

This sounds very common given the number of people speaking up. Now I have some sympathy for all those students I've seen writing with their right hands while doing their right hand rules with their left . . .

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

take a marker and draw an L on his left hand and an R on his right hand

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
My first wife, in an infamous incident, was navigating while I was driving. She told me to turn right. There was no road there. Only trees. I was squinting, looking up ahead for the turn, when she began yelling at me with increasing frequency and fervor, "Turn right! Right, right, RIGHT!" I looked at her bewildered, and she was (of course) furiously pointing left.

I stopped the car and said, "Oh, THAT right."

Strangely, that marriage did not last.

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lol good answer [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
A lot of these stories sound bizarre to me. I have trouble picturing what that must be like. Strike that. I can't picture it at all.

This sounds very common given the number of people speaking up. Now I have some sympathy for all those students I've seen writing with their right hands while doing their right hand rules with their left . . .

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Maybe check out Susan Greenfield - Brain Story. There are endless amounts of ways in how people's brains have defects/disorders, and very specific ways also.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

Which one is Barron's?

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

boro,

You're probably just using different sides of your brains

http://www.news.com.au/common/imaged...5693171,00.gif

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
boro,

You're probably just using different sides of your brains

http://www.news.com.au/common/imaged...5693171,00.gif

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all those optical illusions always freak me out

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
boro,

You're probably just using different sides of your brains

http://www.news.com.au/common/imaged...5693171,00.gif

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all those optical illusions always make me hard

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Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

Tom Green had a similar problem.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

Can anyone explain how this illusion works? How does our brain mess it up? It occurs even with one eye closed. I can kind of imagine how it would work with a symmetrical object, but this floors me. Here's my theory. Imagine a straight, diamond shaped pole. As it turns, it will widen and narrow. With the elongated points at zero and 180 degrees, it is narrow, at 90 and 270 it is fat. Imagine it starts with the long points at 90 and 270, and imagine it spinning first clockwise, then CCW. Now think about the individual frames of the point that starts at 270. When it spins CCW from 270 halfway to 225, the frame at that point will be a particular wideness. At 220 it will be slightly thinner. Now think about when the point swings CW from 270 to 315. The wideness will be the same as at 225. It is exactly the same frame. At the frame at CW 320 is identical to CCW 220. It only works if the object is in silhouette.

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http://www.news.com.au/common/imaged...5693171,00.gif

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Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

he is obv completely comprised of antimatter borodog DO NOT TOUCH HIM

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

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It only works if the object is in silhouette.

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Yeah, at any given point the silhouette could be facing either direction. This is because the body elements are roughly symmetrical. The face/ponytail are most impressive.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

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[ QUOTE ]
It only works if the object is in silhouette.

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Yeah, at any given point the silhouette could be facing either direction. This is because the body elements are roughly symmetrical. The perfectly formed breasts are most impressive.

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FYP

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

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he is obv your doppelganger borodog DO NOT TOUCH HIM

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Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
I still have no idea which letter I am going to write when I intend to write a lower-case d or b. Its essentially random, unless I spend a considerable amount of time (5 seconds at least) visualizing and trying to figure out which one is which. I am pretty much incapable of memorizing which one has the circle on the left of the line and which one is on the right.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do the same thing. I also mess up lowercase g and q. I hate writing by hand.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I still have no idea which letter I am going to write when I intend to write a lower-case d or b. Its essentially random, unless I spend a considerable amount of time (5 seconds at least) visualizing and trying to figure out which one is which. I am pretty much incapable of memorizing which one has the circle on the left of the line and which one is on the right.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do the same thing. I also mess up lowercase g and q. I hate writing by hand.

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Its more messed up that I DONT have a problem with q and g. I mean, its the same exact thing, but for some reason I have no problem with that. Good thing I wont be spending most of my life writing in print things that are extremely dangerous is a few letters get juxtaposed, right?

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
Can anyone explain how this illusion works? How does our brain mess it up? It occurs even with one eye closed. I can kind of imagine how it would work with a symmetrical object, but this floors me. Here's my theory. Imagine a straight, diamond shaped pole. As it turns, it will widen and narrow. With the elongated points at zero and 180 degrees, it is narrow, at 90 and 270 it is fat. Imagine it starts with the long points at 90 and 270, and imagine it spinning first clockwise, then CCW. Now think about the individual frames of the point that starts at 270. When it spins CCW from 270 halfway to 225, the frame at that point will be a particular wideness. At 220 it will be slightly thinner. Now think about when the point swings CW from 270 to 315. The wideness will be the same as at 225. It is exactly the same frame. At the frame at CW 320 is identical to CCW 220. It only works if the object is in silhouette.



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Wikipedia

Btw, this is a great illusion. love it.

Re: I Met a Backwards Man
 

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One of the students was a very nice elderly black man, maybe 65 years old,with an impish love of practical jokes.

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