Drawing the stick sword with the left hand from a pretend scabbard on the right side felt very different—but no more awkward, really, than when I first learned sword with the right hand two and a half years ago.

I was back on the hill Wednesday morning, and practice was going well enough, a little lukewarm perhaps. On impulse, I switched hands, mirroring the traditional techniques, something we'd briefly played with during a workshop in January. I raised the sword to sky, and lowered it back to horizon. It felt like a spark of cheer. I cut sky over and over with a figure-8 motion, just I had earlier in the more familiar position, but now with little effort.

So, both sides of my body, left and right, got to equally experience wielding the weighty stick.

I'm not at all ambidextrous. Maybe my right side/left brain had been long overworked, in practice as in real life, becoming a little reluctant, even resistant. Welcoming the dormant left side during this practice left my body feeling better integrated than it has in a while. I came into balance, into wholeness. (Oddly, I also felt shorter, rooted into the earth. I felt less like a helium balloon threatening to escape the planet's atmosphere.)

The effect felt dramatic, as though the practice had corrected a core problem.

I felt very very good.