Over the course of our lives, we develop habits. On the strictly physical level, habits come from actions which we repeat with a high degree of frequency. Whenever we develop a habitual a habitual motion, action or behavior, it means we are favoring that action over other possible actions. As a result of this favoritism, actions which we do not perform again and again (which never reach the level of habit) fall into disuse: the ability to perform them can go dormant. Any time some ability in our bodies goes dormant, a part of our mind which could potentially be used to access or activate that skill also goes dormant, or its resources become employed in some other way. By breaking down old habits, then, we have the potential to re-activate dormant areas within both our bodies and minds as well as consciously choose how we allocate energy and effort.

I have gotten a great deal out of some simple exercises involving use of my hands. Symbolically, hands are important because they are perhaps the primary means through which we take action in the world: we make things and manipulate objects with our hands. This symbolic importance combines with the anatomical complexity of the hand-instruments themselves to occupy a position of great importance within the brain. By opening up new movement skills within the fingers and hands (dexterity), we can thereby activate more fully some extremely important areas of the mind: areas which allow us to take more effective and more precise action within the world.

Due to the fact that we favor some actions over others, it can be quite a challenge to learn how to move in new ways. We repeat certain actions so much that they become “second nature.” We do not need to think about them to make them work the way they are supposed to. Not so when we are trying to change old habits or create new possibilities of motion. For this, we need to actively engage our bodies to move in new ways. The sooner you resign yourself to the simple fact that this process is very frustrating, the better off you will be. The key is practice a little bit throughout your day, whenever you have a few spare moments. Do not expect to get it all at once. Do not expect to get it after three attempts, or after ten. It does not work like that. The real goal you are after is to push down that wall of frustration which separates you from being able to take control back from habits which have become unconscious.

Basic Exercises

1. Practice hand-writing with your non-dominant hand.

   If you are righty, use your left hand, and so on. When I first started doing this, I found that my left-handed writing was horrible. It looked like a child had written it, was shaky and illegible. And I kept finding that my right hand would gradually creep over towards the left, as though it were about to seize control back from the faltering left hand and get the job done more quickly.

   This is precisely one of the behaviors which we need to root out in order to change habits: we need to become aware of and learn to control the impulse to “get it done faster” by reverting back to the old tried-and-true habits. If you’re always reverting back to the old habits, there is simply no way you will ever be able to change them. This is strictly a matter of discipline and is an incredibly good exercise for developing patience and learning to recognize frustration as it arises and simply let it flow past you.

2. Get yourself some Baoding balls: the Chinese metal balls you rotate in the palm of your hand, typically having chimes in them.

   First learn to rotate them close together in the palm of one hand: clockwise, and then counter-clockwise. If you are new to it, start out keeping the balls touching at a consistent pressure so as to avoid clacking them together. Switch hands. You are likely to find that one hand is stronger/has a greater natural ability to rotate the balls in a particular direction. When I first started, I could not rotate almost at all in certain directions. But I kept practicing it gradually and daily and little by little it improved.

   The key to a lot of these exercises is the switch: switch direction of rotation on each side of the body, and then switch the sides of the body. Continue switching and making small modifications to challenge yourself. Try getting two sets of balls to simultaneously work each hand.

   Additional challenges: rotate the balls far enough apart in the palm of each hand (in both directions) so that they do not touch each other at all and all you hear is the chimes. Try doing this in time with music; rhythm helps a hell of a lot for learning new repetitive activities. Also try rotating two balls with your palm facing downward. This seemed like an impossible task when I first tried it, but now I can do it easily (with balls touching, anyway). Try also, if you have two sets, four balls flat in each direction in each hand; three balls flat, with the fourth ball on top of them to form a pyramid (the “capstone” will rotate in the opposite direction if all goes well). Also put both hands together and rotate the four balls across both palms.

3. Learn to rotate a pen or pencil from finger to finger.

   There are a lot of fancy pen-twirling tricks you can learn, but the simplest one is just is just to put the end of a pen between the index and middle finger of your right hand. Rotate the end of the pen towards your ring finger, while you bring your ring finger up and over the pen. Then remove your index finger so that the end of the pen now rests between the middle and ring fingers. Repeat with the pinky. And then go backwards: you’ll realize that you can rotate overhand or underhand. Develop both and combine them into a seamless motion so that you can rotate from one finger to the next, backwards and forwards, overhand and underhand. Try including your thumb in the process. Try not including your thumb in the process.

   Most importantly: switch hands! Flip-flopping these exercises continually is one of the major ways you develop new movement potentials and the ability to problem-solve spatially.

   I have found this to be a good exercise to do while walking around - so long as your hands are not occupied. Just be prepared to drop the pen on a regular basis when you are starting out. You just have to accept it. You will get better at it gradually. It is strictly a matter of the time and effort you put into it. And remember: the payoff is becoming aware of your habits and being able to consciously control, modify and erase them at will.

   When you learn this simpler multi-finger twirl, you might like to experiment a little. I am currently working on this move:

4. Learn to roll a coin across your fingers.

   This is a great skill to develop in conjunction with the pen roll across your fingers because it works according to the same basic principle but on a finer scale. It engages the same motions, but the thinness and shape of the coin force you to change your tactics enough to learn a lot from it. Here is a good instructional video:

   This is one of many dexterity skills which dovetail perfectly into sleight-of-hand magic. Also try learning how to palm coins and other small objects. Palming coins is another good thing you can practice throughout the day while you’re performing other tasks or just walking around.

   Don’t forget to switch hands! If you are going to teach yourself new skills, it pays to train yourself to perform them on both sides: it leads to greater mental agility nevermind physical ability

And those are the absolute basics. You can and should improvise off of these to develop your own tricks and exercises. The point really is to train yourself to move in new ways. You create new habits of your own conscious choosing to replace other habits of motion and action which you picked up unconsciously over the course of your life. Learning to change physical habits is an excellent tutorial to changing emotional and mental habits, because they work exactly the same way.

Aside from switching back and forth to balance out learning on both sides of your body, it is also extremely important to consider issues of scale, which we talked a bit about above. The Baoding balls, pen twirling and coin roll all use the same basic motions, but apply them to different objects with different shapes, characteristics and axes of motion. Seeing how these techniques apply across finer and broader scales of motion allows you to more fully grasp the underlying principles and techniques at play. It also helps a lot, though it is a bit outside the scope of an article strictly on “dexterity”, to apply this type of approach to broader physical motions. I have been doing a lot of three and four ball juggling, which increases dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and the ability to predict and control complex patterns. Dabbling in backyard boxing has also made me aware of how my hands, arms and shoulders move in relation to my chest, spine, trunk, head and legs. And playing a lot of chess has trained me to think through steps of complex problems to achieve the best possible outcome. I haven’t become a chess master (nor a complete master of any of these small skills, for that matter), but the point is to create groupings of new habits which continually support and reinforce one another, and which allow you to switch sides and scales on as many levels as possible. Doing this is the surest way to modify old patterns for good and open yourself up to a wide range of new possibilities in your life on all levels.