Whether you're a right-hander or a left-hander, you will be more used to fighting righties. Why? Because there are naturally far more right-handed people than left-handed people (about 90% of people are naturally right-handed).

Right-handers are used to fighting right-handers and left-handers are also more used to fighting righties. Which is why everyone finds fighting lefties to be a bit awkward. We're just not that used to it.

This is the reason why in some clubs (and in fact, in some countries), left-handed fighting is promoted. American coach Jimmy Pedro talks about how at one time, in his father's club, everyone fought as a lefty.

When we visited the Chon Buri Sports School, we found almost everyone was a lefty too. They weren't that way naturally. They were taught to fight as a lefty, in the belief that this gives them an advantage.

In Japan, more than 50% of the players are left-handed. Again, this has nothing to do with Japanese being more naturally left-handed. They aren't. Like everywhere else, about 90% of their population is right-handed. But judokas are generally encouraged to fight left-handed.

The logic is this: If you are left-handed, you are used to fighting right-handers. But right-handers are not used to fighting you. This gives you an advantage.

Of course within Japan, being left-handed doesn't confer much advantage because players there are used to fighting left-handers (because there are so many of them around). But if they fight outside of Japan, they do have a slight advantage as most international players are right handed.

So, if you are a right-hander and you come across a left-hander, how do you fight him? Do you fight your normal style as if you were fighting another right-hander? Do you do the same techniques against a left-hander as you would against a right-hander?

That would be a mistake. Techniques that work well against right-handers, if not modified, will generally not work against left-handers. The only way you can make your right-handed attacks work against a lefty is if you force uke to become a righty. If your gripping is so dominant that you can make uke grip right, then you can apply right-handed techniques.

But usually that is very hard. A much better approach would be to develop a set of techniques designed specifically to deal with left-handers.

So, when a player meets a righty, he will do his usual judo. But when he meets a lefty, he will resort to techniques he had worked on, that are meant specifically to be used against lefties.

The late great champion Toshihiko Koga used to have trouble fighting lefties, especially early on in his career. At the 1987 World Championships, he lost to the American Mike Swain, who is a lefty. Then, at the 1988 Olympics, he lost to Giorgi Tenadze of the Soviet Union, another lefty.

By 1989, he had worked out a whole range of techniques to be used against lefties. After that, he no longer hand difficulties with lefties.

There is a lesson in that story. If you want to be effective against lefties, you have to develop a different set of techniques against them than the ones you usually use against righties.

At KL Judo, we modules we teach for fighting righties and lefties are different. We don't ask our players to fight righties and lefties the same way. It won't work. So, we tell them, develop a set of techniques for righties and lefties.