I have a friend who uses the "beetle mandible" I can confirm that they struggle to pick up anything slightly heavier or less than optimally shaped or slippery.
I just tried all of them, and everything but the standard grip leaves my top stick flailing or with a very weak grip. I canât imagine picking up anything heavy or very small with anything but standard..
A friend I once had used either the dangling claw or the muppet style. It was a big deal amongst our group of friends because it was so unusual to the rest of us. I distinctly remember her hand in a claw like position to hold the sticks, and we were all trying to imitate her style. She picked up her sushi just fine. Can't vouch for the others.
Right hand rule ftw. There was a buffet in my home town called Pi King. They had instructions on the sleeve. Took me a few tries but managed to pick it up as a kid
Right hand rule I find the most comfortable, but standard grip allows you to manipulate both chopsticks, as opposed to the one being locked stationary and all the pressure coming from the other one. You know how sometimes the two sticks "twist" around the food? You can prevent that standard grip more easily.
Oddly, although I can use chopsticks to eat, I can not visualize what my grip is from these pictures. It's delegated entirely to my hand at this point and I don't think about it any more.
I really struggled with chopsticks, until someone described it as holding a pencil, with another pencil above, pinching. From there, I was immediately able to use chopsticks.
I used to use righthand rule, which I naturally settled into and had absolutely no problems with, but then I was told I was holding my chopsticks wrong so I keep trying to do standard grip with mixed success. I think I'll just go back to righthand rule, which I feel gives me the best grip strength.
As a Chinese who does a bit of Wikipedia editing, there is a right way!1!! just that the wrong ways can also work but often work less well. For example, with this grip, your thumb and knuckles have to do a bit of extra force to rotate the sticks as the "levering point" is at the end of the chopsticks, which is quite far. Meanwhile, in standard grip, your middle finger (I just realized that it had to be that finger lol) acts as a "levering point" and significantly shorten the distance to your thumb and knuckles, resulting in a lot less force being needed.
Standard Grip seems most comfortable to me. I saw it as instructions on the first pair I used. I wonder if the other grips help longer or shorter fingers.
Standard grip. I wasnât taught, though, I just figured it out â it was the most natural for me.
I sat here and tried all the other grips, and I canât see how any of them can work. The top stick just flails about for me in all of them. Must have something to do with the way different muscles are used, and my finger muscles are trained for the one grip.
Iâm curious to know whether people who are used to a different grip canât control them in standard grip, too, if that makes sense. I didnât realise there were so many ways to hold them.
100% this. I have a pair of metal chopsticks that I use exclusively for frying food, especially small, super sticky stuff like nan gua bing. Most wooden ones here (Germany) have some sort of artificial coating and I'm a bit worried about it melting or releasing chemicals when it gets too hot, so I don't want to dunk these into hot oil.
That's sensible - wood varnish sometimes contains polyurethane, that decomposes into all sorts of aromatics and cyanides. The ones that I use are plain, no varnish.
I often use them with stuff like croquettes and popcorn fried chicken. For bigger stuff like Berlin balls and coxinhas I find that it's simpler to use a fork and a mesh skimmer, it gives me more leverage.
My regular eating chopsticks have a metal core and silicone coating. I love them because theyâre heat safe and extra grippy. I have a long metal set for cooking, but Iâve used my silicone ones for cooking, too. I prefer them to wood because theyâre easier to clean.
Weird. I do the beetle mandibles, but I just have the butt of the stick between the ring and middle finger instead of ending between the middle and index.