About left and right, I have a friend, a black-belt karate student, and he can't figure out either. He says he developed a method, and asked his teacher to do it instead of saying "punch with the right", "punch with the left".
The "method" is just saying "punch with the hand that you write", "punch with the hand that you don't write".
I had a hard time believing, until a couple days later, he was driving and I said "turn to the left!" (many times) and he missed the road. Then we developed our own method, which was "turn to the side of the radio", and "turn to the side opposite of the radio".
To this day I'll hold up my hands and make an L shape with my pointer finger and thumb. The one that looks like a proper L (and not a mirrored L) is left.
East and West gives me a hard time too, so I have to think about where California is or where Florida is.
The "method" is just saying "punch with the hand that you write", "punch with the hand that you don't write".
I had a hard time believing, until a couple days later, he was driving and I said "turn to the left!" (many times) and he missed the road. Then we developed our own method, which was "turn to the side of the radio", and "turn to the side opposite of the radio".
Freaky. But fun :p