How do you hold your pipe

[Aaron]

Hello Ladies and Gents! Since I've been smoking a pipe I've noticed that pretty consistently I smoke my pipes the same way. I clench a little but when I hold my pipe I use my left hand. Now I'm right handed and I think I do this because I have better control with my right for tamping. However I smoke cigars using my right hand. So what about everyone else? What has been your experience?

 

[kilted1]

I alternate between clenching and left hand about 95% of the time.

 

[Kapnismologist]

Same as Aaron more or less - left hand when holding a pipe and right hand for cigars. Never thought about it before, but now that I do makes perfect sense why (I am right-handed, and thus saving the dominant hand for tamping, etc.). Also, tend to park a pipe in the left corner of the jaw (my left) - you will notice the same in the avatar pics of both above as well - pipe on the left side. Great topic - how interesting!

 

[Sasquatch]

I put the skinny part in my mouth, and jam tobacco in the fat part. :cheers:

 

[TallSmoke]

Ever since I read this a few years ago I have rarely held a pipe in my right hand.

"It is not enough to fill a pipe and put it to the mouth and set fire to it, for even the country bumpkin knows as much. It is only correct to hold it with the left hand, have the right hand provided with the stopper, impress the onlookers with majestic mien, sit in the proper attitude on the chair, and finally, to take enough time for each pipe and not treat with hasty irreverence this heavenly food."

-Peter Burmann on pipe etiquette, c. 1710

 

[Justpipes]

Hold it in either hand about 50% of the time and clench the other 50% of the time. It really just all depends on what I am doing.

 

[bronxbill]

Even though I'm right handed, I hold the pipe in my right hand and tamp with my left. Interesting that I've never thought about that over the years; the only other thing I do left handed is shoot.

 

[Olivier]

So much for pipe etiquette. I hold it in the right hand and clench about 20% of the time. FWIW I also eat the wrong way around holding my fork in the left hand and knife in the right hand. I am right handed.

 

[LtMac]

I alternate between clenching and left hand about 95% of the time.

Same here.

LtMac

 

[Strongirish]

I am a clencher about 25 % and then either hand. Depends on the pipe and what I'm doing.

 

[Doc Manhattan]

So much for pipe etiquette. I hold it in the right hand and clench about 20% of the time. FWIW I also eat the wrong way around holding my fork in the left hand and knife in the right hand. I am right handed.

That is my custom exactly, for pipes and for cutlery.

 

[Anonymous]

I am a clincher when smoking and use my right hand usually when holding my pipe. Just depends on what I'm doing at the moment, packing, lighting, tamping etc.

 

[Kapnismologist]

So much for pipe etiquette. I hold it in the right hand and clench about 20% of the time. FWIW I also eat the wrong way around holding my fork in the left hand and knife in the right hand. I am right handed.

My grandmother (a stickler for proper manners, including at the table) taught me to always hold the fork in the left and the knife in the right - even though one is right handed. I always assumed that was the proper way to do so (perhaps it is the European style?, as she was very much beholden to her upbringing across the pond?). Perhaps my old grams was wrong! This is all very interesting. Thanks!

 

[Mikem]

Hello Ladies and Gents! Since I've been smoking a pipe I've noticed that pretty consistently I smoke my pipes the same way. I clench a little but when I hold my pipe I use my left hand. Now I'm right handed and I think I do this because I have better control with my right for tamping. However I smoke cigars using my right hand. So what about everyone else? What has been your experience?

Interesting, I smoke the exact same way both in pipes and cigars. I occasionally clinch while typing on the computer.

 

[silencioso]

I too am right handed but hold the pipe 90% of the time in the left hand and about 10% of the time in the right hand. I do the exact opposite with cigars. I find that I never clench a pipe or cigar in the mouth; I always hold it in one hand or another.
As for tableware, I would hate to think that anyone's grandmother was wrong. I learned many years ago from Amy Vanderbilt that it is considered "more correct" to hold the fork in the left hand (tines pointed down) and knife in the right. That's why the table is set the way it is.

 

[Anonymous]

I put the skinny part in my mouth, and jam tobacco in the fat part. :cheers:

What about that time you had too much whiskey???!!??? :tongue:

Wait, we don't tell the story of why you can't grow a mustache....

 

[janski]

I don't clench at all. Somehow it seems wrong to be doing something else while enjoying a bowl. Hold the pipe in my left hand and I'm right handed.

 

[aaronbtxnc]

Very related but not exactly the same:

Do you have an overbite, perfect alignment, or an underbite?

I have an underbite and can "clench" a pipe by using my lips as softy bits therefore not marring my pipes at all.
Can a person with perfectly aligned jaws do this?
How about one with an overbite?

I played saxophone in school so already had pretty tough lips from that, at least on bottom.

FWIW when I'm not "lip-clenching" I hold my pipe in my right hand and I'm right handed, except when lighting I hold it in my left and use the right to light.

aaron

 

[Dillon]

Clench about 90% of the time, and being right-handed, it's what goes to grab the pipe first. One of the things I like about pipe smoking in general is that you have something to hold in your mouth and smoke without worrying about it burning down, smoking in my eyes and singing my mustache.

 

[Winslow]

I prefer to lay the pipe upon my chest whilst reclining in my vibrating
easy chair.This requires a modest liplock quite unlike a clench.Such a pipe
would be one of my 7" or 8" bent meers.I blow copious clouds up to the
ceiling before nodding off.

Winslow :sunny: