Individual Mechanics Question

[Eckley]

I'm a first year official and I've received great advice from numerous officials about individual mechanics. My question deals with visible counts. An official told me last week that whenever an official counts, he should count with his arm that is farthest away from the action. He said this applies for the five- second throw-in count as well as the ten-second count. This necessitates, in some cases, chopping time with the left hand. Is this appropriate? For some reason, I thought that starting and stopping the clock was only done with the right hand. I wish that NFHS would publish some manual just on officials mechanics, etc. Thanks in advance for your help.