Preferences

Between thumb and forefinger is the universal space in which the rosary bead gets held - obviously - and I've always used the thumb to bring the bead in, as in a pulling motion along a rope or chain, feeding the bead inside my hand when going to the next one (often resulting in moments when a bunch of beads therein must be released), which, without thinking about, I also took for universal, until one day not too long ago, while in a group praying the rosary, I observed someone using the thumb to push the bead away and out, rather than pulling it in, like one were to walk in the same direction as yourself (the direction of the rosary being counter-clockwise), starting in the same place, but backing towards the same direction, and that, together with the realization that I had never really observed this before, was the weirdest.