Left side progression from the past 2 years. Did not find a bearded 'before' for comparison and did not want to shave off my current beard. Changes in forehead, mouth area and nose should be visible regardless.
For comparison sake can you please trim your beard down to before level and then repost. Right now it's impossible to make any reference about your lower jaw. And can you post the raw pictures without cropping. Hopefully the Acromion process would be visible.
By the way the lighting in the after picture makes your maxilla look more flat under the eye, unless of course you lost weight.
Much better posture, the back of your skull has changed shape, and your forehead looks completely different! It's also pretty remarkable how your ear has changed in shape, though I can't tell if that's an illusion from minute differences in head placement.
I can't speak for much else, as the beard hides too much to speculate, and the change in lighting can make other changes deceptive. But I'd say this is significant and clear progress, Progress!
I know a lot of people focus on forward maxilla growth, but to me it's only a small component in overall improvement. I think we're accepting of the fact that changes are going to take years, so I'd say after 2 this is really great. :)
Looking very good. Like other have said the forehead change is really impressive. It looks like your eyes and ears remained in the same place and the rest of your skull grew around them. Nose bridge is more forward, brow line is forward and rotated down in a good way.
Hard to tell with the beard but I think I see some jaw gains as well. And of course the change in posture goes without saying.
What exactly do you do besides mewing? What's your diet like too?
Beard is not coming off yet, but for future comparisons it will. I wanted to post something because I have talked about it for so long, and because I wanted to produce something concrete for support of past and future speculation.
@skull Jaw: not easy to quantify at the moment. My chin has changed a little, I think. Occlusion much unchanged. Palate perhaps 2 mm wider at first molars, possibly more at second molars.
@eddiemoney No measurements taken, but the back of my head feels very different. A swollen lymph node under the occiput has also disappeared. Hats fit about the same.
@abdulrahman Unfortunately all my photos from the beginning of the journey two years ago are cropped similarly. I can tell you that nothing of great interest has happened at mandibular area at this point. Most of the current changes are due to increased postural utilization of sternocleidomastoids, which are attached to both the skull and the clavicles. I have used tongue posture as a mechanical lever with which I have stretched those two ends away from each other, skull end up & back, and clavicle end up & forward. I have also practiced "hanging" the clavicles from the skull by the SCM muscles during a relaxed mckenzie chin tuck, which often leads to audible sutural shifts around the occipital area.
@allixa The only crucial things I do are full body mewing and light postural work. Head/cervical area is very important, as are hips and feet, and pronation of arms. As for diet, I eat a lot of foods that 1) I crave 2) make me feel warm and energized. Lately it has been boiled potatoes, microwaved cheese and grapes, earlier it was orange juice and red meat. I am slightly hypothyroid.
@yegor_l perceive how the dynamic between ear & forehead changes. The images are aligned at ears, so the difference in forehead positions is mostly real structural change.
The forehead change is pretty impressive, and your eye support looks to have improved as well, unless that's aided by your eyelashes appearing darker in the lighting.
IMO you looked pretty good in the before photo, the shaved head really works for you and I kept thinking that was the after photo. (assuming you didn't feel compelled to 'hide' behind any hair/beard)
I think the reason behind not much change in his jaw is because it looked very well developed to begin with. Skin around neck was taut and his jawline defined.
If I got the forehead changes he did I would be ecstatic. His side profile and skull shape are very similar to mine.
@abdulrahman Unfortunately all my photos from the beginning of the journey two years ago are cropped similarly. I can tell you that nothing of great interest has happened at mandibular area at this point. Most of the current changes are due to increased postural utilization of sternocleidomastoids, which are attached to both the skull and the clavicles. I have used tongue posture as a mechanical lever with which I have stretched those two ends away from each other, skull end up & back, and clavicle end up & forward. I have also practiced "hanging" the clavicles from the skull by the SCM muscles during a relaxed mckenzie chin tuck, which often leads to audible sutural shifts around the occipital area.
I see the SCM muscle a little hypertrophied in the before picture, but it's less obvious on the after. That's usually a sign that the deep neck flexor muscles are weak and the scms had to pick up the slack. The chin tuck is the right way to address that.
Do you have the camera perfectly level on both pictures? If so I can calculate on both pictures the sagittal head tilt angle and craniocervical angle. Those will indicate in numbers your improvement. I would just need both pictures and for you to mark where is your c7 vertebra in the picture.
Doesn't look like that great of a difference really. I see less upper eyelid exposure and maybe more positive eye vector, but it doesn't look like you've gotten much forward maxilla growth from this.
** The face pulling "bag method" -- /community/community/main-forum/face-pulling/#post-3902 ** ** Keengo Chin Tuck method w/force (WIP)-- /community/community/main-forum/chin-tuck-with-added-force-chin-tuck-2-0-new-theory-inside/ **
@abdulrahman Unfortunately all my photos from the beginning of the journey two years ago are cropped similarly. I can tell you that nothing of great interest has happened at mandibular area at this point. Most of the current changes are due to increased postural utilization of sternocleidomastoids, which are attached to both the skull and the clavicles. I have used tongue posture as a mechanical lever with which I have stretched those two ends away from each other, skull end up & back, and clavicle end up & forward. I have also practiced "hanging" the clavicles from the skull by the SCM muscles during a relaxed mckenzie chin tuck, which often leads to audible sutural shifts around the occipital area.
I see the SCM muscle a little hypertrophied in the before picture, but it's less obvious on the after. That's usually a sign that the deep neck flexor muscles are weak and the scms had to pick up the slack. The chin tuck is the right way to address that.
Do you have the camera perfectly level on both pictures? If so I can calculate on both pictures the sagittal head tilt angle and craniocervical angle. Those will indicate in numbers your improvement. I would just need both pictures and for you to mark where is your c7 vertebra in the picture.
I agree, the SCM were likely hypertrophied (and therefore tightened) in comparison to the tongue. Tongue and SCM are in a seemingly opposing functional relationship. Where the SCMs pull temporal bones down and apart, the tongue pulls the rest of the skull up.
Perfectly level, no. The pictures are as level as a hand allows, taken at around ear/eye height. Precise measurements you are going to have to get from someone else in the future. While the communal demand for scientific data is understandable, I am not sufficiently data-oriented to find precise, systematic tracking a personally worthwhile task. I live for ideas, concepts and abstract possibilities, not their practical realities or scientific implementation. The details do not interest me. You are the opposite kind of thinker: you value objective accuracy, implementation and efficiency. Different modes of cognition. I hope you understand.
@allixa The only crucial things I do are full body mewing and light postural work. Head/cervical area is very important, as are hips and feet, and pronation of arms. As for diet, I eat a lot of foods that 1) I crave 2) make me feel warm and energized. Lately it has been boiled potatoes, microwaved cheese and grapes, earlier it was orange juice and red meat. I am slightly hypothyroid.
@test151515 I strive to become comfortable with applying force to all directions. Up against the base of the skull, down against the chin, forward against the jaws, laterally against the ramus, backward against the spine etc. I find that different movements and stances require different kind of stabilization from the tongue. The more "athletic" the tongue is within its own area of operation, the more efficiently the whole body seems to move as a whole. There core starts to feel like one big unit rather than a bunch of isolated muscles that have to be activated together consciously.
@Allixa occassionally. Neither intentionally avoiding or including them. Quality of food is of course important for general well being, but I don't believe it has much importance for improving anatomical fitness, form and function.
i know that in a video mike mew uses the center of the ear and the forehead itself as a constant in the before/after. If you were to do this, that would show your maxillary advancement. I wish I knew how to edit photos to show this myself, but maybe someone else can.
Doesn't look like that great of a difference really. I see less upper eyelid exposure and maybe more positive eye vector, but it doesn't look like you've gotten much forward maxilla growth from this.
much? he doesn't look like he gained anything at all
and how about you shave to the same level as the before also the same head position almost all of the before and after pics i have seen are just diff light angle and posture
Doesn't look like that great of a difference really. I see less upper eyelid exposure and maybe more positive eye vector, but it doesn't look like you've gotten much forward maxilla growth from this.
much? he doesn't look like he gained anything at all
and how about you shave to the same level as the before also the same head position almost all of the before and after pics i have seen are just diff light angle and posture
Do you not see how his skull literally changed shape? His forehead lost a lot of slope and his eye support increased as well as his occiput being lifted.
Doesn't look like that great of a difference really. I see less upper eyelid exposure and maybe more positive eye vector, but it doesn't look like you've gotten much forward maxilla growth from this.
much? he doesn't look like he gained anything at all
and how about you shave to the same level as the before also the same head position almost all of the before and after pics i have seen are just diff light angle and posture
@Allixa occassionally. Neither intentionally avoiding or including them. Quality of food is of course important for general well being, but I don't believe it has much importance for improving anatomical fitness, form and function.
Yeah I agree. I was thinking more along the lines of quantity of food. I believe that is an important thing to consider as well, and rice or wheat is an easy way to increase calories and energy immediately.
I know we were talking about Peat earlier, I truly believe his advice is a bit too narrow in scope.
Is there a shadow visible behind your forehead, creating the illusion of increased volume, and altered shape? If so, it would be really useful with a picture without one, as the easiest way to identify change is by lining up your forehead and center ear in the two pictures.
Doesn't look like that great of a difference really. I see less upper eyelid exposure and maybe more positive eye vector, but it doesn't look like you've gotten much forward maxilla growth from this.
much? he doesn't look like he gained anything at all
and how about you shave to the same level as the before also the same head position almost all of the before and after pics i have seen are just diff light angle and posture
he's literally a different human being
Can you do one where his ears and forehead are aligned?
His Ear changed shapes so i found it difficult to line them up exactly but you can still see the upswing on his maxilla
I think the after-pic is taken from a little higher angle, which does also play into the implied changes favourably (or deceptively, depending on how you look at it). The actual shape of the ear has likely remained the same, although its relative position may have changed.
Like I said, I think the change of forehead shape is an illusion created by the shadow of the head. Forehead change would be impossible (and indeed, probably quite dangerous). I really struggle to see any change at all.
Like I said, I think the change of forehead shape is an illusion created by the shadow of the head. Forehead change would be impossible (and indeed, probably quite dangerous). I really struggle to see any change at all.
Has your intermolar width increased?
You are free to maintain your disbelief. In your defence, it's not that good of a comparison picture. But it's a beginning. In the future there will be better. I will have similar hair & beard as in the original picture.
Nevertheless, you have to understand that what we are doing will change the whole skull. Fixing craniofacial dystrophy is not as simple as expanding the palate or moving maxilla forward. The whole cranial structure will change and adapt in the process, because the skeletal tension within the skull is dependent on how the bones of the skull are positioned in relation to each other, and because skeletal tension will always seek equilibrium.
Maxilla/palate is not the only cranial bone that can be underdeveloped. Many of the craniofacial sutures need to expand into their full potential before the face can bloom into its intended beauty and anatomy. Some achieve such completion while they are still adolescent. Others have to catch up later.
Being of the latter group myself, I experience many shifts and clicks along the lambdoid suture every day, which indicates that 1) my posterior skull has been underdeveloped 2) constant unwinding/expansion/reshaping/x is taking place. To me, both are evident in the pictures I have taken along the way.
If you already believe in the possibility and safety of maxillary movement, there is no rational reason for you to reject the possibility where such is true for the rest of the skull too.
As for molar width, there has not been much change. 2 mm at most.
I do not see much change to the maxilla and mandible in terms of size and position. Most of the effects with super imposition will be inaccurate as the photos are not standardised (same focal length, non crop, full frame image, same lighting, same angle).
However no change in maxilla/mandible does not mean there aren't significant changes to the other bones of skull and neck.
The correcting of the posture for me is very significant and interesting. By correcting your posture you have a more balanced weight above your body. The correcting of the vertebrae to the skill will almost certainly cause large remodelling changes including to the cranial base. It will be more changes in the form of rotation than remodelling size per de imo. These things can really only be proven with 3d scans. Did you have any symptoms etc which prompted the pursuit of this? Do you see any improvement in your symptoms?
Cases like these are interesting because it also challenges my own beliefs as a clinician. I believe Progress you have an under developed maxilla which is causing an entrapment on your lower jaw. This mandibular entrapment causes airway impingement and hence the natural evolutionary response is to have forward head posture and forward and upward rotation of the skill.
My general premise is that you can have better posture but if the airways are still compressed physiologically your body will want to improve airflow and in a lot of people this posture can not be maintained. So it be interesting if you feel your breathing is better in this position versus if you simulate a forward and up posture.
Although you have gained 2mm in intermolarwidth it is the length of the maxilla that needs to be improved. You can see the nose to chin angle is still very angled backwards. Your Mew Indicator Line is still relatively high. Would love to see a full frontal picture before and after to see any changes in asymmetry and improvement in horizontal planes.
How on theses sites 99% of peoples try to fraud pics by NEVER taking the same angle-lighting in pics
Anybody can look like someone else with diff lighting-angle , tilting his head back-forward ( like you did )
There are 1 person only that ive seen take same angle and lighting in her before-after pics on this forum it's self explanatory on the honesty here
Understand that it is very hard to standardize the lighting, angle, and exposure of before-and-after pictures, even with exceptional equipment and photography skills. I am too reserved to share my pictures, but I admire those who are brave enough to post theirs. No one here is trying to sell you anything. You are encouraged to be skeptical, but you should not be rude. I agree that most of the pictures are very ambiguous because any changes are going to be very gradual and probably within the margin of error for reproducing photograph conditions. That doesn't mean you have to ridicule people for documenting their progress.
Hey! Amazing transformation. Please continue to keep us updated....
I'm really new to mewing...about a week. But I've done quite a bit of research and have already been able to start reliably getting the posterior third of my tongue back against the soft palate. I'm been doing the swallowing, gum chewing and posture.
Is there anything else that you've done to achieve these results? I had no idea that the larger skull, mainly the occipital bone and sphenoid bone can change shape, or have they just experienced a bit of rotation as your maxilla moved upwards and forwards? Or was it the better neck posture just adding muscle to the back of your head to make it look more athletic?
Hey! Amazing transformation. Please continue to keep us updated....
I'm really new to mewing...about a week. But I've done quite a bit of research and have already been able to start reliably getting the posterior third of my tongue back against the soft palate. I'm been doing the swallowing, gum chewing and posture.
Is there anything else that you've done to achieve these results? I had no idea that the larger skull, mainly the occipital bone and sphenoid bone can change shape, or have they just experienced a bit of rotation as your maxilla moved upwards and forwards? Or was it the better neck posture just adding muscle to the back of your head to make it look more athletic?
Welcome. The total effort of fixing head, spine and hip posture has translated to a series of daily sutural shifts around the occiput for the past year or so. I have gone more in depth about these adjustments here: /community/community/main-forum/subtle-clicks-shifts-and-other-sounds-in-the-skull/ . Both rotation and and reshaping of the cranium seems to have taken place.
your eyes seems to have become more hooded with mewing? or is it just because of correcting head posture?
Good observation. I think it's a combined effect of correct head posture and improved forward projection of forehead. While it appears that the brow has descended further over the eyes, the gaze is also at a slightly more upward angle in the after picture. In short: yes, it does feel like the eyes are more hooded now.
Have you adjusted your technique in any way? with the recent importance given to head posture by mew and jamo if its changed anything for you. Your nose actually looks a bit shorter
Have you adjusted your technique in any way? with the recent importance given to head posture by mew and jamo if its changed anything for you. Your nose actually looks a bit shorter
Prior to taking the photo, no, but since then I have begun experimenting with pushing with a lot more force. Too early to say how that is working out though.
Nice work, the forward shift of the whole skull is crazy. I've experienced a similar change, most of which happened rather early on and the effect it had on my balance (specifically the ability to maintain balance while doing martial arts kicks or playing tennis) was quite dramatic. Would you say that your progress has sped up this year? Have people around you taken notice?
Nice work, the forward shift of the whole skull is crazy. I've experienced a similar change, most of which happened rather early on and the effect it had on my balance (specifically the ability to maintain balance while doing martial arts kicks or playing tennis) was quite dramatic. Would you say that your progress has sped up this year? Have people around you taken notice?
Yeah the change in body dynamics is surprisingly big, isn't it? I think the progress is constantly speeding up, with about 2/3 of the changes having occurred in the past 6 months. For example, it took me two years to go from 34 mm inter-molar width to 39 mm, but only a few weeks to go from 39 to 42. Since posture, cranial structure, swallowing and breathing are all improving simultaneously, after a certain point the pieces start falling into place really fast.
I live the live of a hermit at the moment so I can't say how distinct the changes seem to others.
Have you adjusted your technique in any way? with the recent importance given to head posture by mew and jamo if its changed anything for you. Your nose actually looks a bit shorter
Prior to taking the photo, no, but since then I have begun experimenting with pushing with a lot more force. Too early to say how that is working out though.
@gubbbbb Ah, nice - I didn't realize the two after-photos matched that well. That's a 4 month difference, so with this speed of progression it would probably take around 2-3 years to finish the journey.
Excited to see you experimenting with hard mewing too. I think the orthotropic community is at a point where it's important to find out whether hard or soft mewing is the thing to do when it comes to adult patients. If our progress accelerates now that we are pushing hard, then it might be worthwhile to advice everyone to do the same straight from the beginning. Mew seems to be going in similar direction, considering his recent emphasis on forceful tongue chewing.
You said you do full body mewing. Would you be able to expand on that at all? All I am familiar with is the abs walk and the mckenzie tuck, alongside regular mewing.
I'm fascinated that you can see the upswing, and that your face is shrinking into its proper proportions. I'm wondering if just hard-mewing and the mckenzie tuck can achieve this.
- Mewing for 6+ months - IMW: 35mm (no expansion) - Sleep on the floor without a pillow - Tape mouth at night - Continue to emphasise chin-tuck/occipital drive for extended periods - Chew Mastic Tears for 1 hour every other day
@Progress, when you hard mew and then you do a push swallow with a cheesy smile as Mike Mew teaches in one of his videos, do you feel the force/pressure decreases? What about saying nnng in addition?
I am trying to discern if hard mewing is just mewing with a tongue that has the strength it's supposed to have. I am curious about it, since your results look amazing.
Do you also feel you have to think about it the whole time? or does your tongue do it on it's own now (because of muscle memory)?
I didn't read the entire thread very thoroughly, so maybe it's already been asked, but how long did it take for the before/after pictures? What's the overall timeframe?
Hey, I saw you telling you had a massive improvement of your IMV. I was wondering if your buccal corridors improved, and if so if you had a before/after pic. thanks :)
I'm pretty sure the forehead moving forward is just an illusion created by the maxilla moving forward and as a result, you change your head posture now that you can tilt your head more forward and not block your airway. Mike mew has a video discussing how people with sloped foreheads are actually just having recessed maxillas and compensate by tilting their head backward. Since your maxilla is coming forwards you don't tilt your head as far back. Either way, thank you for sharing your progress.
I'm pretty sure the forehead moving forward is just an illusion created by the maxilla moving forward and as a result, you change your head posture now that you can tilt your head more forward and not block your airway. Mike mew has a video discussing how people with sloped foreheads are actually just having recessed maxillas and compensate by tilting their head backward. Since your maxilla is coming forwards you don't tilt your head as far back. Either way, thank you for sharing your progress.
This. If the forehead comes forward and the jaw doesn't come back, then forward movement did actually happen
Great results! How old were you when you started? How many hours a day do you think you have your tongue applying up and backward pressure for? I can only do a mckenzie chin tuck with pretty hard tongue pressure for about 10 seconds at a time before I really start to feel the burn in my occipital muscles, forcing me to hold for 10 seconds then rest for a bit.
@Progress, Not sure how often you respond to posts here, but I would be really interested to know whether you have dabbled in thumb/face pulling at any point.
The more time I spend on this forum, the more it seems that the people who have made clear, observable progress, have pulled their face at one point.
Have you tried face pulling at any point in your journey, and what are your perspectives on whether it's essential to cranial restructuring?
- Mewing for 6+ months - IMW: 35mm (no expansion) - Sleep on the floor without a pillow - Tape mouth at night - Continue to emphasise chin-tuck/occipital drive for extended periods - Chew Mastic Tears for 1 hour every other day
@Progress, Not sure how often you respond to posts here, but I would be really interested to know whether you have dabbled in thumb/face pulling at any point.
The more time I spend on this forum, the more it seems that the people who have made clear, observable progress, have pulled their face at one point.
Have you tried face pulling at any point in your journey, and what are your perspectives on whether it's essential to cranial restructuring?
Since my changes have been so subtle, I try to hold back the impulse to oversell them. There are people who think my face has changed remarkably, and people who question whether or not my face has changed at all. I understand both point of views. Pictures taken at close distance can lie a lot, to the extent that it can be hard to remain objective. If I had the means to track my progress with actual 3D scans, I of course would.
I tried NCR and belt-pulling early in my journey back in 2016. Based on @greensmoothies and @achilles1 anecdotes in this thread, I might experiment with frequent thumb-pulling in the near future in an attempt to achieve disarticulation in the mid-palatal suture. The changes I have acquired so far I attribute to hard mewing and palatal expansion. I have kept track of my inter-molar width, and it seems that the palate has widened roughly at a pace of 1mm/month:
37 mm 7/2018 38 mm 8/2018 39 mm 8/2018 40 mm 9/2018 41 mm 9/2018 42 mm 10/2018 43 mm 11/2018
I made the following gif recently and tried to align ears & eyes. The short-haired picture was taken in 2016, and the other picture last week. In this particular comparison it seems that while the rest of the cranium has expanded, the jaws have moved back and up, instead of forward and up. I remember @SUGR1 saying that many adults actually have bimaxillary protrusion. Back then I questioned the claim, but based on this comparison it seems to make more sense.
As for your earlier question regarding the full-body mewing I mentioned, try to perceive the connection between vacuuming your stomach in and suctioning your tongue against the palate. Likewise, try to perceive similar connection between pushing your stomach out in an expansive manner and pushing the tongue against the palate. One should curve your spine forward, and the other backward. In general you should strive to maintain a balance between these two movements.
Back and up movement = decreased mew indicator line. Forward movement really implies the distance decreases because of this upward counterclockwise rotation
And I don't know about bimax, but most people's maxilla is located too far below their nose and this is downward growth
Did your upper eye area improve? It seems to be the case in your first comparison gif but not so much in the latest one. Do you generally notice a more hooded upper eye appearance, or not really? I'd think fixing your posture would cause less upward pulling on that area but maybe I'm incorrect. Thanks.
It does seem that things such as IMW are the clearest indicators of progress. In looking at my own photos, even the slightest change in angle can completely skew the comparison, to the point where it's not much use. It appears to me that the second photo was taken from a higher angle creating the illusion that the jaw has shrunken back.
Thanks for the description, that's been something I've struggled to get a grasp on.
- Mewing for 6+ months - IMW: 35mm (no expansion) - Sleep on the floor without a pillow - Tape mouth at night - Continue to emphasise chin-tuck/occipital drive for extended periods - Chew Mastic Tears for 1 hour every other day
Did your upper eye area improve? It seems to be the case in your first comparison gif but not so much in the latest one. Do you generally notice a more hooded upper eye appearance, or not really? I'd think fixing your posture would cause less upward pulling on that area but maybe I'm incorrect. Thanks.
While under-eye support has increased noticeably, my eyes are as hooded as they have always been.
Are you moving your upper maxila back and up ? Why and how ?
I wish I knew. I can only say that I experience dozens of daily shifts in the posterior skull, and that these shifts have led to significant cranial expansion. My intention is to let these changes occurr as they want to. Regardless of whether this process leads to the maxilla moving back and up or forward and up in relation to the rest of the skull, I have full confidence that it'll result in a functional and aesthetic improvement, since that is the direction I am already progressing towards.
As for what I'm doing, I am mewing and working on my posture. My overbite has remained more or less the same.
Hi Progress, I saw you telling you applied force with your tongue "up against the base of the skull, down against the chin, forward against the jaws, laterally against the ramus, backward against the spine." How is it possible since mewing consists in putting your tongue against the roof of your mouth ? And btw, what do you think of Myobrace for jaw expansion (especially forward growth) ? I think it is useful to keep a good tongue posture while sleeping. And in addition to mewing, do you do other things to increase your IMW ? And if you do, which particular part of your routine do you attribute to your forehead being much less sloped ?
Sorry for my English (I'm French) and asking so many questions, but your progress really amazes me !
I made the following gif recently and tried to align ears & eyes. The short-haired picture was taken in 2016, and the other picture last week. In this particular comparison it seems that while the rest of the cranium has expanded, the jaws have moved back and up, instead of forward and up. I remember @SUGR1 saying that many adults actually have bimaxillary protrusion. Back then I questioned the claim, but based on this comparison it seems to make more sense.
As for your earlier question regarding the full-body mewing I mentioned, try to perceive the connection between vacuuming your stomach in and suctioning your tongue against the palate. Likewise, try to perceive similar connection between pushing your stomach out in an expansive manner and pushing the tongue against the palate. One should curve your spine forward, and the other backward. In general you should strive to maintain a balance between these two movements.
I think that in this case the camera lens are distorting the real perspective. Try to take photos with the camera lens at a good distance and never too close, because it can make you seem totally different...
Look how his all facial proportions was deformed by perspective of the lens in each photo:
@mangas77 By that description I tried to express how I seek to activate not just the tongue, but the related musculature around it in a way that provides a 3D-like expansion. This is not something I fully subscribe to anymore, but I found t helpful at that point of time. I have no routine, I just mew. Regarding your question about myobrace, that is not my area of expertise nor interest.
@ionezide Yes, I'm aware of this effect. My only current option is to try to minimize its impact.
UPDATE 1/2019:
Left side progression from the past 2 years. Did not find a bearded 'before' for comparison and did not want to shave off my current beard. Changes in forehead, mouth area and nose should be visible regardless.
That old photo really illustrates the progress you've made, way better than the profile shots you posted originally!
You can see that your chin has rotated since the first picture, it's really phenomenal actually. You look like a different person. You actually can see the upswing!
Thanks for documenting your progress so well, it's really invaluable for all us still at the beginning of the process.
- Mewing for 6+ months - IMW: 35mm (no expansion) - Sleep on the floor without a pillow - Tape mouth at night - Continue to emphasise chin-tuck/occipital drive for extended periods - Chew Mastic Tears for 1 hour every other day
@mangas77 By that description I tried to express how I seek to activate not just the tongue, but the related musculature around it in a way that provides a 3D-like expansion. This is not something I fully subscribe to anymore, but I found t helpful at that point of time. I have no routine, I just mew. Regarding your question about myobrace, that is not my area of expertise nor interest.
@ionezide Yes, I'm aware of this effect. My only current option is to try to minimize its impact.
UPDATE 1/2019:
Left side progression from the past 2 years. Did not find a bearded 'before' for comparison and did not want to shave off my current beard. Changes in forehead, mouth area and nose should be visible regardless.
Change so impressive it could look like fake! Really congratulations!!!
But I wonder if in the most recent pic you are not protracting the jaw (unintentionally I mean, as a result of the correct oral posture) or you are completely relaxed as in the pic of the before.
Change so impressive it could look like fake! Really congratulations!!!
But I wonder if in the most recent pic you are not protracting the jaw (unintentionally I mean, as a result of the correct oral posture) or you are completely relaxed as in the pic of the before.
I of course have no way of proving you that I'm not, but from what I can say, I kept molars in contact in both pics. Note that it's not just the jaw moving, but the upper lip & tip of the nose too. The possibility of this difference having occurred due to changed camera angle aside, my point is that all these locations are swinging up in unison, an effect that could not be achieved by merely jutting the jaw forward.
Change so impressive it could look like fake! Really congratulations!!!
But I wonder if in the most recent pic you are not protracting the jaw (unintentionally I mean, as a result of the correct oral posture) or you are completely relaxed as in the pic of the before.
I of course have no way of proving you that I'm not, but from what I can say, I kept molars in contact in both pics. Note that it's not just the jaw moving, but the upper lip & tip of the nose too. The possibility of this difference having occurred due to changed camera angle aside, my point is that all these locations are swinging up in unison, an effect that could not be achieved by merely jutting the jaw forward.
So your hypothesis is that you have had a real skeletal advancement of the jaw which in turn has been followed by the mandible, if I understand correctly.
@scerif If we assume that such advancement has taken place, it would indeed mean that the mandible has been able to follow the upper jaw. Even with 10 mm of expansion, the feel of my occlusion has not changed much, or the change has been slow enough as to remain imperceptible.
@scerif If we assume that such advancement has taken place, it would indeed mean that the mandible has been able to follow the upper jaw. Even with 10 mm of expansion, the feel of my occlusion has not changed much, or the change has been slow enough as to remain imperceptible.
@scerif If we assume that such advancement has taken place, it would indeed mean that the mandible has been able to follow the upper jaw. Even with 10 mm of expansion, the feel of my occlusion has not changed much, or the change has been slow enough as to remain imperceptible.
If it wasn't a skeletal change, what could have caused these sensational changes? Did you have retroclined teeth at the beginning?
In any case, I noticed that your maxilla has come forward and upward a lot, incredible! 😯
I do share your belief that significant upswing has occurred, but I simultaneously realize that there are people who will put the captured difference down to angle, lightning, beard, lens and other factors that tend to change from photo to photo. Rather than claiming this or that, I encourage everyone to come to their own conclusions.
I have also taken pics of a ruler showing my mew indicator line. Once this changes noticeably (it hasn't yet), I will be able to provide more quantifiable evidence of the change that has taken place.
Left side progression from the past 2 years. Did not find a bearded 'before' for comparison and did not want to shave off my current beard. Changes in forehead, mouth area and nose should be visible regardless.
Dude this is an insanely good before and after comparison. Congrats! Did you have any asymmetry in the before that has improved now?
@scerif If we assume that such advancement has taken place, it would indeed mean that the mandible has been able to follow the upper jaw. Even with 10 mm of expansion, the feel of my occlusion has not changed much, or the change has been slow enough as to remain imperceptible.
If it wasn't a skeletal change, what could have caused these sensational changes? Did you have retroclined teeth at the beginning?
In any case, I noticed that your maxilla has come forward and upward a lot, incredible! 😯
I do share your belief that significant upswing has occurred, but I simultaneously realize that there are people who will put the captured difference down to angle, lightning, beard, lens and other factors that tend to change from photo to photo. Rather than claiming this or that, I encourage everyone to come to their own conclusions.
I have also taken pics of a ruler showing my mew indicator line. Once this changes noticeably (it hasn't yet), I will be able to provide more quantifiable evidence of the change that has taken place.
Except for the beard, the two photos are very similar and I find no other explanation for the differences than a real advancement of the maxilla and mandible too. Looks like your bite is class 1 now, but if I were you, I'd be dying to do a cephalometric analysis to assess it.
@scerif If we assume that such advancement has taken place, it would indeed mean that the mandible has been able to follow the upper jaw. Even with 10 mm of expansion, the feel of my occlusion has not changed much, or the change has been slow enough as to remain imperceptible.
If it wasn't a skeletal change, what could have caused these sensational changes? Did you have retroclined teeth at the beginning?
In any case, I noticed that your maxilla has come forward and upward a lot, incredible! 😯
I do share your belief that significant upswing has occurred, but I simultaneously realize that there are people who will put the captured difference down to angle, lightning, beard, lens and other factors that tend to change from photo to photo. Rather than claiming this or that, I encourage everyone to come to their own conclusions.
I have also taken pics of a ruler showing my mew indicator line. Once this changes noticeably (it hasn't yet), I will be able to provide more quantifiable evidence of the change that has taken place.
Except for the beard, the two photos are very similar and I find no other explanation for the differences than a real advancement of the maxilla and mandible too. Looks like your bite is class 1 now, but if I were you, I'd be dying to do a cephalometric analysis to assess it.
I actually have moderate overbite, which hasn't changed much during the past two years. I suspect that mewing alone won't be enough to resolve it:
@gubbbbb Asymmetry has remained the same. It's something I'm going to focus more on in the upcoming months.
@Progress, Not sure how often you respond to posts here, but I would be really interested to know whether you have dabbled in thumb/face pulling at any point.
The more time I spend on this forum, the more it seems that the people who have made clear, observable progress, have pulled their face at one point.
Have you tried face pulling at any point in your journey, and what are your perspectives on whether it's essential to cranial restructuring?
Since my changes have been so subtle, I try to hold back the impulse to oversell them. There are people who think my face has changed remarkably, and people who question whether or not my face has changed at all. I understand both point of views. Pictures taken at close distance can lie a lot, to the extent that it can be hard to remain objective. If I had the means to track my progress with actual 3D scans, I of course would.
I tried NCR and belt-pulling early in my journey back in 2016. Based on @greensmoothies and @achilles1 anecdotes in this thread, I might experiment with frequent thumb-pulling in the near future in an attempt to achieve disarticulation in the mid-palatal suture. The changes I have acquired so far I attribute to hard mewing and palatal expansion. I have kept track of my inter-molar width, and it seems that the palate has widened roughly at a pace of 1mm/month:
37 mm 7/2018 38 mm 8/2018 39 mm 8/2018 40 mm 9/2018 41 mm 9/2018 42 mm 10/2018 43 mm 11/2018
I made the following gif recently and tried to align ears & eyes. The short-haired picture was taken in 2016, and the other picture last week. In this particular comparison it seems that while the rest of the cranium has expanded, the jaws have moved back and up, instead of forward and up. I remember @SUGR1 saying that many adults actually have bimaxillary protrusion. Back then I questioned the claim, but based on this comparison it seems to make more sense.
As for your earlier question regarding the full-body mewing I mentioned, try to perceive the connection between vacuuming your stomach in and suctioning your tongue against the palate. Likewise, try to perceive similar connection between pushing your stomach out in an expansive manner and pushing the tongue against the palate. One should curve your spine forward, and the other backward. In general you should strive to maintain a balance between these two movements.
Based solely on the nasolabial angle... it looks like your maxilla actually retruded. Mine did as well with my Mewing attempt. I did finally get it to come forward this week by just grabbing it and pulling it. I'm lovin' my new look. I put my thumbs behind my top incisors and my index fingers right up top (pointing at each other). It seemed to work! Crazy, huh? I'm watching my condyles. I'm going to sew some tennis balls to the back of my pajamas so I don't sleep on my back. It seems that when/if things get loose that they are more likely to move around and can even revert.
I attempted to pull in such as way that if I do get gaps, that they're not right in the front.
@Progress, Not sure how often you respond to posts here, but I would be really interested to know whether you have dabbled in thumb/face pulling at any point.
The more time I spend on this forum, the more it seems that the people who have made clear, observable progress, have pulled their face at one point.
Have you tried face pulling at any point in your journey, and what are your perspectives on whether it's essential to cranial restructuring?
Since my changes have been so subtle, I try to hold back the impulse to oversell them. There are people who think my face has changed remarkably, and people who question whether or not my face has changed at all. I understand both point of views. Pictures taken at close distance can lie a lot, to the extent that it can be hard to remain objective. If I had the means to track my progress with actual 3D scans, I of course would.
I tried NCR and belt-pulling early in my journey back in 2016. Based on @greensmoothies and @achilles1 anecdotes in this thread, I might experiment with frequent thumb-pulling in the near future in an attempt to achieve disarticulation in the mid-palatal suture. The changes I have acquired so far I attribute to hard mewing and palatal expansion. I have kept track of my inter-molar width, and it seems that the palate has widened roughly at a pace of 1mm/month:
37 mm 7/2018 38 mm 8/2018 39 mm 8/2018 40 mm 9/2018 41 mm 9/2018 42 mm 10/2018 43 mm 11/2018
I made the following gif recently and tried to align ears & eyes. The short-haired picture was taken in 2016, and the other picture last week. In this particular comparison it seems that while the rest of the cranium has expanded, the jaws have moved back and up, instead of forward and up. I remember @SUGR1 saying that many adults actually have bimaxillary protrusion. Back then I questioned the claim, but based on this comparison it seems to make more sense.
As for your earlier question regarding the full-body mewing I mentioned, try to perceive the connection between vacuuming your stomach in and suctioning your tongue against the palate. Likewise, try to perceive similar connection between pushing your stomach out in an expansive manner and pushing the tongue against the palate. One should curve your spine forward, and the other backward. In general you should strive to maintain a balance between these two movements.
Based solely on the nasolabial angle... it looks like your maxilla actually retruded. Mine did as well with my Mewing attempt. I did finally get it to come forward this week by just grabbing it and pulling it. I'm lovin' my new look. I put my thumbs behind my top incisors and my index fingers right up top (pointing at each other). It seemed to work! Crazy, huh? I'm watching my condyles. I'm going to sew some tennis balls to the back of my pajamas so I don't sleep on my back. It seems that when/if things get loose that they are more likely to move around and can even revert.
I attempted to pull in such as way that if I do get gaps, that they're not right in the front.
Yes, that's like the thumb pulling that a few of us do here. The anchor points I use are on the palate and then my index fingers on my forehead. I do believe it works to bring the maxilla up and forwards, although you're the first person other than myself to clearly mention experiencing this effect. Pulling behind the incisors may be better than pulling from the 2nd molars like most of us who thumb pull do here because pulling from the back will bring the zygos out a lot. Mine came out too much so I switched up to pulling from behind the incisors for a while. Also, yes sleeping on the back when I do this seems counterproductive, Mew has mentioned that back sleeping isn't ideal for bringing the maxilla up and forwards as well. I haven't seen evidence of mewing bringing the maxilla up and forward yet, so these manual adjustments have proven to me to be quite helpful.
Except for the beard, the two photos are very similar and I find no other explanation for the differences than a real advancement of the maxilla and mandible too. Looks like your bite is class 1 now, but if I were you, I'd be dying to do a cephalometric analysis to assess it.
Posted by: Progress
I actually have moderate overbite, which hasn't changed much during the past two years. I suspect that mewing alone won't be enough to resolve it:
Hm 🤔, this is very strange! Your chin seems to have definitely come forward, yet you say that your overbite is always the same, I don't think the picture is misleading so maybe the reason is that the mandible has followed the maxilla forward, and that's why your bite has not changed. But I'd like to know what think about it @admin@abdulrahman@eddiemoney@Varbrah. Do you think his deep bite will work out?
Your thumb pulling experiences are very interesting @greensmoothies@Darkindigo. Could you explain in more detail your routines? How many times a day and for how many minutes at a time? And with how much strength? Thank you very much 😆
This actually shows a difference, even with the beard and sweater your lower lower jaw appears to have moved forward and neck moved back and up. It would be better of course if you eliminated those differences.
Posted by: Progress
I actually have moderate overbite, which hasn't changed much during the past two years. I suspect that mewing alone won't be enough to resolve it:
@gubbbbb Asymmetry has remained the same. It's something I'm going to focus more on in the upcoming months.
This is two years difference, which is before and after?
I have often thought that there is something Tardis like to the mouth. I find it very difficult to see expansion in the upper teeth in the photos Progress presents. I can only see it in relation to the bottom teeth on the assumption that they have not tipped in the process. The pictures of his face show a wonderful improvement. If I were just to see the two sets of photos I would imagine he had been doing belt facepulling in Dons Johns’ method. Dons Johns asserts that his method can widen the palate too, but in the last photos I saw from him there was little evidence that he had succeeded. For what Progress calls ‘body Mewing’ (ugh) his descriptions of the work he has done are masterful and wonderfully fine. He is a yogin. I came to Mewing at what is hopefully the end of a long quest to fix my twisted body and skull, and to be rid of the pain and debility that it caused me. So far so good. I was not interested in facial aesthetics and really cared not a jot for how my teeth looked. Because this is my primary aim, I hang on Progrees’s every word. I have come to realise that now I have acquired another aim which is the proper accommodation of the tongue and achieving full contact with the roof of the mouth. By this I mean something a bit beyond being able to get it fully up there. I see this as important for some of the subtler functions of the body, in short hormonal and nervous. I can see also that I am not going to be fully satisfied until I have an aesthetically pleasing result after so much effort. After half a lifetime of wearing my teeth in the wrong place and so wearing them down, I am never going to have Charlton Heston’s teeth, but I have a sense of the result that would satisfy and happily I suspect it will arrive at the same time as full and proper accommodation of the tongue. I do think this will come with Mewing. I would be interested to know what Progress thinks will be his way, other than Mewing, to achieve it.
Measurement is such a difficult thing. I accept that IMW is the best we have got, but it is not very good. I have measured increases in it and been surprised, because I did not think I had made progress since last measuring. I have done a lot of measurements, probably too many but all will understand the need for encouragement in this horribly slow work. More interestingly I have gone through periods when I have been delighted by how much more space I have been achieving for my tongue and time and time again my IMW is the same. I do have tipped teeth but this is a bit more than me creating a bulbous cavern above tipped in teeth. The movement achieved by Mewing is just incomprehensibly complex. I half believe what my tongue tells me, but even though I am forcing it to face the truth that it avoided all my life by retreating in my mouth, I know that it is by its soft and malleable nature a coward and a liar and that I should not fully trust what it tells me. Ultimately I proceed on a large amount of blind faith and the idea that I will just know when this work is done, probably when the Tardis effect is finished.
All this being said I have achieved significant amounts on IMW and the look of my teeth (as an aside they are so much whiter for being more in the right place and better aligned), just not when or how I expected to.
Has your palatal expansion been due to proper oral posture or are you using some sort of palatal expander? Absolutely magnificent work, as a 24yo male I am very encouraged to keep working thanks to your bravery in posting these photos.
@abdulrahman The above is an earlier one. Not that it should matter, since not much change is visible.
@odys Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Like you, I am mostly working from the premise that complete postural correction is the foundation upon which the whole process is built. As such, I trust that the physical body in itself is a sufficient tool for resolving malgrowth, i.e. asymmetries and recession. The work is hard and painstaking, but also rewarding and inspiring. I feel like the physical changes are accompanied with subtle mental & spiritual changes. Based on these changes, I suspect that the manner in which your skull & spine are twisted may determine the kind of limitations that you face in your wellbeing, in the form of neurofeedback. Since nervous system is fundamentally asymmetric in its nature* there could possibly be different symptoms that arise depending on whether the balance of your posture & cranial structure is leaning towards the left or right.
* Think of the functional difference between left & right brain hemispheres and how each side is linked to the ears, eyes and limbs of the opposite side. It has for example been proven that right ear is better at perceiving short, sudden sounds (linked to the detail-oriented left hemisphere) and left ear slower, static sounds (linked to the big-picture oriented right hemisphere).
@bael All expansion has come from postural correction.
@progress I misunderstood. When you wrote you suspected that mewing would not be enough, I thought you were referring to orthodontic help. I find myself a bit of tipping and centering short of what I imagine is a point of satisfaction (still an imagined point of satisfaction has loomed just in front of me like a mirage for a couple of years now). Impatient to find an end to this and also worried that I enjoy it too much, I repeatedly ask myself if I should not be getting orthodontic help in tipping and centering. The idea makes me shudder and then rationally I convince myself that it is not the right way to proceed. I cling to a remark Mike Mew made about us being surprised at how fast things will move at the end. Well things do speed up but not enough yet for the point of satisfaction to come.
I think that such progress as I seek is in part going to be down to ever more subtle work in habit and posture. But I think of that subtle work as having primarily to do with removing obstacles to movement or forces which encourage relapse from movement. I think of misalignment in the teeth as being more strongly set than misalignment in the body. While it is all a two way street the experience of my life has been that it was misalignment of my jaw as a result of orthodontic work that twisted my body and that no amount of work to straighten my body without fixing my jaw has had much effect that was not temporary and requiring constant maintenance. I do not believe that any body work resulted in improvement in my jaw until I began to work there directly by Mewing.
Trusting in my level of awareness of my jaw and face to protect me from harm (bit reckless, perhaps), believing that that the teeth are by nature for their function made to cope with short sharp shallow force (more than they they are to the sustained unremitting force that orthodontics submit them to), and seeing that orthodontists do tip teeth in adults (for the most part that is all they seem to achieve with adults), I have set more directly to tipping my teeth by pulsation of tongue in various positions.
In terms of tongue position I adopt the heresy that having your tongue pushing on the roof of your mouth 100% of the time might do wonders for the breadth of your palate and the position of your maxilla but that you might just end up with a bulbous cavern and tipped in teeth. I consider that the ease in the face of the beautiful is not a manifestation of matched and opposing great forces of tongue and jaw that by a lifetime’s practice look easy. Craniofacial dystrophy and narrow palates result from the tongue withdrawing to the lower jaw completely so as to mouthbreathe effectively or to transmit misery by the appearance of the face. I do not consider that living part of the time with the tongue slightly lowered from the palate is wrong. It is a position of greater ease. Smiling feels more natural than in a conscious Mew. I have not made a study of it but those I have asked tell me that is where they think they keep their tongue in repose. When I ask someone this they are in a conversation and poised for speech or smiling so it is perhaps not even the position for solitary repose. Naturally in effort or motion the tongue rises firmly to roof of the mouth to provide useful feedback for balance and a strengthening of the body’s structure. My favourite for generating this is lifting weights in a standing bicep curl.
Perfect teeth are created by millions of tiny nudges by the tongue in correct position. These nudges are not naturally created by conscious movement of the tongue but by it adopting its natural position as the body moves in a healthy active life. It strikes me that this is one reason why there is a positive correlation between sedentary people and bad teeth. Of course that too is a two way street. In seeking to correct our bad teeth we are in the position of trying to pack all these helpful nudges, or the effect of them, into a short time to fix things soonest. It is by excess in this endeavour that we approach danger.
The lower my tongue the less I think pulsing it is the correct way to micmic the natural nudges and the more I restrict myself to creating them by movement of the head and body and to holding the tongue less rigidly as I do. I also use this in an attempt to create width in my lower teeth. These have expanded but lag behind a bit, but they are important. It was the extraction of a single lower incisor and closing of the gap that started my whole disaster.
I proceed with caution in this. It seems wise that it is something I do only part of the time. I have a general thought that the more exercises I deploy in this the less likely it is that I will do any enough for it to be dangerous or cause something to go wrong. I hope I have been clear enough for you to get my drift, but also hope that I have been opaque enough for others less well prepared not to. I will be interested to hear your thoughts on this, particularly if you think I have gone dangerously mad.
I admit I kind of contradicted myself. I am trying to say that >95% of the work, including reversing asymmetry, will likely be completed by posture alone. However, my lateral incisors and canines are surrounded by unsightly gaps (which aren't visible in the pics I posted). Since I'm not sure how much these gaps play into my overbite, nor if maxillary upswing can improve their condition in any way, I think it's possible that I may have to undergo some orthodontic work after all this is done. This would only be a minor correction even in the worst case.
It seems reasonable to assume that whatever is caused by improper posture will be resolved by proper posture. In your case though, with tooth extraction and the subsequent shifting of the whole dental arch as the original trigger of your postural collapse, the matter may be more complex than that. Still, ultimately I'd like to believe that the musculature can be trained to work around the odd-numberness of the teeth ( especially of the lower dental arch) in a way that allows your skull to eventually settle into a state of permanently improved balance.
You are wise to move forward with caution and to incorporate a wide range of exercises. The larger the variety of yoga-like movements you create for yourself, and the more thoroughly you learn to engage your body while performing them, the better off you will be. As the body begins to unwind from its asymmetries you will perceive greater contrast and separation between the balanced body and the imbalanced palate, giving you stronger cues as to how exactly your head is malpositioned relative to the spine and the hips.
@abdulrahman The above is an earlier one. Not that it should matter, since not much change is visible.
Sorry I am not clear about this because you mentioned earlier that your IMW expanded by 10mm. In this picture set there is practically no difference in the upper teeth width. Just to be clear the before picture was taken 2 years ago and after picture is recent?
Oh boy, I feel stupid now. The pics in the dental comparison I posted were both taken in 2016. Here is the correct comparison, left is from 2016 and right from this month:
Oh boy, I feel stupid now. The pics in the dental comparison I posted were both taken in 2016. Here is the correct comparison, left is from 2016 and right from this month:
The difference is clear here you have expansion on both upper and lower arches, more so on your left side. Most of the change has taken place at the back, less at the front.
Oh boy, I feel stupid now. The pics in the dental comparison I posted were both taken in 2016. Here is the correct comparison, left is from 2016 and right from this month:
The difference is clear here you have expansion on both upper and lower arches, more so on your left side. Most of the change has taken place at the back, less at the front.
I agree with your assessment. The anterior palate has remained unchanged throughout the process and I have been unintentionally expanding asymmetrically by pushing right side of the posterior tongue more up and left side more to the side. Currently trying to train the tongue to do the opposite of this.
I agree with your assessment. The anterior palate has remained unchanged throughout the process and I have been unintentionally expanding asymmetrically by pushing right side of the posterior tongue more up and left side more to the side. Currently trying to train the tongue to do the opposite of this.
This is due to your scoliosis, what type do you have S or C, and what is the degree?
I agree with your assessment. The anterior palate has remained unchanged throughout the process and I have been unintentionally expanding asymmetrically by pushing right side of the posterior tongue more up and left side more to the side. Currently trying to train the tongue to do the opposite of this.
This is due to your scoliosis, what type do you have S or C, and what is the degree?
I no longer have scoliosis, and what I had was not properly diagnosed - sorry to disappoint you.
I no longer have scoliosis, and what I had was not properly diagnosed - sorry to disappoint you.
What did you have?
I would describe it as complex scoliotic collapse of the core musculature. Everything was out of balance from toes to head: one of my feet pointed more outward than the other, the sides of my hips were at different height, abs vertically out of alignment, uneven shoulders, head leaning to one side. It was like a zig-zag pattern, in which every part of the body was simultaneously either too backward/forward and too high/low relative to its opposing side. Here are a couple of visualizations of the problem:
I would describe it as complex scoliotic collapse of the core musculature. Everything was out of balance from toes to head: one of my feet pointed more outward than the other, the sides of my hips were at different height, abs vertically out of alignment, uneven shoulders, head leaning to one side. It was like a zig-zag pattern, in which every part of the body was simultaneously either too backward/forward and too high/low relative to its opposing side. Here are a couple of visualizations of the problem:
It sounds like you had a functional scoliosis or a major muscle asymmetry. What was the wrong diagnoses you were given before?
By the way the curve in the picture above is a C shape, is that what you had?
I would describe it as complex scoliotic collapse of the core musculature. Everything was out of balance from toes to head: one of my feet pointed more outward than the other, the sides of my hips were at different height, abs vertically out of alignment, uneven shoulders, head leaning to one side. It was like a zig-zag pattern, in which every part of the body was simultaneously either too backward/forward and too high/low relative to its opposing side. Here are a couple of visualizations of the problem:
It sounds like you had a functional scoliosis or a major muscle asymmetry. What was the wrong diagnoses you were given before?
By the way the curve in the picture above is a C shape, is that what you had?
I meant that I was not officially diagnosed. I self-diagnosed myself, which is why the original degree of curvature remains unknown. Yes, C shape it is then.
@progress Your results are astounding! You look like a completely different person. I have a question about the curvature you said you had in your spine that disappeared and full body mewing. I was diagnosed with scoliosis at a young age shortly after I had tooth extractions and was fitted with braces. I was told my scoliosis was genetic and was given a heal lift to compensate for a "short leg" which made it worse. I later threw my heal lift away and started surfing instead which improved my back problems considerably. I still have an abnormal curvature in my spine and one shoulder is higher than the other but my back pain has almost completely vanished since I started making a conscious effort to work on my posture several years ago. My question is, do you practice any specific exercises that helped with that? I understand that you practice chin tucking and stomach vacuums. I too have just started doing this, but I'm wondering how often you do this or is it an all day thing. Also do you "hard mew" all day or is it mostly "soft mewing" all day? Thank you for your help.
The uptodate photo puts a very different perspective on things. Do you think the ‘unintentional’ pushing up on the right and out on the left was set by habit of the tongue,the shape of your mouth, the shape/tilt of your head or a curve in your neck, or bit of all? For me now the same pushing of the tongue appears to be determined by the misshapenness of my mouth, which I seek to correct. This becomes most obvious to me by bowing my head with my tongue on my palate.
This unintentional seemingly imbalanced tongue pushing seems to have widened what seems to be the narrower side of your mouth. I begin to wonder if it is something you should be balancing out by intentionally doing it in the opposite way, or whether the unintentional choice is just the proper corrective that a level tongue arising out of a balanced body is demanding of your mouth.
My scoliotic collapse was much like one of your diagrams though right foot everted, left side of neck tighter, right side of jaw wider and lower. I take the view that the tilting of my jaw is part of, and largely the seed of, my scoliosis. I remember in Moreno Conte’s book there were diagrams like the ones you posted showing a snaking collapse. First one shoulder rising and then the next. I have at times been adopting intentionally corrective tongue posture as part of attempts to fix a narrower left shoulder and tighter left neck, but in between my tongue posture has been unintentional also. I have feeling that this unintentional tongue posture has shifted from side to side as I have unwound the snaking collapse beneath my neck.
I like to do an Indian head nod to assess lateral balance, and also just because I can now the top of my cervical spine is not jammed tight as it has been since as far back as I remember. It seems to give a little more information than standing straight and bowing my head.
I have a twist to my structural collapse that brings my left side forward from head to toe. It is not as gruesome as description makes it sound but my face is to a small degree turning to the right. I have found this much more difficult to tackle than any lateral shifts. Have you had to deal with this at all?
@odys I think the kind of tongue posturing I mentioned was a habit created by the asymmetric shape of the palate. Even though the rest of my body had achieved a better state of balance, my head was not properly positioned on top of the spine. Due to this, most of my development had occurred on the left side of the face, which may explain why the changes are so contradictory in the earlier photos that I took of the right side, versus the recent, more obvious left side comparison. Now that I began focusing on mewing towards the right side, doing so felt very unnatural, and I had to take few days to consciously re-position the head in relation to the shoulders. Now a week later I'm already able to provide more consistent pressure towards that side, and my spine feels more balanced.
So to answer your question: I don't think the subconscious/unintentional direction of the tongue posture is necessarily an optimal direction to push towards. A balanced tongue posture in an unbalanced skull can feel unintuitive.
Since you have had similar doubts, I should warn you that it can be surprisingly hard to identify the direction into which the tongue should be pushed towards. I have changed my opinion 5-10 times in the last two years. Weirdly, each time I switched the preferred side, I was able to ascend to a higher level of anatomic function, so perhaps such back-and-forth vacillating is not completely unproductive. The actually unproductive part was the assumption that I had finally found "the proper way" of mewing every time I made a correction.
I have a twist to my structural collapse that brings my left side forward from head to toe. It is not as gruesome as description makes it sound but my face is to a small degree turning to the right. I have found this much more difficult to tackle than any lateral shifts. Have you had to deal with this at all?
Definitely. It all takes place in three dimensions: when one side is lower/higher than the other, that side is usually also more forward/backward than the other. The best kind of exercises are those where the body is rotate or twisted to its maximum range of motion. For example, you could sit down on a chair and try to rotate your hips to one way and the shoulders to the opposite way as much as they go, trying to recruit the sleeping muscles along the way into the motion.
My question is, do you practice any specific exercises that helped with that? I understand that you practice chin tucking and stomach vacuums. I too have just started doing this, but I'm wondering how often you do this or is it an all day thing. Also do you "hard mew" all day or is it mostly "soft mewing" all day? Thank you for your help.
@timbertiger I do all kinds of light postural work throughout the day, lazily based on what I feel like doing. For the most part, I try to twist and flex my body in various ways. If I don't feel like putting in effort, I don't feel bad for taking 1-3 days off.
Rather than strictly hard mewing or soft mewing, what I'm doing could be described as dynamic mewing. Whenever I'm performing some movement in my daily life, I try to determine the force with which the tongue needs to press against the palate in order to provide sufficient postural support. If I'm walking in the forest or other demanding environment, I may maintain a static hold of moderate force. If I'm lying on the bed, I maintain a soft hold. I also have brief sessions of pushing very hard a few times a day.
Wow, the difference in your arches is amazing. This is precisely what I hope to achieve with mewing. To widen my top and bottom arches, reduce my buccal corridors and get better lip support. Thank you for the comparison photos.
Hey, your progress is amazing however you mentioned you plan to work on asymmetries. That is my main issue too. After 2 months of mewing my jaw has come forward nicely, my mandible is not that much of a problem when it comes to forward growth so it went fast,however my maxilla is, what’s even worse it’s both vertically and horizontally asymmetric. So after this 2 months I realized my main problem is obvious asymmetry. My palate is wider,forward but down on the left side and right side is narrow, up but pushed back, my maxilla and mandible look just the same, so overall my face looks pretty messed up. I found out my right shoulder was more tensed and muscle was constantly activated and I kind of pushed it unconsciously back. Weird thing is, that I realized that my face got this messed not that long ago, Im 26 and I found a pic when I was 21 and my face was much better developed, right side was nicely forward instead pushed back and jaw was visibly pushed forward. So I was looking for the reason what caused this significant worsening of my facial development and I can only think of one thing.In 2014 I injured my meniscus however the damage was not the acute one that would require surgery so it was supposed to get better and become somewhat chronic, which was right after some time my knee was 100% usable but I could never fully extend it, so I would always for example stand with my left knee bent a bit and my right knee would receive bigger force applied to it as it was basically working more because of my left knee. Long story short 2 weeks ago I got some energetic healing work done on my knee and from that time I can stand on it while it’s fully extend, hard to say if I could not extend it due to a fear or the muscles got really shortened there even though I stretched and worked out but I dont even care, I can extend it fully now and that is amazing. Now it is only my theory but could this cause an imbalance that would affect everything from knees up to spine and of course craniofacial area? Well the fact that my left knee was bent a bit for years, and somewhere around 2016 I noticed that something has happened to my face, my left side of face “fell” down and since my right knee had to handle twice as much pressure, the entire right side of body became more tensed so my right face pushed back more? I have no idea if knee could affect that. I always had overall bad posture which Ive been trying to fix during last few months, same with proper tongue posture, swallowing, mouth closed etc. My head is not forward anymore, my spine is somewhat straight, I consciously stopped activating right shoulder so Im aware and work on overall postural and muscle imbalances in my entire body, but I feel like Im hopeless with asymmetry of my palate, right side need to be pushed forward and out as it needs to be wider, while left side needs to be pushed up. And I dont know how to effectively work on both of these things. What do you think would be the best way to fix this asymmetry? Thanks
Maybe it's just me but I literally see no difference that couldn't just be attributed to the facial hair/lighting.
It's just you. His NOSE has improved definition, for heaven's sake. The buccinator area is less puffy, the lips are sealed and more sculpted, the chin has clearly moved forward, the forehead is more upright. The OP should feel fantastic about these changes.
@Progress, Not sure how often you respond to posts here, but I would be really interested to know whether you have dabbled in thumb/face pulling at any point.
The more time I spend on this forum, the more it seems that the people who have made clear, observable progress, have pulled their face at one point.
Have you tried face pulling at any point in your journey, and what are your perspectives on whether it's essential to cranial restructuring?
Since my changes have been so subtle, I try to hold back the impulse to oversell them. There are people who think my face has changed remarkably, and people who question whether or not my face has changed at all. I understand both point of views. Pictures taken at close distance can lie a lot, to the extent that it can be hard to remain objective. If I had the means to track my progress with actual 3D scans, I of course would.
I tried NCR and belt-pulling early in my journey back in 2016. Based on @greensmoothies and @achilles1 anecdotes in this thread, I might experiment with frequent thumb-pulling in the near future in an attempt to achieve disarticulation in the mid-palatal suture. The changes I have acquired so far I attribute to hard mewing and palatal expansion. I have kept track of my inter-molar width, and it seems that the palate has widened roughly at a pace of 1mm/month:
37 mm 7/2018 38 mm 8/2018 39 mm 8/2018 40 mm 9/2018 41 mm 9/2018 42 mm 10/2018 43 mm 11/2018
I made the following gif recently and tried to align ears & eyes. The short-haired picture was taken in 2016, and the other picture last week. In this particular comparison it seems that while the rest of the cranium has expanded, the jaws have moved back and up, instead of forward and up. I remember @SUGR1 saying that many adults actually have bimaxillary protrusion. Back then I questioned the claim, but based on this comparison it seems to make more sense.
As for your earlier question regarding the full-body mewing I mentioned, try to perceive the connection between vacuuming your stomach in and suctioning your tongue against the palate. Likewise, try to perceive similar connection between pushing your stomach out in an expansive manner and pushing the tongue against the palate. One should curve your spine forward, and the other backward. In general you should strive to maintain a balance between these two movements.
you can see progress man you see that your nose is moved a bit forwards
but your lips look weird , it looks like maxillary protrusion somehow
@greekgodbrody It's been a very uneven journey. I achieved the majority of the expansion last year, coinciding with the period during which I started taking postural work more seriously. I have now been stuck at around 43-44 mm for several months. I'm born in 1992 and began this journey in 2016.
@dm222 If there was something to show about the chin, I would've of course shaved my beard. In the grand scheme of things, the chin (and mandible at large) is insignificant. Most of the changes I am getting are the midface moving backward due to CCW maxillary rotation. I have now begun complementing this movement by jutting my jaw forward, which activates the lateral pterygoids. The lateral pterygoids are attached to the mandible at the TMJ joint, and to the sphenoid above the sides of the palate. Engaging the pterygoids will thus pull the forementioned two towards each other (since tensing a muscle makes it shorter), which together with the tongue posture should result in a CCW rotation that will resolve my maxillary protrusion, possibly inducing further palatal expansion and improving gonial angle.
The first pic in the gif is from 2016. Naturally the chin will improve during the process. I'm not particularly interested in tracking it, but if there is a lot of demand for it, I might post a clean-shaven pic later on.
That's interesting. I thought we had the same pattern of CFD but it seems that my maxilla is sunken whereas yours is "tipped over". My midface is protruding with slight CW rotation and our nasolabial angles appear to be changing in opposite ways. I wonder what the reason for this is, pretty sure it isn't that you used to have a posterior-only tongue posture...
Are you just continuously jutting your jaw forward? Have you thought of doing something like stretching a resistance band against the chin and doing reps?
That's interesting. I thought we had the same pattern of CFD but it seems that my maxilla is sunken whereas yours is "tipped over". My midface is protruding with slight CW rotation and our nasolabial angles appear to be changing in opposite ways. I wonder what the reason for this is, pretty sure it isn't that you used to have a posterior-only tongue posture...
Are you just continuously jutting your jaw forward? Have you thought of doing something like stretching a resistance band against the chin and doing reps?
probably because his anterior tongue posture was against the incisors.
Posted by: Progress
your posture is much better in the second pic, and you dont look more recessed in the second so I think you had some progress there.
That's interesting. I thought we had the same pattern of CFD but it seems that my maxilla is sunken whereas yours is "tipped over". My midface is protruding with slight CW rotation and our nasolabial angles appear to be changing in opposite ways. I wonder what the reason for this is, pretty sure it isn't that you used to have a posterior-only tongue posture...
Yeah, it seems that every case is so unique that it's hard to predict the exact ways someone's face is going to change. I have spent a lot of time trying to create some kind of mental "theory of everything" that could be used to explain the nature of anyone's CFD, but there are so many variables that I don't know how feasible it is.
As a child I wore retractive headgear that pulled my maxilla back by the molars. Earlier in this journey I used to wonder what was the purpose of such appliance, but in the light of the recent pics it looks like my orthodontists were not completely misguided in their approach.
Are you just continuously jutting your jaw forward? Have you thought of doing something like stretching a resistance band against the chin and doing reps?
I have thought about that, but since all muscles work in opposite pairs, I think it's better to learn to develop a natural, balanced tension within the jaw/tongue musculature instead of forcefully exercising one particular muscle. At the moment, it feels like the jutting and the tongue posture complement and stabilize each other (so to answer your question, yes I'm jutting most of the time). This dynamic should ensure that the pterygoids will, over time, develop as they are meant to. I was also in brief contact with another person who claimed that once he began jutting his jaw out due to insecurity, his whole mandible reshaped itself in positive way in just a couple of months. One thing I have noticed is that while jutting, the lower lip rests against the lower incisors, which has been causing a little soreness in the teeth. I suspect that this may tip the incisors inwards over time, increasing chin projection.
probably because his anterior tongue posture was against the incisors
Wouldn't that cause bimaxillary protrusion?
Timothee Chalamet seems to have this pattern of recession too. I wonder if it's because the backwards-tilting neurocranium in cohesion with gravity somehow levers the midface outwards.
EDIT: Now I'm realizing that this pattern is everywhere and might even be the standard. Maybe it has more to do with the downswinging jaws creating a CW rotation of the entire lower two thirds. It just seems strange that sometimes the midface has the complete opposite reaction.
probably because his anterior tongue posture was against the incisors
EDIT: Now I'm realizing that this pattern is everywhere and might even be the standard. Maybe it has more to do with the downswinging jaws creating a CW rotation of the entire lower two thirds. It just seems strange that sometimes the midface has the complete opposite reaction.
That's possible. Another possibility is that in head forward posture, without the support of the tongue, the frontal bone begins to collapse inward, causing the sphenoid to squeeze the mid-face outward. In the gif you can see that as the nose moves backward, the forehead comes forward.
Have your wisdom teeth started to peep through from mewing?. im noticing way more space in my mouth compared to when I began my journey back in September 2017, im seeing the front 2 cusps of my mandibular wisdoms coming in
Do you think this is a matter of late vs. early onset CFD, as in existing structure collapsing vs. misguided growth? I think in the latter case the maxilla is more prone to retrude. Have you examined your childhood pics?
@greekgodbrody It's been a very uneven journey. I achieved the majority of the expansion last year, coinciding with the period during which I started taking postural work more seriously.
Could you elaborate on what you did in terms of body work? Also, what improvements have you noticed to your sleep? Seeing as you have expanded quite a bit.
@greekgodbrody It's been a very uneven journey. I achieved the majority of the expansion last year, coinciding with the period during which I started taking postural work more seriously.
Could you elaborate on what you did in terms of body work? Also, what improvements have you noticed to your sleep? Seeing as you have expanded quite a bit.
This is difficult to talk about and may sound like nonsense, but instead of following a specific routine, I have been determined to learn to listen the subtle postural preferences of my own nervous system. I guess it could be described as some kind of self-tailored, ever-changing fusion of yoga, taichi, calisthenics and martial arts. I have learned that when I focus on my body, the nervous system gives these subtle urges to bend my body in a specific way. I kind of ask my body "where do you want to go?", then I try to allow my bodily intuition to answer this question without thinking rationally about it. It's more like feeling your way into better posture than analyzing (although the latter also has its own valuable role in the grand scheme of things).
I would end up with improvised movements that may look something like rotating my torso like a corkscrew in a semi-squatting position while simultaneously reaching as far as I can into a specific direction with my hands. It's all about generating physical tension that travels throughout your body from toes to fingers and then striving to extend this tension even further, until you are both tensing and stretching the whole musculature at the same time. Think of how a little child would familiarize himself with the limits of his physical body. That is essentially what you are trying to do: discovering new territories in your range of motion.
Breathing has also been a big part of the process. I have practiced using the whole body to support the drawing in of an inhale and the squeezing out of an exhale, searching for the absolute physical maximum into which these two opposite movements can be taken to.
This is some fantastic progress Progress! Lookin' like a strong healthy dude now.
So, I am of the opinion that the posterior part of the tongue modifies the position of the sphenoid and zygomatic process, whereas the the tongue tip operates as the vehicle for anterior rotation. In my own experience, I have gotten very wide in the front of my palate, which has unlocked my lower jaw enough to grow in 1/2 of my bottom wisdom teeth. I believe this has happened thanks to the frontal expansion allowing for a sagittal "swing".
Have you noticed anything similar in your experience while achieving CCW rotation? In other words, have you noticed whether the posterior acts as a "compressor" and the anterior acts as a "rotator"? This might be common knowledge, but I have not seen this mentioned yet...
This is some fantastic progress Progress! Lookin' like a strong healthy dude now.
So, I am of the opinion that the posterior part of the tongue modifies the position of the sphenoid and zygomatic process, whereas the the tongue tip operates as the vehicle for anterior rotation. In my own experience, I have gotten very wide in the front of my palate, which has unlocked my lower jaw enough to grow in 1/2 of my bottom wisdom teeth. I believe this has happened thanks to the frontal expansion allowing for a sagittal "swing".
Have you noticed anything similar in your experience while achieving CCW rotation? In other words, have you noticed whether the posterior acts as a "compressor" and the anterior acts as a "rotator"? This might be common knowledge, but I have not seen this mentioned yet...
Thanks Achilles. That's how I see it too. If we think of sphenoid as the center of an imaginary circle, then the anterior palate has the highest radius in relation to it, which means that it's a spot which provides the strongest leverage in terms of achieving maxillary CCW rotation. It seems that posturally I benefit more from favouring the anterior palate than the posterior palate. I think that eventually the palate will rotate so that even forces will be applied naturally by the whole tongue.
what's your IMW now? Mine has not changed for over a year now :(
I have been plateauing for a while now too, been at 43-44mm since the beginning of the year. I have fairly good idea of how to continue expanding further though, I just want to improve my symmetry first because the asymmetric expansion I was achieving was beginning to make my posture unstable. In my experience, you just have to ram the tongue against the molars and premolars. If the tongue is not touching the teeth, or at least the very ends of the alveoral ridge, not much expansion can be expected. Consider how expander appliances are anchored directly to the teeth. If you want to use the tongue as an organic expander, you have to make it act in similar manner.
Do you imply your tongue is big enough to reach these teeth while mewing ? It is absolutely impossible for me, even though I can push my tongue against the very back of my palate.
@Progress, your forward head posture improved wonderfully. I'm wondering if you can go into more detail about how much of this happened passively (due to the change in tongue posture) and how much of it happened actively. Thanks.
It would be cool if you'd do a clean-shaven comparison picture for your next update.
Since there have been several requests for this, will do.
Posted by: skinnyboiii
@Progress, your forward head posture improved wonderfully. I'm wondering if you can go into more detail about how much of this happened passively (due to the change in tongue posture) and how much of it happened actively. Thanks.
I have been actively fighting for it. I constantly stretch the highest point of the neck that I can, until I feel a stretch in the beginning of my scalp. There does not seem to be a clear border between the muscles of the posterior neck and the galea, because both are part of the same fascia (which also connects the heels to the cranium via the hamstrings, hips and the back). Even if your neck looks straight, there is still lots of room for lengthening at the sub-occipital region, which in turn enables further chin tucking etc. In my current view it's this constant stretching and tucking by harnessing the leverage of the posterior tongue that will straighten out the cranial base, rotate the neurocranium forward and ultimately lead to the desirable aesthetic change.
From your latest update I made an animation to get a clearer sense of your changes. All I did was remove the background and make the transition a little slower. What you see is consistent with what you previously mentioned regarding the forehead, nose, and jaw. Very interesting.
I meant that I was not officially diagnosed. I self-diagnosed myself, which is why the original degree of curvature remains unknown. Yes, C shape it is then.
@progress Did you fix the problem? How did you do it?
Recently i did some neck stretches back ward and to the left and to the right and i noticed a good difference. I have decent head posture but there is SO MUCH tightness back there which made we realize that i cant mew to full potential if the muscles are imbalance so id heavily reccomend just tilting your head back even for one minute and focus on relaxing your traps and neck and youll notice a good difference! also if you sleep quality is lacking or have apnea check out soundly in the app store
@greekgodbrody It's been a very uneven journey. I achieved the majority of the expansion last year, coinciding with the period during which I started taking postural work more seriously.
Could you elaborate on what you did in terms of body work? Also, what improvements have you noticed to your sleep? Seeing as you have expanded quite a bit.
This is difficult to talk about and may sound like nonsense, but instead of following a specific routine, I have been determined to learn to listen the subtle postural preferences of my own nervous system. I guess it could be described as some kind of self-tailored, ever-changing fusion of yoga, taichi, calisthenics and martial arts. I have learned that when I focus on my body, the nervous system gives these subtle urges to bend my body in a specific way. I kind of ask my body "where do you want to go?", then I try to allow my bodily intuition to answer this question without thinking rationally about it. It's more like feeling your way into better posture than analyzing (although the latter also has its own valuable role in the grand scheme of things).
I would end up with improvised movements that may look something like rotating my torso like a corkscrew in a semi-squatting position while simultaneously reaching as far as I can into a specific direction with my hands. It's all about generating physical tension that travels throughout your body from toes to fingers and then striving to extend this tension even further, until you are both tensing and stretching the whole musculature at the same time. Think of how a little child would familiarize himself with the limits of his physical body. That is essentially what you are trying to do: discovering new territories in your range of motion.
Breathing has also been a big part of the process. I have practiced using the whole body to support the drawing in of an inhale and the squeezing out of an exhale, searching for the absolute physical maximum into which these two opposite movements can be taken to.
No noticeable changes in quality of sleep.
Man,
I relate so much to the stuff you're doing, I have been doing all the stuff you mentioned above for years and now i mew and put them all together, IMHO is really the way to go to see total result.
P.S. I have come up with a bunch of weird stretches and exercises, in some of them i use resistance bands, I hope one day i am brave enough to post some of them... they are weird but effective=_=
"If the tongue is not touching the teeth, or at least the very ends of the alveoral ridge, not much expansion can be expected. Consider how expander appliances are anchored directly to the teeth. If you want to use the tongue as an organic expander, you have to make it act in similar manner."
Therefore do you believe that pushing laterally with your tongue may be more important that pushing up and back? Do you think that upswing is achieved directly by having a larger IMW? Been mewing for the better part of 8 months and my IMW hasn't changed all that much, perhaps I should really direct the force of my tongue laterally and see if it helps.
I agree for the most part. We all have a slightly different natural tongue possture and we find that through proper swallowing and proper body and neck posture. all we have to do is find that spot for us then apply more force. I think a lot of people find that spot but then change it becuas they hear tongue touching the teeth is bad. That could just mean your tongue needs more room!! so let it place naturally then apply force
is it possible your skull is economising on bone mass, where as your palate widens it also shortens? It looks like your jaw are retracting. In other words you're not developing any new bone, but are just spreading the existing tissue elsewhere.
@greekgodbrody It's been a very uneven journey. I achieved the majority of the expansion last year, coinciding with the period during which I started taking postural work more seriously.
Could you elaborate on what you did in terms of body work? Also, what improvements have you noticed to your sleep? Seeing as you have expanded quite a bit.
This is difficult to talk about and may sound like nonsense, but instead of following a specific routine, I have been determined to learn to listen the subtle postural preferences of my own nervous system. I guess it could be described as some kind of self-tailored, ever-changing fusion of yoga, taichi, calisthenics and martial arts. I have learned that when I focus on my body, the nervous system gives these subtle urges to bend my body in a specific way. I kind of ask my body "where do you want to go?", then I try to allow my bodily intuition to answer this question without thinking rationally about it. It's more like feeling your way into better posture than analyzing (although the latter also has its own valuable role in the grand scheme of things).
I would end up with improvised movements that may look something like rotating my torso like a corkscrew in a semi-squatting position while simultaneously reaching as far as I can into a specific direction with my hands. It's all about generating physical tension that travels throughout your body from toes to fingers and then striving to extend this tension even further, until you are both tensing and stretching the whole musculature at the same time. Think of how a little child would familiarize himself with the limits of his physical body. That is essentially what you are trying to do: discovering new territories in your range of motion.
Breathing has also been a big part of the process. I have practiced using the whole body to support the drawing in of an inhale and the squeezing out of an exhale, searching for the absolute physical maximum into which these two opposite movements can be taken to.
How flexible do you consider yourself？ both in general and compared to yourself in 2016?
also, any quick tips about how we can listen to our own body？does propioception help with this？
I have actually also found myself in a similar squatted postition while rotating hips one way and torso/shoulders the other way(which i got from you)
Have you researched the J shaped spine and esker gohhale？I bought her books 8 steps to pain free back. I assume when I fix my upper back curve and neck posture the maxilla will rotate much more easily.
In the book she talks about how many people "park" our hips too far forward, lean too far onto the mid foot, tuck in the hips too much and lock the knees.
When I stick my butt out slighly, the lower spine feels more "free" and I find my knees naturally bend a little, and more weight goes onto the heel (back foot)
When I stick my butt out slighly, the lower spine feels more "free" and I find my knees naturally bend a little, and more weight goes onto the heel (back foot)
Maybe It works on you, but as a general rule, It doesn't make sense to me.
The spine naturally has two gentle curves . Those curves get too sharp due to bad posture: rounded shoulders causing hunchback and , if you do like that, lordosis.
Heel striking while walking or even running Is an absolute curse imposed by mainstream shoes that are over cushioned on the heel exactly forcing you to stand like that. I Just went for a walk in my minimalist shoes to prove it to myself.
The stride (particularly while running) has to swing between the mid-external and front foot, the ball.
Apparentely the weight should be discharged on the mid-external foot, so to avoid valgus knee.
If Stick your butt out you won't use any or little muscles (maybe that's why you feel It "free") preventing them to help to support the spine making it to collapse on itself.
Same for rounded shoulders
This is no sense. Like ... Just what ?
If you want to collect something from the ground, use you legs!
And by the way, you don't want to have toddler's posture for obvious reasons
Trust me if I say that everything I wrote comes from my experience and PROPRIOCEPTION and not biased external knowledge.
I went to check what causes valgus knees to confim
"Anterior Pelvic Tilt – If the front of your pelvis tends to be tilted downwards in an anterior pelvic tilt, this can cause the hips to internally rotate forcing the knees to point inwards."
When I stick my butt out slighly, the lower spine feels more "free" and I find my knees naturally bend a little, and more weight goes onto the heel (back foot)
Maybe It works on you, but as a general rule, It doesn't make sense to me.
The spine naturally has two gentle curves . Those curves get too sharp due to bad posture: rounded shoulders causing hunchback and , if you do like that, lordosis.
Heel striking while walking or even running Is an absolute curse imposed by mainstream shoes that are over cushioned on the heel exactly forcing you to stand like that. I Just went for a walk in my minimalist shoes to prove it to myself.
The stride (particularly while running) has to swing between the mid-external and front foot
Apparentely the weight should be discharged on the mid-external foot, so to avoid valgus knee.
If Stick your butt out you won't use any or little muscles preventing them to help to support the spine making it to collapse on itself.
Same for rounded shoulders
This is no sense. Like ... Just what ?
If you want to collect something from the ground, use you legs!
And by the way way, you don't want to have toddler's posture for obvious reasons
I don't agree with her.
The hollow position is the way to go 24/7 until one gets used to it and in time it'll be the neutral spine position, free of lower back pain and good posture.
Also, yes sleeping on the back when I do this seems counterproductive, Mew has mentioned that back sleeping isn't ideal for bringing the maxilla up and forwards as well. I haven't seen evidence of mewing bringing the maxilla up and forward yet, so these manual adjustments have proven to me to be quite helpful.
Also, yes sleeping on the back when I do this seems counterproductive, Mew has mentioned that back sleeping isn't ideal for bringing the maxilla up and forwards as well. I haven't seen evidence of mewing bringing the maxilla up and forward yet, so these manual adjustments have proven to me to be quite helpful.
Where was this said?
I don't recall. Mew tends to drop information that's important for learning technique, theory and best practices in all his videos.
Also, yes sleeping on the back when I do this seems counterproductive, Mew has mentioned that back sleeping isn't ideal for bringing the maxilla up and forwards as well. I haven't seen evidence of mewing bringing the maxilla up and forward yet, so these manual adjustments have proven to me to be quite helpful.
Where was this said?
I don't recall. Mew tends to drop information that's important for learning technique, theory and best practices in all his videos.
But wouldn't sleeping on one side cause/deteriorate asymmetries? You definitely can't apply pressure equally in a side sleeping position.
Also, yes sleeping on the back when I do this seems counterproductive, Mew has mentioned that back sleeping isn't ideal for bringing the maxilla up and forwards as well. I haven't seen evidence of mewing bringing the maxilla up and forward yet, so these manual adjustments have proven to me to be quite helpful.
Where was this said?
I don't recall. Mew tends to drop information that's important for learning technique, theory and best practices in all his videos.
But wouldn't sleeping on one side cause/deteriorate asymmetries? You definitely can't apply pressure equally in a side sleeping position.
Adults can change the whole face but unlikely to cause asymmetry? That sounds counter-intuitive?
If adults can cause negative or positive effects to the face via exertion of pressure, I don't see how favouring one side to sleep on wouldn't affect the face from uneven application of tongue pressure, even from a suction hold. And what about the force exerted from the bed on the side of the face?
My father sleeps on his back and doesn't seem to have any asymmetry on his face. I, on the other hand, used to roll all over the bed until I started mewing 6-7 weeks ago and my face is riddled with asymmetries. I know correlation isn't causation but well, there's that.
I was thinking of sleeping on my back (already doing it) with the bed inclined a few degrees higher as I read it was good for your general health. I could probably engage the posterior third more in my sleep if I do that, which I'm having trouble with right now.
But side sleeping does have its own benefits too, I must admit. Especially regarding the glymphatic transport and prevention of neurodegeneration.
Adults can change the whole face but unlikely to cause asymmetry? That sounds counter-intuitive?
If adults can cause negative or positive effects to the face via exertion of pressure, I don't see how favouring one side to sleep on wouldn't affect the face from uneven application of tongue pressure, even from a suction hold. And what about the force exerted from the bed on the side of the face?
My father sleeps on his back and doesn't seem to have any asymmetry on his face. I, on the other hand, used to roll all over the bed until I started mewing 6-7 weeks ago and my face is riddled with asymmetries. I know correlation isn't causation but well, there's that.
I was thinking of sleeping on my back (already doing it) with the bed inclined a few degrees higher as I read it was good for your general health. I could probably engage the posterior third more in my sleep if I do that, which I'm having trouble with right now.
But side sleeping does have its own benefits too, I must admit. Especially regarding the glymphatic transport and prevention of neurodegeneration.
Yeah, I'll go ahead and read that, thanks for linking it.
Torticollis, for example, can result in favouring a certain side to sleep on. I think your tongue is applying pressure unevenly while side-sleeping because it's currently too weak to apply it evenly. Mew has videos on how to strengthen the tongue.
Do you mind giving a run down of your technique? I seem to have the same problem you have but to a much worse degree. My maxilla is much further back and down which has caused my mandible to rotate. Due to the mandible rotation my back molars don't touch like they should and use too. I also have a musculature tear on my right quad due to this. I've been like a hermit for the last decade and I finally found this site...Hopefully it will help.
I don't think your skull moved, I think your face moved and so your posture got a lot better. The shape of the front maxilla changed a lot as well, it's grown upwards and forward. Also looks like the whole maxilla moved slightly forward and rotated clockwise, making your eyes deeper.
I still can't understand how high IQ posters like yourself can't seem to get good results but love talking about mewing all day and saying things like "x changed" or "after doing z i feel like my y is bigger/different". bro be real this community is an echo chamber and you being mod contributes to that. Look how salludon produced insane results from simple technique yet you high iq posters dive into it and can't reproduce anything. It makes me wonder if mewing only works for the select few and yet so many people want it to work for them. All these replies on your thread with people complimenting you saying you got change when all the change can be accounted for by bad pictures/ lense distortion. Again I don't want to hate man, i really don't, I apologize for my out burst yesterday as well.
But in the end all you maybe got is skull tilting and your face looks the same :(. All Im trying to say is communities like these are echo chambers and really just feeds the skeptics as no one can really reproduce results. And bro i feel you cuz im goin through it too rn and it sucks but it is what it is. Some of us were meant to be great in this life some were not. Even the drastic varying in mewing results proves this.
Overall ban me , or shadow ban me whatever. and bro atleast reply to me privately telling me why you deleted this comment and why ur gonna ban me etc. I just want ppl to keep it real and call each other out because mewing isn't going to progress to the mainstream like this. Because the goal of this mewing movement in the long run should be to prevent future generations from having to go through what we did. Man if only things were different for us fr.
Again no hate im a loser irl it is what it is man. Im not trying to say im better than you or anything cuz im not. I really wish you the best and all the ppl on this forum because lets be real, no one wants to be here. we all wanted to have good faces and live life like normal people not knowing what mewing even is. again ban me idc.
I'm sorry your dream to become a model isn't feasible. It is what is is, mewing slight changes, mostly improving airway and thus improving health(better sleep, etc..). It's not going to make you much more attractive, that's the fact, unless you start when you're still in puberty.
But mewing is still legit in adults.
This is what you should expect :
Better breathing, I used to be unable to breath through nose during exercise, now it's natural.
No snoring, thus better sleep quality.
Increase in IMW and ICW.
Slightly better profile or at least prevent worsening of profile.
Here's a study showing inter-canine width had impressive changes following tongue posture, I personally went from V-shaped palate to U-shaped one as well :
And again I'm sorry that you can't become a model through mewing, you probably need a much better lower third for that, unfortunately mewing doesn't stimulate much ramus/mandible growth in either direction.
Now I may never improve my side profile or mandible projection, but I'm grateful I found this website and can at least breath through my nose at all times and sleep without snoring. At least my profile won't worsen over time as well.
Btw even though @Azrael may disagree, it's obvious that Salludon did surgeries. He's from looksmax btw, where surgeries are common.
I've seen both kinds of people—those who keep their molars in contact and those who don't—make steady progress with mewing.
What in yout opinion is optimal?
Tension in mastication muscles is required for the genioglossus to produce any effect, otherwise it'll just push the mandible backwards. It's not necessarily the teeth in contact, but the counter-force from all the masticatory and assisting muscles.
@auxiliarus Ok wow ur citing health benefits when people have achieved insane facial improvements from mewing. Also Im justing calling out this community in general for talking all day about their changes but not posting pics.
bro either post your pics or stop talking about your results like thats how i feel.
Be real with me bro, the reason people are here is not for health improvements, there here because there social/dating life isn't that good(or non existent ) and they need to improve their face.
And i agree your expectations are very realistic and that's what we all should probably expect because only the select few get insane/good results.
edit: also saying salludon got surgery is cope. how can he post two update pics with increasingly better results. its not like he got two surgeries/ fillers injections
You're making a lot of assumptions, a lot of people here are just your average blokes who want to look like all the actors on the TV. Either way, those changes I outlined are already enough to always perma-mew. Also I haven't yet seen one change that was insane and wasn't a result of puberty or surgery. Jamo was 16 when he started, he didn't look post-pubertal either(translation : he still looked like a child).
As for salludon's before-afters he literally just pulled his hyoid upwards, grew a beard and changed his camera angle. I'm specifically talking about his crazy cheek-line he posted, that's surgery.
@auxiliarus there you go again always talking about theory like you know something. When in reality your forced to rot here because ur ugly/have no friends. Don't respond to me its fine but in the end of they day ur the one with minor health improvements sitting infront of a computer screen getting ur ego stroked because you made up some mewing theory. obviously you can't prove any of your theory or get results. haha crazy world.
It's a shame you're hurt by your appearances, I hope you find out appearances aren't everything. You don't have to project your insecurities on others, it's not going to help you feel better.
And I don't have to prove anything, the medical journal I posted did that for me.
@auxiliarus bro if you think appearances aren't everything idk what world you live on. Like how many hours are you gonna spend on this site until you realize ur a loser like the rest of us. Keep coping saying salludon didn't get results when your the same person riding @progress when be real he got NO results. And if somehow his results are real/ not frauded they are NEGLIGIBLE in real life.
Interesting world view, very shallow, watching too much MTV? Get out in the nature, friend. Also why are you hating on Progress? Guy is sexy, his looks are good, he doesn't have strong projection, but he looks manly so it's fine. Most users that post pictures here all look okay, your standards are really too high. You think if you don't look like a model and slutty girls from the clubs won't approach you that means you have no life, typical guy hurt for never having a good relationship with a female. Probably some abnormalities in your relationship with your mother/father as well, maybe see a psychologist?
I still can't understand how high IQ posters like yourself can't seem to get good results but love talking about mewing all day and saying things like "x changed" or "after doing z i feel like my y is bigger/different". bro be real this community is an echo chamber and you being mod contributes to that. Look how salludon produced insane results from simple technique yet you high iq posters dive into it and can't reproduce anything. It makes me wonder if mewing only works for the select few and yet so many people want it to work for them. All these replies on your thread with people complimenting you saying you got change when all the change can be accounted for by bad pictures/ lense distortion. Again I don't want to hate man, i really don't, I apologize for my out burst yesterday as well.
But in the end all you maybe got is skull tilting and your face looks the same :(. All Im trying to say is communities like these are echo chambers and really just feeds the skeptics as no one can really reproduce results. And bro i feel you cuz im goin through it too rn and it sucks but it is what it is. Some of us were meant to be great in this life some were not. Even the drastic varying in mewing results proves this.
Overall ban me , or shadow ban me whatever. and bro atleast reply to me privately telling me why you deleted this comment and why ur gonna ban me etc. I just want ppl to keep it real and call each other out because mewing isn't going to progress to the mainstream like this. Because the goal of this mewing movement in the long run should be to prevent future generations from having to go through what we did. Man if only things were different for us fr.
Again no hate im a loser irl it is what it is man. Im not trying to say im better than you or anything cuz im not. I really wish you the best and all the ppl on this forum because lets be real, no one wants to be here. we all wanted to have good faces and live life like normal people not knowing what mewing even is. again ban me idc.
Thanks for taking the time to explain your concerns with the community. While I did not personally delete any posts from you, it seems that yours were deleted because you were harassing @eddiemoney for pictures and engaging in low quality discourse. Rudeness and purposelessness are the main reasons we delete posts for (our stance is that those who are unable to discuss in a mature manner should simply go elsewhere, as the internet is full of communities where you can engage in low effort banter). Repeatedly telling us to ban you is weird and self-centered -- you are free to come and go however you wish so long as you don't make it your mission to purposefully break the few modest rules we have. I am sure you'll find this a reasonable request.
As of now, it is unclear who can or can't expect results, and to what extent adults can change. You are right that it's not a strong position to be in. My personal view is that it is better to exhaust every possibility than to quit halfway through. You raise a valid point about the questionable legitimacy of the pictures I have shared. The difficulty of capturing minute changes is why I am currently withholding from making further updates until the changes are more substantial.
Lastly, I fail to see how we are an echo chamber. Of course, we are all pursuing the same objective, but in no way do we limit the discourse or censor contradicting views. Skeptics are free to voice their opinions. It's just that skeptics tend not to stick around. Perhaps they realize that they are not getting much echo for their views move on. That's understandable.
I hope that you are able to find a way to make life work out for you, because it doesn't sound like you are happy with where you are now. There is more to life than being good looking. While looks fade, no one can take what's within you away from you. The little guy inside you is what matters in the end, not the weirdo you see in the mirror. If you have anything to add, let's continue in PM.
Damn and here I thought I was clicking to get a Progress update! :)
Banter like this really sours this place. There’s so much knowledge on here that even Dr. Mew himself wants to engage with these high IQ posters.
This is the only forum I know of where people can find out about health issues related to the facial structure and without it I wouldn’t be down a path towards hopefully fixing my chronic pain.
