I am not sure about the second question, but for the first keep in mind that if you push too hard up you will end up with the kind jaw action you are describing, especially if your mastication muscles are not that strong. In order for the jaw to close naturally you have to apply suction backward to the mouth not pushing. That will engage some of your mastication muscles and force your lower jaw up and forward.

Posted by: Abdulrahman

 In order for the jaw to close naturally you have to apply suction backward to the mouth not pushing. That will engage some of your mastication muscles and force your lower jaw up and forward.

So like I close down on my mouth by pushing my maxilla down so that it kinda touches my lower jaw? Is that right?

Also, do you know if its normal for my tongue to hurt?

Posted by: bigdino1

So like I close down on my mouth by pushing my maxilla down so that it kinda touches my lower jaw? Is that right?

Also, do you know if its normal for my tongue to hurt?

No, your tongue should never hurt, were is pain coming from?

You don't push your maxilla, its the bone of your upper jaw. You put the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth and push gently up. At the same time you suck your tongue inward toward your soft palate. Your lower jaw should close automatically.

Posted by: Abdulrahman

At the same time you suck your tongue inward toward your soft palate. Your lower jaw should close automatically.

So basically, I push the back part of my tongue, the part that's in my throat upwards toward my soft palette, correct? That's what I've been doing all along

According to that picture, the tip of my tongue has got to be behind my front teeth (the part where it says tip). the middles got on my hard palette (Mid-palette range) and the back of my tongue presses up against the soft palette, right? Correct me if I'm wrong. That's what I read.

The pain is coming from the back part of my tongue. I push it upward toward my soft palette.

Also, as for the pain, I thought that since my tongue was a muscle, it normal for it to ache, since I'm exercising it. Am I wrong about this?

Do you have a concerning tongue tie?   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQihz4JOPps&t=4s&app=desktop

By the way... I don't subscribe to pressure on palate with tongue... See my other posts for an explanation.  No where that I can see did Dr. Mew speak of PRESSURE.  If you want to see about some awesome exercises... https://www.drstevenlin.com/book-appointment-dr-steven-lin/  Skip the tape unless you want monkey look around lips.

Try to figure out the root underlying cause.

I think what people underestimate when trying to improve any kind of bodily posture is just how much you have to think about in terms of muscle control, and how hard it is to coordinate all of these changes together.

I used to have the same problem with the mandible wanting to drop every time I applied pressure to my tongue. But now that's not a problem. I think it took some time for my brain to get to grips with controlling everything at once. Similarly, I recently tried jutting my mandible a little while mewing, in order to relieve my TMD symptoms (as per an article linked to elsewhere on the forum). At first, I found it almost impossible to jut AND push with my tongue at the same time. But with some perseverance, I can now do it and wonder why I ever found it a problem. 

I think it takes a little while to develop independence of the muscles. The obvious example would be developing finger independence when learning a musical instrument. When I first started to learn guitar, my fingers had little independence from each other. I'd move one and the others would move with it. This made some of the more difficult chord changes seem impossible. Ditto when I started to learn styles like ragtime and baroque, in which you're required to play bass lines, chords and melody all at the same time. It just seemed like it would be impossible to concentrate on all three things at once. But after much trying, my brain rewired and it's almost as if it splits off into three separate "processes" when I play these styles now. 

So my advice would be to just keep trying, with your stated goal in mind (i.e. pushing with the tongue without dropping the mandible). I think as long as you keep trying to achieve this goal, your brain will eventually rewire and make it possible. But in the meantime you're probably going to be going back and forth from one to the other  haphazardly - pushing with the tongue, then keeping your mandible up, then pushing with the tongue again etc - until your brain figures out that you're trying to coordinate this stuff and makes it happen. 

UPDATE:

Ok, so I've realized I've been doing it wrong.

When I started mewing (a couple days age), I would put the tip of my tongue behind my front teeth, at the hard palette, and the back of my tongue at my soft palette. I could breathe properly though. 

While using this technique, though, when pressing up with my tongue, I would usually feel the muscles in my cheek. Is that normal?

However, lately I heard that the proper posture is that when you swallow, the posterior third of your tongue is supposed to go up. Now instead of letting it drop, I should just keep it there. However, I can’t breathe while doing it (its covering my pharynx). So maybe before my position was wrong before because I didn’t have any trouble doing it last time. Plus I feel like I’m gagging when I do it.

So, basically what I do now is inhale, then raise the part of my tongue that's in my throat (posterior side of tongue) as well as the first and second part of my tongue, then breathe out. Then I inhale again. However, in order for me to inhale, I have to move the posterior part of my tongue. Which mean I'm not pushing up with the posterior part of my tongue when inhaling. Which means I'm not doing it right.

I also get tired of doing this within like 10 mins.

Does anyone have any solutions for me?

It's good you are experimenting. No you are not supposed to push your posterior tongue up. That might give you a feeling of where it should be ideally but it should not require an effort to get there. Ideally your tongue should get there just from applying suction backward (no pushing). 

You get to that level after practicing with tongue chewing and body posture correction.

By the way it sounds your face is pretty recessed.

Posted by: Abdulrahman

 Ideally your tongue should get there just from applying suction backward (no pushing). 

I'm not sure if I understood this 100%. I don't think understand what applying suction backward means.

Here's what I got from it:

So basically I put the tongue on the roof of my mouth. Then I kinda slide it back into my throat. Am I correct?

What is tongue chewing? How do you do it?

How important is body posture in terms of correcting your face?

Try swallowing. You know how when you swallow the posterior part of you tongue goes up, right? Well, hold it there. When you hold it up there, do you notice that its hard for you to breathe, or is there space enough for you to breathe fully? 

If there is enough space for you breathe fully when you do that, then that means you're probably right and that it takes a lot of effort for me breathe when it shouldn't

You apply suction. As if you are going to suck something but in this case your tongue. You probably barley can get it up there in the soft palate with suction but overtime as you practice tongue chewing, correct swallowing, and correct body posture it will get there more easily. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmf-pR7EryY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNocCJNicrc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xSlX7n-IHw

Posted by: Abdulrahman

You apply suction. As if you are going to suck something but in this case your tongue.

Is there a video demonstration of this? I still don't get it. So like do you mean swallowing my tongue? Like putting my tongue in my throat?

I don't exactly understand proper swallowing. I've watched videos about it and I still don't understand it.

So my put my tongue down and it scoops up the saliva and then does a 'wave' motion and then my throat sucks it up once it goes down my throat right? Do I actually have to practice each individual step manually?

How many times do I do the gum exercise in the tongue chewing video?

Also, since I can barely get my tongue on my soft palette, what should my oral posture be until it starts fitting in?

When you try to suck something with your mouth, how do it feel? You probably never used your tongue before, only your facial muscles. Try to suck however you know and see the suction it creates in your mouth, like a vacuum. Your tongue naturally moves backward and upward and trys to stick to you palate.

Do the tongue chewing for 30 minutes. Your oral posture is your tongue posture basically. The tongue dictates everything for the rest of the muscles.

Oh my heavens.. Dr. Mew needs to clarify some things, obviously.  Pressure is bad.  A weak tongue can get fatigued.. I've asked him for a clarification!

I am in the same situation with the push-up of back of tongue causing a sore throat. I think you need to not engage that but keep the tongue up on the roof of the mouth with a suction hold still as much as possible. This will help widen the palate over time slightly I think. Also, when abdul says apply suction he means to swallow and drag the tongue up and keep it held there. It will stay on the roof of the mouth until disengaged because you swallowed to create a suction hold. 

Posted by: adcr

Also, when abdul says apply suction he means to swallow and drag the tongue up and keep it held there. It will stay on the roof of the mouth until disengaged because you swallowed to create a suction hold. 

I noticed that I cannot breathe at all when I do that.

Also, have you noticed that your cheek muscles kinda twitch or move when you mew?

Posted by: bigdino1

I noticed that I cannot breathe at all when I do that.

 

Also, have you noticed that your cheek muscles kinda twitch or move when you mew?

You are clearly very recessed. Did you have any x-ray and impressions done? 

No, they don't and should not beyond a very small force to support suction.

No, I haven't gotten an x-ray done.

I've noticed that my tongue tends to dry out after some time of mewing. Is this normal?

so in order to make sure that the posterior part of my tongue is in the right position, I swallow and then in the mid-swallow, when the posterior part of my tongue goes up, I hold it there. Now I've noticed that when doing that, I cannot breathe. I've asked other people to do that as well, and I've noticed that they cannot do that. 

so is there another way for me to know if I'm doing it right or not?