Adult jaws grow both downward, outward (laterally), AND forward in ideally developed healthy primates. This is why an adult face is longer than a child face. Not because the maxilla "recessed" but because the bones grew in all directions. 

@eddiemoney

TGW mentioned something about the jaws growing downwards in his post, he says "an underdeveloped nasomaxillary complex looks downward grown because it's got more of it's downward development completed, and the forward development that needs to accompany it hasn't happened " which is similar to what you're saying and I agree. The maxilla is just lacking in growth, the growth that the tongue was meant to take care of. An IMW of 29-35mm (average) is definitely way below genetic limit... for an adult, for a child it is not, which is the problem, while everything else grew, the growth that the tongue was supposed to take care of didn't occur. I don't really know the specifics, but in essence it's the lack of growth that the tongue is supposed to take care of while everything else has basically outpaced it and grown disproportionate; you have the palate/IMW of a child with a fully grown maxilla/skull.

I can understand your scepticism. I've never seen anyone who managed to move his maxilla up and forward thanks to mewing. On the other hand, I can attest to the fact that my nose has become straighter thanks to mewing (I'm talking about a noticeable, tangible difference), at first I thought it was thanks to my maxilla being pushed upward but now that I think of it I can't really tell what's the reason/mechanism behind this change (for the better). 

@horatio

You can see the same thing happen with the pics of the kid treated with the forward growth headgear

Edit: Were you can chin tucking, maybe by purposefully compressing the structures in the back the jaws are displaced forward, it's far fetched though. I suggest this because Enlow's principles of bone remodeling is that the maxilla grows up and back and is displaced down and forward, perhaps by chin tucking, you are utilizing the same mechanism displacing the maxilla. This is just a guess and even if it is true, correct growth of the maxilla will do the same thing as well as actually expanding the maxilla and making it longer without the risk of compressing the back of the throat, airway, and inter jugular vein.

@sinned

To your original post: The thing is that my mandible and ramus are actually decently long, still my gonial angle is quite high (about 135 degree) and the tip of my nose slightly drops down. All of this makes me think that it's not my lack of forward growth , but my maxilla not projecting enough that causes this 'downward-grown-looking' jaw position. But then again, this has always been nothing but speculation all along.

Coming back to your reply: This change has occurred after mewing for 2 years without chin tucking (I started mewing when I was 17 or 18), so hard to tell. I can remember what my profile looked like before starting mewing, I had a pronounced dorsal hump on my nose, one guy even commented once 'that I look like Gargamel from profile' lol. Now my nose has almost straightened out, it's still aquiline but nothing 'witchy-looking'.

Posted by: @sinned I don't really know the specifics, but in essence it's the lack of growth that the tongue is supposed to take care of while everything else has basically outpaced it and grown disproportionate; you have the palate/IMW of a child with a fully grown maxilla/skull.

Do you think tongue posture only influences the growth ot the palate? Because I don´t think that is true. Maybe the palate is the most affected, but imo tongue posture also influences all the other bones in the skull as well. I think progress wrote somewhere that the tongue should push against the pterygoid hamulus which in turn will expand the whole skull through the sphenoid bone.

@printfactory

I don't think tongue posture just affects the palate; it is self-evident that the palate is also the floor of the nasal cavity so at the very least the tongue affects the nasal cavity. I just don't know specifically how the tongue affects the maxilla, only a vague assumption that whatever part of growth the tongue was supposed to do for the maxilla it isn't being done although the maxilla is still growing. The maxilla still grows downward (more accurately, growing upwards and displaced downwards), you still get your full adult teeth, and probably other things as well, the question is how does this affect the jaws and skull? The tongue isn't doing what it's supposed to do even though the jaws, skull, and soft tissue is still growing, this mismatch, that it is occurring is all I can really say, but I cannot explain why, how, or the specifics. The jaw imo never dropped down and back, the tongue is not "supporting" the maxilla from gravity or the weight of the skull, it's just a lack of growth, not necessarily wrong growth or growth happening in the wrong direction, which is why I think expansion is the number one goal.

@sinned I think there is at least some supporting role for the tongue - see the cases of stroke patients, where one side of the face starts dropping down quite fast. I think there have also been some monkey experiments where they took away the monkey´s ability to posture the tongue on the roof of the mouth and consequently the maxilla dropped down.

But yeah, it sounds plausible that the bones in the skull have realized their full potential in the downward direction (maybe even a bit more, if you assume there is some kind of supporting role for the tongue) due to gravity, but the lateral and forward growth is lacking because the tongue never forced the bones to grow in that direction.

Whatever they did to that kid is clearly not ideal treatment. Maxilla non existant. His forward maxilla growth looks best in the first picture. 

Even his jaw still has quite the downwards curve, which is hidden by the kid tilting his head up. Well even if he isn't really tilting, you can still see the curve

He obviously looks a lot better, but it appears his jaws were pulled forward without any other growth/expansion taking place. A lot of orthotropic results look like that, where the cheekbone/eye area is still very flat. Isn't that the main purpose of Biobloc, just sliding the mandible forward to keep pace with the maxilla's growth? I guess expanders would be used beforehand if needed, but it's not common to see the results of someone's face grow in all directions.

Old thread, I know. I understand what you're saying, although I do lack knowledge in this subject. This is gonna add little to nothing to the discussion, however, I have a real-life example that *might* disprove this (although it's probably not very reliable). My older sibling and I basically have mild maxillary recession so we're pretty normal in terms of forward growth. Despite this, his undereye support is miles ahead of mine, he has better cheekbone protrusion (although I am sure part of it is thanks to his lower body fat), a convex philtrum and in photos you can clearly see that his face looks *much* more upswung and overall harmonious in comparison to mine. It makes no sense to me how something like this would happen if it wasn't for a downswung vs upswung maxilla. His midface isn't great in itself, it clearly doesn't protrude, and pretty much everything else about his face is in alignment with mine (slight chin & lower third recession). For now, I think the theory that nothing really moves forward, but changes angle, makes the most sense. 

As for the kid pictured, he does have flat undereyes, even though his maxilla looks better overall (talking about the angle). I think the best results I've ever seen were on the little girl who received treatment for 3 years between the ages 10-13. I am curious to see what method each followed.