{"id":61091,"date":"2014-12-17T10:40:35","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T18:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=61091"},"modified":"2014-12-17T10:42:49","modified_gmt":"2014-12-17T18:42:49","slug":"how-do-you-release-the-jaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=61091","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Release The Jaw?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some tips from a <A HREF=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/consortiumfortheAlexanderTechnique\/permalink\/373115192863275\/\">FB thread<\/a> of Alexander Technique teachers:<\/p>\n<p>* I&#8217;ve heard things like free, releasing away from the skull, down and away&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>*  The head&#8217;s going forward and up is preventive of it&#8217;s going back and down to compress the spine. The jaw&#8217;s tracking forward and open\u2014easily, finding it&#8217;s own way\u2014 is preventive of its going back and down.<\/p>\n<p>* Some teachers suggested thinking of the letter &#8216;K&#8217; with the jaw freeing in the forward and down direction.<\/p>\n<p>*  That jaw releasing back can be cause for snoring as it closes the vocal tract. I think that back is a dangerous word in talking about the jaw, just as it is when talking about the head&#8217;s relationship to the torso.<\/p>\n<p>* In my experience, when we go into more of a &#8220;primary curve&#8221; (spinal flexion) the jaw releases forward, and in &#8220;secondary curve&#8221; (spinal extension) it goes back. If your dad&#8217;s jaw is releasing back when he falls asleep perhaps it&#8217;s because he&#8217;s also pulling his head back during sleep&#8230; but then again, I could be wrong. On another note, to release my jaw I like thinking of my lower back molars on the jaw bone (wisdom teeth if you have them) and thinking them heavier than the rest. I find this gives me a nice release without any extraneous &#8220;doing&#8221; on my part.<\/p>\n<p>*  I believe the jaw is a gliding, sliding joint, not a hinge. <\/p>\n<p>* I just say, &#8220;Let your back bottom teeth release away from your back top teeth.&#8221; In other words, &#8220;Let your jaw yield to gravity.&#8221; Now, as far as the mapping goes, make sure your students don&#8217;t have an idea that they have a &#8220;hand puppet&#8221; mouth. Also, I give directions for the tongue before directions for the jaw. A lot of people habitually press their tongues to the roof of the mouth, creating tension in both the tongue and the jaw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some tips from a FB thread of Alexander Technique teachers: * I&#8217;ve heard things like free, releasing away from the skull, down and away&#8230; * The head&#8217;s going forward and up is preventive of it&#8217;s going back and down to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=61091\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10268],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alexander-technique"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61091"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61097,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61091\/revisions\/61097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}