Student and Therapist Newsletter Archive
   - Facial Bones

+ Facial bone movement revisited (how knowing how to describe it could save your life) - Febuary 07

+ How the face reflects the cranial rhythm. - January 07

Hi John,
Just a quick question on your last issue about the face.  I didn't get the box on the balloon thing for the face.  It sounded good but I just didn't get it.  The movement of the facial bones is something I had given up on being able to verbalize.
I can feel it but couldn't describe it to save my life.  I do know if I could get my left brain involved it would good.
Any (other) ideas?
Saludos
F.K.
Berkeley, CA.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

   Man, your letter made me laugh.  I immediately had this mental image of you having to describe the movement of the facial bones to save your life.
   There you are with a gun to your head and the villain whispering menacingly in your ear, 'Just tell me the way the vomer moves in flexion and no one needs to get hurt.'
   What a hoot. 
   Far be it from me to get in the way of you living to a ripe old age so I'll do my best to get you out of danger. 
   Let me explain why you may be having trouble. We all have a predominance in the sense that we receive information through.  The common descriptors for this are visual, auditory and kinaesthetic.  Smell and taste are included under kinaesthetic.
   Visual people will receive information by seeing.  Auditory people will receive information by hearing and kinaesthetic people will receive
information by feeling.
   Our predominance shows itself in the way we communicate.
   A visual person will say, 'I SEE what you mean.' 
   An auditory person will say,  'It SOUNDS like you understand.' 
   And a kinaesthetic person will say, 'I FEEL like you both missed the point.'
   Learning styles is a large field and well worth knowing about so you can adapt your language to you improve your communication.   If you know what
type of person you are talking to, visual, auditory or kinaesthetic, you can adjust your language to the way they will best receive what you are saying.
You can find out more about it here.
http://www.vaknlp.com/
http://www.businessballs.com/vaklearningstylestest.htm
http://www.grapplearts.com/Learning-Styles-in-Grappling.htm
   So I hope you see what I mean and you are now feeling like you will be able to really hear me on this facial bone thing.  (That should cover all my bases.)
   I am guessing you are predominantly kinaesthetic.  So my description of the cranium and face being like a balloon with a box stuck on the front didn't really hit the mark with you because it is a visual metaphor.
   Here's the good news.
   Once you know about these learning styles you can translate one style into another or more importantly into your own style.
   So in this case I suggest you get a balloon and inflate it but not too much.  Then draw a face on it. Then pull it into extension and squash it into
flexion.  Do it a few times until you can really feel it.  Then get a little box and tape it to the balloon.  Then make the balloon go through flexion and extension a few more times. Watch the way the box moves as you do this. 
    Taking my visual metaphor and turning it into something you can actually feel should make it instantly understandable to you.
   You can translate anything you are having difficulty learning into your own learning style.
Kinaesthetic people can make models of everything. 
Visual people can translate everything to pictures, graphs and diagrams.  Auditory people can translate everything to sound, musical if possible.
   Another really powerful thing that kinaesthetic people can do is include smell and taste wherever possible and practical.  These are very powerful senses and will really lock it in.
   You are right about getting your left brain involved.  It is very important.  
   One last tip, stay away from medically inquisitive villains that carry guns - it will end in tears.  Probably obvious but someone had to say it.

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>>>QUESTION

Dear John,
I am currently studying the face and the way it moves with the cranial rhythm.  Frankly I find it confusing and hard to remember.
I'm hopping you have some little analogy or trick for making it a bit clearer.
Yours Sincerely.
KS.
Canada.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Before I get into the face I need to quickly run through flexion and extension in the cranium. 
   Think of the cranium as a balloon. 
   During extension the balloon narrows and elongates and during flexion it expands and becomes squat.  Long and thin in extension, short and squat in flexion. 
   To understand the way the face moves with the cranial rhythm, take the balloon and add a small box.  Attach it to the balloon roughly where the
face hangs off the cranium.
   Now, lets look at how the box moves with the balloon. 
   In extension the balloon will become long and thin.  The box will arc inferiorly and narrow as the whole balloon elongates
   During flexion the balloon will become short and squat.  The box will arc superiorly and broaden as the balloon shortens and broadens.
   So what does this feel like in practice? 
  Sit at the head of the person.  With their permission, place your hands on their face, thumbs on their forehead and fingers on their mandible.
   During flexion you will feel your thumbs and fingers move closer together while in extension they will move further apart.
   Once you get this overall movement you can work out the specifics of each bone relatively easily. 
   Here are some other things to consider.  The mandible and the frontal bone moving towards each other in flexion could put stress on the bones of the face but this compressive movement is naturally absorbed by the orbits.
   This makes the orbits particularly vulnerable to any restriction patterns present in the face or cranium, especially the posterior aspect of the
orbit.
   Certain bones of the face are designed to reduce the amplitude of the movement of some of the larger bones they articulate with. These bones are the palatines, the zygomae, the vomer and the ethmoid. 
   You can think of them like 'washers' between two larger bones.  William Sutherland called these bones the 'speed reducers' but they do not
actually reduce the frequency of the rhythm, they reduce the amount of movement or amplitude.  So a 40 micron movement of the frontal can be reduced to a 10 micron movement in the Zygomae. [Remember a sheet of writing paper is 100 microns thick.]

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