I preach about tongue on the roof posture but are you doing it correctly? “tongue on the roof” but there’s more to it, for great facial change results.

If you are part of my membership, you already saw my explanation of it as I was learning this new tongue posture freshly taught by Mike Mew several weeks ago, but after testing it out for weeks I can say that there definitely is a right way and the wrong way to place your tongue on the roof of your mouth.

I feel it is important for everyone to know so I am now going to make a public post about it.

Incorrect tongue to roof posture

This is the posture I was taught by a oral myologist and I’ve been practicing for months. They teach you to take the tip of the tongue and place it behind the front two teeth at the “spot”. But its not entirely correct. See how the back of the tongue is still low in the mouth?

The Correct Tongue Posture (Get that back of the tongue up there)

Here is the correct way, see how that back of the tongue is plastered on the back roof of the mouth? see how that provides additional upward force? By bringing the very back portion of the tongue up there, notice how the whole tongue now goes on the roof of the mouth.

To me this was the difference in feeling. Before it felt like only the tip of the tongue was going up on the roof, now it feels like the whole tongue is on the roof with more upward force coming from the back of the tongue. If maxilla was a couch, its like before I was trying to move the couch by myself, but with the back of the tongue’s help the idea is that it’s like you just got 2-3 more buddies to help you lift that couch.

The tip is still at that spot, but now the whole tongue is raised.

The Tongue Effect on Maxilla Width

Our tongue posture growing up is the determining factor of our teeth alignment.

Swallow Correctly

This picture is from orthotropics team.

Important to swallow with teeth together and tongue sucking on the upper palate.

No activity from your buccinator ring. (lips, cheeks)

What’s the big deal about Tongue posture and proper swallow?

above picture courtesy of John Mew’s book.

consider the difference in facial growth of the above two children. One had tongue between teeth posture with incorrect swallowing causing lengthening of the face. The boy on the right had great forward facial development just by learning correct swallow and posture as nature intended because he was not fed mushed food as a baby.

Orthodontists commented on his superb jawline and most will think these faces are caused by good genes but how could there be that much difference in siblings?

Its quite amazing to see such a drastic difference in facial height, at same magnification.

And shocking to realize that by age 9, there is already such a big difference in facial development. Makes you wonder, just how much of our current face is different from what our ideal face could have looked like.

Subconscious Connection of Your Tongue

According to Mike…

the back of the tongue is controlled by your subconscious and thus connected to your body’s postural system. Meaning it is auto-pilot system, once you train the back of the tongue it knows or remembers where to stay. This gives us the long term forces we are looking for to change bone.

the front of the tongue represents our conscious mind aspect and therefore we can control it easily but with conscious effort, so when we become unconscious, ie sleep, the front of the tongue doesn’t really know where it’s suppose to stay. It’s all over the place.

There was 1 incident I noticed in the past couple weeks, I was half asleep in my bed laying on back, I notice that the front of the tongue had fallen off from that “spot” but I could faintly notice the back of the tongue was still on the roof, it was subtle and a bit challenging to tell because of my half asleep state but I could def tell the front of the tongue was not on the roof anymore.

Cheesy Smile Practice

The trick is constantly think about getting that back of the tongue to rise to the top.

For beginners, the best way to learn is to make a realllllly wide cheesy smile with teeth together and lips apart (so you can see all your teeth) and the eyebrows raised like the man above is kindly demonstrating.

Then try to swallow. You will feel something strange happening in the back of your throat. That’s the back of your tongue rising up on the roof.

Now repeat this and try to freeze that feeling of the tongue back there, and hold it in place. For most of you this will immediately feel a bit uncomfortable, like your choking on your own tongue.

That’s when you know you are really beginning to involve the back of the tongue now.

Now every time you forget this feeling, do this exercise to remind yourself.

Once you get better you can just do a normal swallow with closed lips, teeth together, no activity from face muscles and you try to hold that back of the tongue in place as it rises up to complete the swallow.

practice with saliva and you can do this 100s of times per day throughout the day, anytime, anywhere and no one will notice.

Practice this all the time. I still do

And try to swallow your food in this manner whenever you can remember.

I think I’m started to develop this swallow on unconscious levels, but I feel my lips are still activating time to time.

“posture change” means the change happens on unconscious levels.

I just watched the season finale of “Show Me The Money 3” a Korean Rap/Hip-hop survival show.

Towards end of the season, one rapper called Iron started being labeled as the “handsome rapper”.

I noticed well before this label that he had one of the better structured faces out of the contestants with forward jaws, and there was one episode I took note of, where it showed him swallow out of nervousness. And I noticed that there was not a single movement in the face, which told me he had tongue to roof of the mouth swallow, and this tells me that he has tongue to palate resting posture. Also sometimes I seen him several times with his masseter muscles firing up, like during tense moments again this is someone that engages the jaws and has good muscle tone. Observing all of this makes sense to me that he is the handsome one with forward jaws.

On the contrast, I saw some faces that weren’t so perfect and the posture they all had in common was they left their mouth open or lips unsealed from time to time.

In the picture above since he is looking down it makes the mandible appear smaller than other head positions but I would say he would be even more handsome if he had bit more volume to the lower jaw, but considering the fact that he too lives in the modern environment its not surprising that his mandible is this size.

The point is, even without Brad Pitt lower jaws, with great tongue posture he is considered good looking to Korean citizens.

Conclusion

Get the back of your tongue involved, it is the real driving force of the mid-face, as it can remember where you place it most consistently. we are after that low, long term forces to remodel the bones.

Researchers has seen that the tongue is a muscular organ & therefore it can change shape and size depending on use. It’s likely that more we practice our tongue to be plastered on the upper palate the wider it becomes, expanding the palate further in the process.

oh and the phrase of the day is “practice makes perfect”

Cheers