Greetings from the left

I wish I was smarter and a better writer. (more handsome and moderately successful would also help but I digress) If so I could communicate what I am perceiving in a more accurate clear way.  Walking with my wife today pushing her on a bike path in a wheelchair. She walks with a walker first for a 1/4 to 1/2 mile. Then I push her for about 2 miles at a leisurely pace. We greet many people on the left side as we stay to the right on the path. Since starting to work with the left tongue and trying to differentiate the left side of my face from my normal habitual right side dominance I feel I am greeting people in a more natural empathetic manner.  I think not being able to differentiate the left side of my face I was essentially pulling away on the left and greeting with the right side of my face. Now my sense of wishing others well with my smile is improved.  Instead of being afraid with my left side, by initiating the left smile, I drop my usual defensiveness and guarded position.

My left smile is also helping me differentiate between my left and right splenius capitis and associated musculature. For the first time in my life that I can remember the habitual tone on left side has changed for a moment or two.  The whole left upper quadrant has been of increased tone and a pulling away posture during my life. To smile and talk with the left tongue require a conscious inhibition of the habitual tone. The left tongue influences the left jaw which is tied to left lateral neck and from there to the posterior neck musculature. The right side is also influenced by the new position of the left.  It is often not the most pleasurable experience. It feels like almost if I am pushing and pulling the fascial structures around to the right from the usual bunched up position on the left. But it is not an active me pulling but a asking of the left to take it's more balanced position. There is also a feeling of vulnerability as in the sense I do not have a complete picture yet and it cannot be maintained more than a few moments.

Stardust

Stardust video with Nat King Cole

I keep going back to the videos of Nat King Cole and trying to mimic my left face/eye/tongue/throat to his. My old sense in the production of my voice did not include these areas.  Silent and non existent but there for pain and sensation. In a way always under stress and never able to relax or lengthen. My unawareness of it was/is astounding.

My left tongue 'movement image'

It is not concrete but the image of my left tongue has changed greatly over the past couple of years. From not existing to awareness of some of the musculature to now a 'movement image of the surface of the tongue. I could always feel the left side of the tongue by sensation but I did not have a 'movement image' of it. I am not happy with the term 'movement image' but that is the best I can come up with at this point.

The left side of my face

Why did I have the presumption that I use the left side of my face/tongue /throat/ eye the same way I used my right side? When I attempt to write with my left hand I usually give up fairly quickly and say 'forgetaboutit'. It is not that it cannot write with the left hand. I know how to shape the letters but badly. My left hand participates in typing without thinking about it now but it was difficult in the beginning.  Why did I think I was using the left side of my head in a way that was equal to the right. It is clear to me that I do not. Not that it can't.

Visualizing the talking left face

When I try to visualize the left face/tongue/eye of another talking to me with my attention on my left face/tongue/eye I tend to see the other persons face somewhere out to the right.  The face should be directly in front of me but it is somehow hard to bring it directly there. I have been using different podcasts listening to the voice of the podcaster but imagining them speaking to me with their left/tongue/face/eye/throat

It feels like this exercise does activate the left tongue all the way to the back where it drops down to the esophagus. When I hear the words while imaging the face talking there feels to be an echo in my left tongue/face throat. Almost if there is a visual component to words that I mimic on a subconscious level.

My essential questions

Why did I go through my whole life with the perception that I had one tongue with two sides than two tongues co-joined? I feel it was due to the dominance of the right tongue.

Why would my right tongue become dominant? The best reason I can come  up with is due to speech with the speech center (Broca area) on the left cerebral hemisphere for me. I now feel my left tongue as a separate entity from the right tongue. (Though my normal still is left tongue exclusion)

Why did I always see another person's right eye almost to the exclusion of the left when engaged in conversation? It is my sense that it is tied to the right tongue/side of face communication with the right eye crossing the midline. My learning was due to how my parents interacted with me and to mimic their expectations of me furthered by education and my interaction with others

Can I enhance the use of my left tongue? I  feel my left tongue and it's role along with with structures on my left side of the head and throat as being able to create the movements that make the sound of words but I am not sure the understanding goes along with it. I think it will be tied to attempting to speaking and receiving of communication left tongue/eye/face to left/tongue/eye face. My perception of others is that is not what usually happens so I will continue to have to work mostly with my imagination

Am I representative of everyone? I do not think so. I think I grew up very heavily right side dominant to the neglect of the left side. My guess is many do not have as large a discrepancy as me to start with.

Wingnut

How to humble a wingnut

Under wingnut in the dictionary you might see my picture.  It is hard to talk about something you know others will react strongly against.

The right and left way to commuciate

I now feel I learned to talk using the right side of my face, eye, tongue and throat and by habit I don't differentiate my left face,eye, tongue and throat in communicating. I can feel all the structures on the left by touch and sense of pain but do not view them as independent of the dominant right side in terms of movement. Almost by reflex I look for the speaker's right eye and make the connection with my right eye. I suspect I learned this at a very early age by mimicking the input of my parents and the feedback they gave me.

I have been playing with trying to differentiate my left side structures and make the connection with my left eye when I talk to others. In doing this the feeling that the other person is using their right eye and side of their face is getting stronger. If I use my left eye to the other person left eye I get a sense the usual connection is not made. They still hear what I am saying but it feels like they expect to make the connection with the right eye.

I think my speech and communication does not have to be a left cerebral hemisphere right side of  face, tongue etc process but can be a right cerebral hemisphere left side of face, tongue etc process. The way I learned to communicate seems to be a self perceptual illusion created by the dominant /subordinate way I use my right/left sides.

Jawing pain

I had some pain in my jaw musculature on the left for the past 2-3 days. Feels more like a soreness than injury. Been trying to differentiate the left back of tongue from the right back of tongue. At times it creates some weird torques on how I use the musculature on the left side of my face and head.

Imaginary friend

I am playing with trying to talk to an imaginary friend left eye/face/tongue to left eye/face tongue. It feels like this type of engagement of speech prompts changes within me. When I say the words I try and use a mirror image of the words in my mind. (right to left orientation). I cannot always pull it off but sometimes it really feels like I am conversing with someone else. Listening does not feel to be passive but an active process where I emote on my left side of face an empathy to what my imaginary friend is saying.

Sounds pretty  wacky. I mean I know this is weird but not that kind of weird. Using the left eye/face/tongue does not feel different than using the left hand. The problem I feel  I have is over 50 years of habit of not differentiating it from the right eye/face/tongue.

Tongues of a Jackass

Playing with both tongues as I sit and read the internet. Again not too long ago I could not imagine that the tongue musculature would have any impact on my posture and/or  use of myself. It is soft tissue therefore it's impact on the skeletal system should not go past it's immediate insertions into the skeletal system.

However that is not what I am feeling. I am unable to even 'jackass' a good reason how much the tongues's impact feels to have.

Bite my tongue

I wonder with the right tongue dominance do I define the the left tongues position in a negative sense? Do I  actually feel where the left tongue is or do I know if I put the right tongue in this position the left tongue will not get bit?  On the occasions I have bit my tongue it is usually on the left side.

In the 'left tongue mode' I still have a very poor sense of tongue as a whole. Maybe, I have a greater chance to bite my tongue on the right side.

Being wrong or left as the case may be

Being Wrong

Good book so far but tough to read especially in the context of what I am saying about having a left tongue. 'Modern Jackassing' is the term she has for coming up with a theory that we have no real knowledge of. Once we propose an explanation we will continue to find reasons to support the theory no matter how wrong it is. Especially if we are arguing for it against someone else.

I had a discussion yesterday where I was trying to justify my 'belief'. There are numerous logical reasons why I cannot be right and am reaching way above my level of understanding. In many ways it would be better to just let the whole thing go. The whole 'body awareness" movement is about subjective feel and trying to notice the difference between efficient and inefficient movement. The thing I learned is that often I cannot differentiate between parts of my body. I recruit more than I need to accomplish a task because I did not have an accurate movement picture of what was being used. I now feel musculature of the" left tongue' which I did not before. It would be an accurate description to say I am 'jackassing the rest of my theory to justify that feeling.


to be cont'd

Writing and talking with the left hand and left tongue

I have not been writing much with the left hand in either direction lately. However if I try to write with my left hand left to right I can do it but it is ugly. (To be honest some people may not be able to tell the distinguish it from my right hand.) Using my left tongue to pronounce words seems to be similar. Having differentiated the left tongue from the right tongue I seem to know how to try to get it to shape the sound of the word but it does it badly.  Understanding that it exists seems to be the major stumbling block in getting it to move. I still have difficulty in getting my left tongue to cross midline or protrude from my mouth as my normal right tongue mode seems to take over. I am not sure where the difficulty lies.

Pain in the necks

I could always feel the postural pain and stress in the back of my neck but the front of my neck was always just there unless I cut it shaving. It now feels to me the back of the neck is a reflection of the anterior neck musculature along with spinal postural issues. The use of my left anterior neck and under chin is not symmetrical with the right. My left side feels more contracted giving the right side a little more play in communication.  The contracting is the easy part the relaxing in a functional way is the more difficult. Feeling some of the smaller musculature relax and lengthen as I attempt to use the left tongue is immediately reflected in the back of my neck.

I have a left tongue

I have a left tongue it is not my right tongue. My right tongue is what I grew up with and it is what I perceived to be my tongue. It has a left side, it could move normally and functioned without problem. I 'discovered' my left tongue after years of trying to differentiate the use of my left and right sides of my body. It ties in how I perceive others and communicate with them. I relate to others right eye to right eye. I tend not to see the left side of others eye/face unless there is something unusual. I now have a left tongue with a right side along with my right tongue with a left side. I am still unclear if I can use both at the same time. Using the left tongue does not seem different than using the left hand and since I can use both hands at the same time I should be able to use both tongues at the same time. I still can not move the left tongue as well as the right. The movements are spastic and small but it has a powerful effect on how I use my head, neck and spine.

Throwing a ball with my left hand

Grew up righty doing the normal sports. Baseball, basketball, football, hockey, lacrosse, and soccer. Could not go to my left in basketball and threw very badly with my left hand.  Did a bunch of work on it after starting on the work of Moshe Feldenkrais. It is not so much what I needed to do with the left hand to coordinate a good throw it is what I needed to contract on the right. The hand is sort of like the end of a whip. What I tend to do when trying to throw with the left is contract to early to generate the force. The left arm needs to extend back and wait till very late until the right pelvis trunk and shoulder contracts in a backward rotation forcefully and then the left hand arm and pec commits the throw. It is amazing to me how well I could coordinate the left throw until my sense of the situation demanded more than I could do easily.  I would actually try to recruit the musculature to throw the ball with my right making the left throw impossible.
However if I would try and make the throw of only a few feet against a wall it felt pretty good from a coordination aspect.

Much of the work with the left seems to be short circuited by the right. "Here let me do it" the right side says.
"You'll just make a mess of it"

Tongue eye back connection

As my 'left tongue' becomes more defined it also feels like I have gained increased awareness of my whole left side.  It on my first glance does not seem possible and or plausible. However having done the movement awareness thing for awhile there now seems to be a steady constant change of 'improvement on more awareness of my musculature on the left close to the spine.

I am trying to watch TV and in personal encounters to connect to the left eye of the speaker with my left eye and trying at times to respond with the left tongue.  In a way it feels like the spine serves the tongue and eyes.   In my attempt to equalize my tongues there feels to be a reorganization of my back.

The tip of my tongues

Some of the movement exercises I have done in the past played with the tip of my tongue.  I now feel I have two tips a left and a right. They do not feel to be the same. I think I have always used the tip of the right to ascertain position of the tongue. The left tip did not exist as separate in my movement perception There seems to be a connection with the right tip of tongue crossing midline along with my right eye being dominant. Trying to locate the left tip of tongue in my 'left tongue mode' is difficult.  I feel a strong connection with the tip of the left tongue and my left eye as I try to have the left tip cross midline in my 'left tongue mode'.