Learning to be right

I think I learned to be right handed.

I do not think I use the musculature of my face, eyes, tongue and throat symmetrically. I think I learned to make a connection right eye to right eye. By mimicking with feedback I learned to use the right side of my face to a greater extent than my left side.  Fairly recently, I became aware that I do not even really see a persons left side of the face. Of course if my attention is brought to it I see it but that is not how I relate to others.  The more I play with using my left eye to see another's left eye and side of face the more I become aware of my normal discrepancy. Using my left eye to see another's left eye changes my normal sense of the use of my head and neck.

There may be a cultural advantage for the individual and society for most to be right handed.

Cooperation favors same-handedness -- for sharing the same tools, for example. Physical competition, on the other hand, favors the unusual. In a fight, a left-hander in a right-handed world would have an advantage.

Abrams and Panaggio turned to the world of sports for data to support their balance of cooperation and competition theory. Their model accurately predicted the number of elite left-handed athletes in baseball, boxing, hockey, fencing and table tennis -- more than 50 percent among top baseball players and well above 

10 percent (the general population rate) for the other sports.,,,

Identical twins, who share exactly the same genes, don’t always share the same handedness.

How could identical twins be opposite handed? If one of the twins did not make the connection that the other did. It would probably be a fairly rare occurrence. 

Looser tip

The phrase 'pro tip' means a pro is giving someone a tip how things really work. The 'pro tip' in this case would be that I am full of bunk.  A 'looser" of the first order. Playing with the tip of my 'left tongue' is somewhat easy inside my mouth when I do not touch anything and keep my mouth slightly open. But when I come into contact with anything I tend to switch to the 'right tongue'. I have been trying to keep in the 'left tongue mode as I gently contact my left teeth and lips as I extend  and retract the tongues. The left eye feels to  is affected when I move the tongues left and right while in the 'left tongue' mode. There are no muscular connections so I do not understand exactly what is the process.

Changes

I had the feeling that once I found the left tongue that it would be fairly rapid in getting control of it. It has not been that way. I play with it one day and several days later it is slightly different than it was before. Most of what happens is below my level of awareness. I do try everyday to play with it frequently. Most of my current effort seems to be if I can see another person left eye with my left eye and try to use the left tongue to talk. The left eye to left eye seems bring on more subtle changes than I would imagine.

Back of the tongue awareness

The least accessible area of my tongues in terms of awareness is the back of the left tongue.

back of tongue

sagittal view of tongue

It has been the feeling in most of my life that  my tongue is that little piece that I move around on top. My perception now is that is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I think somewhere back in my past I developed patterns of use that favored the right tongue especially in the mechanics of speech. That huge mass of muscle that is the left tongue only developed a certain amount of control in the mechanics of swallowing and breathing. When I try to have the back of my left tongue come forward and the back of my right tongue go backward it is difficult. There is a tremendous asymmetry in the use of my tongues favoring the right. That asymmetry feels to extend to how I use the whole left and right side of my head.

Left facial recogniton

I would bet if I had to recognize just the left half of many celebrities faces with my left eye only I would score fairly low. Using the right eye I think I would do slightly better. However the scores would be much higher if I saw the right side of their faces.

When I use my  left eye to see the left side of faces on TV it is hard to know what to look for to identify the face. I don't know where to look and what to commit to memory. My impulse is always to look for the right side of the face first even when I am trying not to.  I cheat by identifying  the person first and then look for the left side. In the mirror my left eye is my familiar eye to look at. It would be the right eye on someone else

Incomplete left image

There always seems to be another piece that I am not getting. It feels like by playing with the left tongue it has evoked a different perception of how I use my left head and neck but I do not get full cooperation. I still use pieces in the old way and that is when I am using my full attention on it. Normally I can not even do that in day to day activities. It feels like the risk of injury goes up as I continue with my 'play'.

Deep Left Throat

Warning Playing with this stuff can hurt you very easily

My normal image is that I have one throat with two sides like my tongue.  Trying to move the hyoid with the left side coming forward while right side of the hyoid moves back and then right forward left back has created a different image. I have a left throat cojoined with a right throat.  The controls are separate. The left side as independent did not exist for me. I suspect the left to have be dominated by the right side for the use of speech. To feel the left side have the ability to move lengthen and relax has an immediate strong influence on my cervical posture. I can now feel for the first time the area under the chin extending down to the sternum and clavicle as two sides. It feels more correct but I also am more vulnerable in that there is confusion between the normal and new image. I think I can hurt myself relatively easily. Neck discomfort can be a real pain in the southern orifice.

Massage of the Anterior Throat

Two thoughts watching the above video.

1) Why would there be an equality between the left and right side of the anterior throat?
2) Does the posterior neck adjust to the imbalances of the anterior throat ?

I feel I am beginning to be able to talk with the left tongue and throat. Inhibition (relaxation) of the musculature is necessary for proper functioning. I could not relax what I could not feel as independent.