Each cranial bone connects to others through fibrous suture joints which are woven together. These bones and suture joints require muscle to keep them together and have to respond to change such as an exterior blow or inner pressures. Facial muscles are intricate and give structure and form to the face and mouth.
The sphenoid bone is the only bone that goes horizontally through the skull and is butterfly-shaped. It supports the pituitary gland and is one of the bones that forms the structure for the eye socket.
The mandible connects of the skull at the temporal regions of the left and right sides which have a disc to cushion movement at each temporomandibular joint.
A free floating bone attached to the vertebrae is our hyoid bone. It is attached by ligaments and stabilized by muscles. In early developmental stages it's muscle attachments help with swallowing, sucking and head righting.
Suture Massage
ReplyDeleteThe tracing of my fingers along the sutures of my skull, created this indescribably sensation between my skull, finger, and eyes (as I referred to the photo of the skull). It helped me to recognize the different parts and functions of the skull, separated by sutures.
I never realized how sensitive the receptors in my hair follicles can be! Pulling onto my hair follicles was not only painless, it was soothing. As I released my fingers, the sensations continued to linger and slowly dissipate within a few minutes.
Holding the Head
This exercise totally reminded me of the neck massages I get from massage therapists… that I love, oh so much! I have absolutely no problem dropping the weight of my skull into Katie’s palms. No more release I provided the more benefit I receive from her touch and support of my head. The sensations I experienced from her touch, embrace, and pressure points… was RELAXING! As I paid more attention to my breadth rather than anything that was happening to me, the more my mind was at ease without stress or any worries.
Proximal and distal articulation of the TMI joints
While placing my fingers in front of my ears and gently opening and closing my jaws, I feel the drop and the open space created by this movement. It’s very interesting to feel and imagine.
The movement and isolation of the jaw and skull exercise was kind of confusing. I can’t seem to understand the concept of keeping one stabilized, while moving the other. It seemed to create a lot of tension in the bones of my face. Not so fun!
THAO
Suture Massage
ReplyDeleteHaving my head lifted from the ground when Thao massaged my skull felt amazing. When she traced around the occipital bone, she worked her fingers over some of my neck muscles that were really tight. Because she was putting slight pressure into her hands, I felt somewhat of a release of my neck tension as I relaxed my head into her arms. As Thao moved to massage my frontal lobe and temporal bones, it was slightly painful. But the pain was a good kind of pain that I knew would allow my head to release tension. As I massaged her temporal bones as well we realized that afterward it seemed that our heads felt less tension in the forehead area where one usually has headaches. The scalp massage was so relaxing both of us almost feel asleep. A gentle pull of the hair follicles released more tension I was holding in my forehead.
Holding the Head
In rotating the skull in different planes, one must relax their head and neck, and think of making their head heavy so maneuvering a partners head can be easier. Thao and I were both good at realizing our heads and making them heavy. Thinking about water moving back and forth in a bag was an easy visual for me to easy the flow of my head movement from side to side. Definitely in both cases from time to time we felt some holding of neck muscles and slight jerks especially during changes in patterns.
Proximal and distal articulation of the TMI joints
What a release of tension in the jaw and neck. From dance classes i feel like I hold my jaw and clench my teeth sometimes. It's surprised how simple movements and care of the socket or joint that is being held often is needed to easy pain. Moving the jaw and feeling in between the temporomandibular joint was soothing. I noticed that when I had a medium amount of pressure on this joint, some tension went away from my jaw and neck. I also tried to making the movement of opening and closing my jaw, as well as moving my head away from my jaw smooth, but the movements usually ended up somewhat choppy. I figured it is because the movement of chewing ones food can be a choppy movement especially when one eats at a fast pace.
KATIE