The easy way to turn your head

If your neck is stiff, there is no way you can turn your head much. When you do turn it you have to pull it around hard. No wonder it hurts. Before you try to turn your head, make sure your neck is not stiff.

How?

Un-stiffening your neck

The best and easiest way to unstiffen your neck is to allow your head to nod just from the top joint in your spine and leave all the other joints alone. That’s difficult to do because the new movement is so unfamiliar. It’s so different from the movement you’re used to making when you nod your head.

The correct nodding, using that joint, is purely a rotation, a rotation around a horizontal axis through your ears. It’s totally unlike the moving forward of your whole head to look down that you usually do. I’ve written in detail (in another article) how to allow your head to nod correctly. If you haven’t got that article, reply to this email and let me know. I’ll send you the article.

Once you you neck is un-stiffened so that you can nod easily, you can begin to allow your head to turn easily too.

How does it turn?

Your head-turning joint

The joint where you turn your head to the left or right is the second of your two head/neck joints, your atlanto-axial joint. It’s the joint between the top bone of your spine (your atlas) and the second bone of your spine (your axis).

The top of your axis bone is shaped like a round peg. That peg fits neatly into a hole in the top bone of your spine, your atlas.

So when you turn your head at your head/neck joint, without twisting your neck or any other part of your body, your atlas is turning around the peg at the top of your axis. (You can see now why the axis bone is called “axis”).

As a little aside, you may be interested to know why your atlas is called “atlas”. Atlas was one of a group of older Greek gods, a titan. According to the ancient Greeks, Zeus punished Atlas for the titan rebellion by making him carry the world on his shoulders. When the renaissance anatomists saw how the skull sits on top of the top spine bone, it reminded them of Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders, so they called the bone the Atlas. (So, you see, your head turns when your Atlas, who is holding your head up, turns around on his axis).    smiley

To get a feel for this turning of your head around its axis, do this.

Look slightly down and put your finger tip on the highest point of your head. You should find that highest point is quite near the back of your head. As you look around, your head should spin around the axis you are marking with your finger-tip. The point on your head that you are touching should not move away from under your finger. If it doesn’t work that way for you just yet, don’t worry: you’re still learning. Just keep reading and doing what I tell you to do.

The muscles that work your head/neck joints

The movement of your head at your two head/neck joints is powered by eight very small, very deep muscles just under the back of your skull. These eight sub-occipital muscles are the only muscles that run between the bottom of your skull (your occiput) and the top two bones of your spine (atlas and axis). All your other neck muscles extend further down your body. Since these eight muscles are not connected to any other joints, they are ideally placed to do the job. By working just your two head/neck joints, they move your head with great ease and delicacy.

When your neck is stiff, that’s because you are holding the bigger muscles in your neck very tight. Since those bigger muscles cover many more joints in your spine and shoulders, using them to move your head pulls your body into all kinds of crazy contortions. Learning to let those bigger neck muscles stop over-working and stiffening up your neck allows your head movement to be controlled purely by your eight sub-occipital muscles and to be a simple movement only involving your two head/neck joints.

Turning your head

Once you know how to unstiffen your neck and what happens when you turn your head, you need just one more easy tip to be able to turn your head easily.

When your head turns, you are going to need a little more slack in the big muscles of your neck. That’s because many of those bigger muscles are going to need to be a little longer to span the greater distance between your back and shoulder and the turned back of your head.

How do you create that extra slack?

Remembering to leave your neck soft so that your head still nods as it should, first look down slightly. Only when you’re looking down should you begin to turn your head a little. If you do it slowly enough, with enough attention to keeping your head noddable, you’ll find that turning your head is much easier than it used to be. Not only that, it turns further as well.

Practice doing that and you’ll gradually find that turning your head becomes easier and easier.

Your Next Step

Turning your head easily depends on being able to nod it easily. Once you can do one, the other becomes dead easy.

So here’s what you need to do.

Re-read my last-week’s article that teaches you how to make your head noddable. If you haven’t yet read it, then read it — and do the experiment at the end. If you’ve lost that article, then I’m going to be kind to you and let you have another copy. Just email me and I’ll send it to you.

If you’re already on Repoise, post your experience on the forum and I’ll help you understand what you’re doing wrong. I’ll help you sort out the complications that stop you turning your head as easily as you’d like.

If you’re not a member, you really should become one so that I can give you the help you will need.

This article is included under the following categories:‒

Personal Coaching by Philip Pawley

If you want to get the best kind of help, come to me for an introductory lesson in Liverpool.

If you’re too far away, then the next best thing is to get personal lessons and advice from me online at Repoise.com, my on-line school. (Both far-away and local pupils use Repoise).

In more detail:–

If you’re in Liverpool (or can get to Liverpool)

  1. There’s nothing better than individual lessons. My practice is at 37 Hope Street, Liverpool L1. Ring me on 0151 708 6172 to book an initial consultation and first lesson. (Leave your number so I can get back to you).

  2. If you’re short of funds, you can still have first class training from me — though it will require a little more work on your part.

    The thing to do is have an individual, in-person lesson just once a month. That will entitle you to also get regular on-line lessons from me through Repoise. That way, you have the best of both worlds: in-person lessons and very regular, even daily, on-line Personal Coaching by Philip Pawley from me. That’s a real bargain because Repoise costs the equivalent of three lessons a year to everyone else.

    Ring me on 0151 708 6172 if you want to arrange this.

  3. I occasionally run group lessons. If you’re interested in these, go here for details.

If you’re further away and can’t get to Liverpool

  1. There’s still nothing better than individual lessons. Here’s where you can find a teacher near you in the UK or elsewhere
  2. I suggest you also get direct day-to-day guidance from me by joining Repoise.

    If you’re having plain Alexander Technique lessons from someone else, you still need to discover the Smiling Back Method of the Alexander Technique. You’ll get a lot more out of your lessons when you do.



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