Left / Right Confusion

A General Coordination Issue

Happy post Thanksgiving!

I’ve got my work cut out for me this month. Mom already made the world’s best turkey and pecan pie last week and we’re now smack in December. It’s a month where the world seems to have collectively decided to hurl food at my gullet at an aggressive pace.

I may write about the power of saying “No!” and STOP, but this month tends to break me. Beret would say,

The only thing I have control over is what comes out of my mouth and what goes into it.

On the surface it seems true. But if you’ve had a perfect pecan pie, you’d know that’s a load of crap.

Pray for me.

Are You Confused Yet?

Left / Right Confusion

Has anyone ever told you to move to your left and you started going to the right? It’s a pretty common thing that we all experience. It’s called a mistake and it’s perfectly normal but it is a type of directional confusion that I would like to talk about rather explicitly.

Before Halloween I made this little video on looking up and down.¹ Looking up and down is the movement that I spend a lot of time on with my students because there are a ton of subtle directions that we can take our head through in space. I think it’s worth repeating the possible movement instructions (directions) you can guide the head (or any object) through:

• Pitch Up/Down

• Tilt Left/Right

• Yaw (aka turn) Left/Right

• Cardinally Move Up/Down/Left/Right (ugh…this fancy word just means go straight up/down/left/right

I like these terms a lot and if you are one of my students I strongly encourage you to learn these directions and imagine that you have as much freedom of movement as a helicopter in space.

Common Confusions

The following examples are some of the common movement confusions that I see in myself and others. These confusions typically result in a lot of joint tension/stiffness.

Looking Down

I have a bad habit of looking down by moving my head forward cardinally and having the neck bend forward. If I do not allow the head to pitch down, a ton of strain builds up in the neck.

Looking Up

When looking up, there can be a bad habit of initiating this movement by either pressing the head up (cardinally) or by immediately pitching the head up. Instead, I would like to see the head be able to move backwards (cardinally) and then pitch up while the entire column of the neck softly moves to support the weight of the head.

Tilting Left/Right

When tilting the head left/right, many people have a tendency to lift the shoulder towards the ear. It should be possible to move the ear toward the shoulder without lifting the shoulder.

This does not mean that lifting your shoulder up is a bad thing! It means that you don’t want to have a habit of lifting the shoulder every time you go to move your head.

Moving A Shoulder

Confusion 1: It should be possible to move your shoulder while your arm is extremely relaxed (not dead weight). I often find that merely the thought of moving my shoulder activates the muscles of my arm. This creates a lot of shoulder pain.

I consider this to be a left/right confusion because the arm believes that it is doing the job of the shoulder.

Confusion 2: It should be possible to move a shoulder while the entire rib cage is left free and easy.

If you feel like you have to grip up in your chest or middle back to move your shoulder, then your rib cage thinks it needs to move about to get your shoulder (and possibly) your arm to move.

Swallowing

I have observed that many folks have a tendency to stiffen/clench their jaw when they go to swallow. I consider this to be a version of left/right confusion because the jaw thinks it is doing the job of the throat.

Pulling Up In the Legs

If you have tight hips, it is likely that the leg muscles are overly active - even when you are simply sitting quietly or lying down. If I’m doing something simple like rocking forward in a chair, there is no need for the quadriceps or groin to stiffen up to pull my torso forward in the chair - let something else do the work!

How To Un-Confuse Things

If you notice one of these confusions within yourself pat yourself on the back! I’m not sure there’s an “exercise routine” that untie that knot. Instead of noticing some kind of confusion and trying to fix it, it typically works better to notice the confusion and either quietly STOP or do it on purpose so that you learn better and better what it feels like.

This doesn’t mean that you need to do the wrong thing 12,349,857 times either. Just try it 2-5 times and see if that gives you a better clue of the pattern. If you’re feeling frustrated with any of these things, just remember that it takes months to learn a very simple skill.

Don’t believe me? Watch Michael Brecker talk about music and learning. He was a master of learning slowly. Trust him!

1. This video is not perfect. You’ll notice that I have not animated the neck. The neck will have a lot of flexibility in the act of looking up and down. This is something I hope to properly animate soon!