In the seventies there was, and still is, one of my favorite rhythm and blues band from the Bay Area of California named “Tower of Power”. Their best known album is “Back to Oakland”, and this past weekend PRI was back in Oakland at Alta Bates Medical Center Physical Therapy where Cervical Revolution was hosted. Cervical Revolution is the conduit to introducing bottom up as well as top down concepts from the cervical spine, cranium, and occlusal system that first require an understanding of the most important neurologic articulation in the body called the atlas and occipital bone. This is where the brainstem is located and is highly sensitive to position, movement, and especially pressure from a head that is forward on a neck that has lost its normal 30 degrees of lordosis. If that 30 degrees is lost, then 30 degrees of mid-cervical lateral flexion and 30 degrees of rotation is lost as well.
The cervical spine, or “tower of power”, on which the cranium is supported, needs to be free to rotate driven by bilateral muscle balance in all three planes of movement coordinated together. When the body is patterned, or repetitively shifted to a dominant side, the neck knows it and responds with a predictable sequence of deep muscles called the TMCC, or the temporal, mandibular and cervical chain. There are eight muscles on each side of the cervical spine, cranium and jaw that compose the TMCC and when one side becomes dominant, and it always starts with the right, it then becomes difficult, if not impossible, to fully shift the mass of the entire body to the left. This weekend the beginning description of Cervical Revolution is that this is a right stance course! Through the L AIC, the right BC, and the right TMCC, humans all become laterally shifted to the right side driven by neurologic, respiratory, and anatomical asymmetries and bias. In this course there was ample time for demonstration and lab starting with five objective tests for the cervical region that assesses movement in all three planes of the cervical spine with a mantra 30-30-30! Non-manual techniques where then provided to not only provide re-positioning to neutral but for the ability to alternate and rotate side to side.
Referring back to the musical album “Back to Oakland”, there is a famous song called, “So Very Hard to Go”, and with one of the tests, Cervical Axial Rotation, it is typically “very hard to go” or rotate to the left! In fact, our functional cortical dominance makes it difficult to shift and rotate a pelvis onto the left leg as well as the right, internally rotate a left ribcage for delivering air pressure sense into a ribcage, and even establishing a better visual field on the left in order to alternate back and forth left to right side! When patterns and position become dominant over time in the neck, pathology in the body and even the cranium will be a consequence.
This course also provides an understanding on how the TMCC’s on either side of the neck are needed to be balanced to provide stability of the neck and allow proper mastication with a jaw. When you aren’t chewing, a jaw needs to be free to shift side to side just like the rest of the body to help keep a neck free and mobile! If the neck is not stable, then muscles of mastication become dominant on one side further reinforcing a biased pattern and position that does not allow for balanced alternation of the entire body side to side. If the muscles of mastication are attempting to stabilize a cervical spine and cranium, then the cervical spine muscles attempt to aid and abet chewing which further reinforces this pattern called the right TMCC! This whole process in this course begins with the atlas and occipital bone position and expands into the cranium including the sphenoid, temporal bones and mandible. If atlas and occipital bones aren’t free to rotate, oscillate or alternate, the rest of the body will know it including the cranium, jaw and visual system! Not only that, but the CNS, ANS, and RAS will be affected over time simply starting with the atlas and occipital bone. This is why Cervical Revolution is the gateway to our tertiary courses!
Two of the students in this course I met five years ago at this facility when I taught Postural Respiration and thank you Shaun and Joan so much for hosting PRI and providing such a professional space to work and teach in. Shaun and Joan get there early and leave late to facilitate the success of every course attendee. And thank you both for being my drivers! Austin and Maxwell, great to see you again after teaching Postural in Sacramento in April 2024 and for your trust to return to a secondary course. Sura, Jai, Nick, Tin your presence and questions moved us along in a most helpful way and was just great. Morgan, thanks so much for coming in from Juneau, Alaska! That is a long haul and your questions where so helpful. And Holly! All the way from Vancouver, Canada to attend your first live course after taking all of the primary courses remotely. Your life experience, responses to techniques and questions helped teach the course. I also have to include everyone in that sentence as well in terms of what you brought including interest, energy and best of all, curiosity.
-Skip George
