There is no air tight barrier in between my two cheeks, so how am I controlling the air in my mouth and directing it to one specific cheek? The deflated cheek is still floppy, so it’s not like I’m tensing a muscle to stop it inflating.
Also works if I have a mouth full of water, and can also be directed to top and bottom lips.
Thank you.
In: Biology
There are A LOT of muscles in your face. Think about all the different faces you can make. That’s a lot of different little muscles pulling to contort your face. It shouldn’t be hard to imagine that the air moving back and forth in your mouth is basically you making different faces with those little muscles.
Both cheeks are inflated with air. It’s just that you’re using your cheek muscles to force more of the air to the other side/cheek.
Push air into a cheek, now relax all of your facial muscles. The air will move to center. That’s your answer The muscle is actively pushing on the air, so it stays in cheek
Because you can control your cheek muscles and keep one contracted while the other relaxes and fills with air. You can actually damage this and be unable to control it how you’re describing too.
Satchmo’s syndrome is a disorder due to the rupture of orbicularis oris muscle in trumpet players. This syndrome is named after the nickname of Louis Armstrong, the trumpet player from New Orleans, because apparently it fits with the symptoms he experienced in 1935.
So people with this condition, when they pass air through their mouth with a closed mouth, or over a mouthpiece like a trumpet or balloon even, both their cheeks will puff out.
Same reason you can blow up a balloon but keep your cheeks tight and deflated butnyou could let them blow out.
Try inflating your one cheek more and more. I alteast notice that my other “relaxed” cheek get’s less and less relaxed. I am almost like pressing that cheek together.
So yeah, the other cheek is not relaxed.
Or try sucking in the air in only one cheek. You will notice quickly that your other check also get’s sucked in but to a lesser extend (because you are working against it, but your muscles or not as good in that direction).
(Btw, great question, I had to experiment myself)
>The deflated cheek is still floppy
no, it’s not.
you’re tensing the muscles and holding it taut. try relaxing your mouth – see how your puffed out cheek deflates, and the pressure equalizes between the two sides? that’s because you’ve relaxed and both cheeks are now ‘floppy.’
>it’s not like I’m tensing a muscle to stop it inflating.
Yes you are.
Inflate your whole mouth so both cheeks bulge a bit. Now shift the air to one side. (You can even ‘swish’ the air back and forth if you want.)
That requires tensing some cheek muscles, and you’ll feel the effort you have to put in.
Those same cheek muscles are the ones you are tensing when you inflate 1 cheek to begin with – you are reaching the same end-state.
Your cheeks have a fair bit of fat and skin on them, so when you touch the cheek you probably don’t feel the muscles, especailly when it is not inflated, so that is probably why it feels floppy. Also, some of the muscle that operate your cheek are above and below it, putting tension on the area without necesarrily all of the relevant muscles being inside the cheek itself.
You aren’t so much “pushing air from one cheek to the other” as you are just tensing the “full cheek” to force the air in it to the other, now not tensed, side
Fill your mouth with as much air as possible, including your lungs. Keep sucking in air. Now try to move the air around – its much harder to onlynhave one cheek inflated.
When you only have one cheek inflated, you only have enough air in your mouth to either partly inflate both cheeks or inflate just one.
Now if you deflate your lungs and mouth by breathing out as much as you can, really eliminate as much air as you can – you’ll notice it’s difficult to inflate even just one cheek. You don’t have enough air.
Do it while and focus on keeping your tongue flat.
When I do it although one is more inflated the other is less floppy. I’m just going on what I can discern but I’m noting 2 things.
1 it’s more the cheek muscle creating the space as opposed to the air forcing the cheek out
2 my tongue naturally twists to create a barrier between my two cheeks
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