BFF: More Than Just a Pretty Face

Best Face Forward is about more than just looks. We want to help you be healthier and more confident. Most of all, we want to help you be comfortable in your skin & enjoy life to the fullest!

Here's what we're all about:

Find your potential

We'll show you the best exercises to improve your tongue & body posture. This website will guide you to discover your optimal self!

Process > results

When you take small daily actions THEN you get great results in the long term. Focus on the daily process, and you'll be amazed!

No Perfect People

Most people want to look better to feel better internally. Chasing perfection leads to misery. Self-acceptance leads to real change.

How we help you improve

Since 2018, Ryan with the help of Dr. Estrabillo (and several other health professionals) have been sharing how to improve tongue and body posture on the Best Face Forward Youtube Channel.

We do this through our online programs, Youtube videos, and other content. 

Our goal is to make it EASY for you to improve your tongue posture & body posture. Our programs and content can help you make small improvements every single day, that turn into compounding results over time.

Some Resources to Get Started

Join Our Free Introductory Tongue Posture Course

Learn the importance of your tongue's posture, mobility and function, with our free intro course! We also give you some simple exercises to get results fast!

Improve Your Body Posture

See our content, exercises, and programs to help you improve your body posture every day!

New to Mewing/Tongue Posture? Start Here!

Get an introduction to proper tongue posture - and how you can work towards practicing it daily!

The Ultimate Formula For Amazing Mewing Results

There are many ways you can strengthen your tongue posture - Mewing is just one of them!


Painful Beginnings: My Story

Hi, I'm Ryan Blankers, I started the Best Face Forward Youtube Channel, and have helped thousands of people improve their posture and looks.

In 2018, I started the Best Face Forward Youtube channel to share what I've learned from Dentists, Myofunctional Therapists, and other health professionals on my journey to improving the way I looked, and my health through tongue posture.

BUT, the thing I'm most happy about is that along the way I've made SERIOUS progress myself...

Not only has my posture and breathing improved, but I look better than ever. My jaw, face, eyes, cheeks and lips all look more attractive, as well as my smile. I have literally watched my face change in front of my eyes.

But I'm not the only one.

One of the best feelings I have is from helping others achieve similar progress, hearing stories of people who have been able to use my videos to see results themselves.

But it wasn't always this way for me...

I'm a product of the things I've learned, and the work i've done - but it wasn't always like this.

Let me tell you the story of how I went from hating how I look and being a mouth breather, to where I am today...

I hated looking at myself In the mirror

I had a pretty normal upbringing. Actually, I had a really good childhood - except for one thing. I was a mouth breather growing up. 

At first, nobody noticed - including me. My parents didn't notice, and honestly, I didn't really care about how I looked at the time. All that mattered was playing video games and getting good grades (which I was doing with my mouth hanging wide open).

I remember my teachers telling me"close your mouth or else flies will get in"... I didn't know any better at the time.

It wasn't until I was in high school - around 14-15 that I started to notice that something was changing...

  • My face shape was starting to change. I began noticing that my jaw was looking weaker, my chin was slanted back, and my nose looked big as well. 
  • I was confused and insecure. I'd spend hours taking photos of my face and analyzing them, comparing myself to others, and just hating the way I looked
  • My posture was getting worse. I seemed to be constantly slouched over, regardless of how many times I was told to "stand up straight"

Looking back on it now - the worst part was the way it affected my self-esteem. I hated looking in the mirror. It was a rough time for me, constantly analyzing my face, and comparing myself to other people.

And the worst part was I didn't know what was wrong. I didn't know how I could fix the "long face" I'd developed.

That is, until I had my "uerika moment".

Discovering Mewing

I came across a Youtube Channel called "Orthotropics" - where I first heard about mewing. Ah-ha! This is what my problem was! Because of mouth breathing I had developed poor tongue posture, which is why my face looked the way it did.

Discovering mewing for the first time

But this almost made the problem worse, not better.

Because now that I had this knowledge, I went on a mission to figure out how to fix it. I was determined!

  • I spent hours researching. watching videos, doing research, and trying different methods, only to get more and more frustrated.
  • I would try and do "Mewing" all day long. I would try and practice good tongue posture, then go to the mirror and see if anything had changed (only to be disappointed)
  • Nothing seemed to work. It seemed like I tried everything - chewing gum for my jaw, mewing really hard, doing different exercises and stretches... and nothing seemed to work.

All this worrying was starting to get to my head. I just wanted to get on with my life, but all I could think about was how I could fix this problem.

When you start to obsess over this stuff, it really affects you. Your entire world becomes consumed by this painful feeling of... why did this have to happen to me? How can I fix this?

I could have just given up and accepted it (which probably would have been good for me mentally), but that wasn't an option. I needed to find a solution. And luckily I did.

The Turning Point

One day I discovered something that changed everything. The importance of posture.

I was watching a video from Elliot Hulse (a popular Youtuber) who was talking about the importance of stretching your neck, and how your tongue affects your posture. Huh? 

I immediately remembered what I'd learned about mewing, and decided to give these stretches a shot. I was amazed at what happened...

After doing these stretches, not only did my neck and collar bone area look more attractive, but my face and jaw did as well. I could literally feel the difference in my tongue posture after just 10-15 minutes of stretching!

Can you imagine, a boy in university discovers stretches to make him better looking? I was over the moon! I would do them in the morning, before going to parties at night, and I was starting to see better results than ever.

Paying it forward

After graduating - I wanted to share what I'd learned over the years, so I started the Best Face Forward youtube with channel with Dr. Estrabillo to spread the word.

As I started putting out videos and reading comments, I realized something fascinating: most people had the same problems as me.

I'd hear the same questions, over and over again:

  • How can I do mewing without thinking about it, how can I do mewing at night while i'm sleeping and have good tongue posture?
  • What are the best exercises I can do to improve my body posture?
  • Am I doing mewing properly? I don't know if I have the proper tongue posture.
  • Will Mewing work for me? I've tried and I don't see results yet.
  • I don't like the way I look. I don't like my eyes/nose/jaw, can Mewing help me fix this?
  • Why is it so hard for me to breath through my nose? How can I avoid mouth breathing at night?
  • How come one side of my face looks different than the other? I can feel my tongue is uneven on my palate.

Over the years I have worked with numerous Dentists, Physiotherapists, and Myofunctional therapists to try and solve these problems.

Let me tell you what I've learned.

Your Face is Constantly Changing, Whether You Know it or Not

The most interesting thing I've learned is that your face is constantly changing. The bone is remodelling, your posture is changing, and your airway is as well. It could be changing to more of the same, getting worse, or getting better.

These changes are slow, but they happen. I've not only learned this from countless professionals, but I've seen it myself as well.

This is good news to some, because it means you can make positive changes to your health and appearance. But bad news to others...

Cheek bones, you think they're genetic? Think again. They change, and you can change them all by yourself.

- Dr. Mike MEW From YOUTUBE CHANNEL ORTHOTROPICS

If you're not getting better, you're getting worse

The fact that we can change is good news to some... but bad news to others. Because the majority of people are getting worse. 

However, this is not our faults. One of the biggest culprits here is technology:

  • ABC news reports that Teens spend an average of 7 hours and 22 minutes on their phones a day
  • A study in India found that 73% of University students had forward head posture

Unfortunately, the picture isn't any prettier for adults either. With most of us spending our days hunched over computers. This reality is...

We have a BAD posture epidemic. 

And the worst part is, poor posture is one of the SUREST paths to poor tongue posture. And here's why:

The further your head is in front of your shoulders - the harder it is for your tongue to push up against your palate. When the tongue isn't in it's proper position, the upper jaw narrows and there's even less room for the tongue (creating a vicious cycle).

This is why - as a society I believe people are generally getting worse. I see it everywhere, in line at Starbucks, walking to work, kids hunched over iPads with their mouths hanging open.

But while this seems pretty grim - there's a silver lining here. A piece of good news I have for you.

If people's posture & faces can get worse over time, they can also get BETTER over time.

The thing I'm most interested in, as well as people who want to improve on my channel, is:

"What do I have to do to get the best results possible? To make improvements daily and know I'm doing everything correctly?"

Over the years I've learned is that the most IMPORTANT factor is...

Your RESTING TONGUE POSTURE 

When we say "resting tongue posture", we mean where your tongue sits in your mouth when you're NOT TRYING TO DO ANYTHING.

I'm not talking about when your mewing, or thinking consciously about it.

I'm talking about when you're sleeping. When you're working. When you're walking around. When you're at the gym.

The question is: where is your tongue the majority of the time?

That is what will have the biggest impact on your health, appearance, and progress over time.

Tongue position affects your airway, your facial shape, and your posture

When your tongue is up and forward on your palate it's further away from your airway (meaning you can breath more easily), and it's also exerting more force on your maxilla (meaning you will be more attractive over time).

The question is: how do you improve your resting tongue posture over time without thinking about it 24-7?

The 2 Keys To Improving Your Tongue Posture

There are 2 things that you can do every day to improve your resting tongue posture - and they are closely related.

By doing these 2 things daily, you will create a beautiful cycle where you are improving every day - with minimal effort.

1. Improving Your Body Posture

Remember how I said people's tongue posture is getting worse because of the posture epidemic?

Well, in the opposite way - by IMPROVING your posture every day, guess what happens?

Your tongue posture gets better without you consciously TRYING to make it better.

This is because when your head is in alignment over your body, you're tongue can more easily push up and forward against the roof of your mouth.

If you just improved your posture alone - you would see, and more importantly feel the improved position of your tongue.

BY improving the posture of your head, neck, and entire body, day-by-day, you'll be making it even easier to improve your tongue posture.

2. Strengthening the Tongue

Your tongue is a muscle, and by strengthening that muscle you'll find it naturally rests on the roof of your mouth more easily.

That means without even trying to it will naturally rest in a better habitual position on your upper palate. 

There are numerous ways you can strengthen the tongue that are more effective than mewing alone (which I'll get into further down the page).

This means you don't need to THINK about your tongue posture all day... actually, you can just do a few exercises and forget about it completely (my preferred method).

I've learned this from working with myofunctional therapists (who specialize in ensuring the tongue functions correctly), and since implementing the exercises, my tongue posture is better than ever.

Creating a Vicious Cycle

If you improve these two things day-by-day, you'll eventually have a snowball effect, where each day you are getting better and better.

  • As your posture improves, your tongue posture improves: Better body posture makes it easier for your tongue sit where it's supposed to
  • As your tongue posture improves, your posture improves even more: As you strengthen your tongue, you will notice it's easier and easier to keep your head in a good postural position

This is how you can get better results than you ever thought possible!

Using the BFF Website

In order for you to get results, you need to take daily action. Doing daily exercises will ensure that your tongue posture is improving.

Most importantly, it will ensure your tongue & body posture is not getting WORSE (which is a lot of people today).

Here is how you can use the BFF website for your betterment:

  • Read this article and watch the video to understand how "Mewing" (aka your tongue posture) affects the way your face looks, and the way you breath
  • Take our free introductory course to learn some great beginner exercises to begin making improvements
  • Check out our Youtube Channel to see if you can find answers to your specific questions, and to learn more.
  • Determine a plan of action for making improvements. Look at our articles to help you determine the most important things to look at. Consider working with a holistic dentist or other professional.

If you are already familiar with some of the topics on this website, you can skip to the exercises and begin doing those now.

Remember, patience and discipline are what yield results. If you are consistent and patient... you will improve!

Thank you for supporting Best Face Forward, and we hope to help you improve. 

Join Our FREE Introductory Tongue Posture Course

Everything you need to know to get started on improving your tongue posture, body posture and airway is here. Get our 6-part free program to get started!

>