For the past few weeks now I've noticed I have 2 semi-large clumps of knots on both sides of my head, you can't see it directly but you can feel it. And they're huge. Now, I thought I was just supposed to not comb my hair and let it do it's thing? I didn't know I should be twisting and ripping only 2 months in..and no matter what I do I can't break it up into smaller knots, so my hair is just knotty with 2 large clumps on either side. WAYY to big to be a dread. I'm confused, is there something I'm missing? And I talked to a friend of mine who went through the natural journey, and he tells me just let my hair do it's thing, don't twist and rip because it's better to be all-natural, blah blah even though I tell him I'll need to prevent my hair from becoming 1 big knot. I don't get it?
well thats why i tell people to start seperating the small clumps from the start dreads form within a few weeks although dont tighten right away, the 1st few weeks u shhould be feeling your hair for these areas that are sectioning themsdelves and beginning to clump, seperating them from eachother by ripping them away from eachother sounds liker your gonna have 2 mighty big congas try working your fingers into the clumps, and hair by hair breakin em apart into 3 or 4? natural or otherwise, seperating the dreads is important, or ya end up with just 1
Hm I'll try that. and Roji, you can't tell really from a pic you can only feel it, haha. A pic of my hair would just seem all knotty. Hmm..pics. I need to start taking some ;/
As a matter of interest, when do these clumps start tightening? Can you wait several months before they do? Is it something that just starts suddenly? and then gets progressively tighter? Sorry to hijack, but it crossed my mind while reading soaringeagles post.
That's the problem ezydriver, I was always told this doesn't happen "instantly," but it seems my hair got extremly knotty in most areas really fast.. and soaringeagle is the only one who I seen stress the fact that you have to rip your hair early on, everyone else seems to just say "drop your comb and let your hair do it's thing, come back in 12months." Just do what he says, I'm ripping my hair now and it's taking forever but it's working.
That really depends on your hair type. For me, from first tangle to nicely locked dread from bottom to top (not counting 2 inches of loose roots) takes about a year. As far as ripping apart the dreads from the beginning... I started pulling apart the knots into sections from day 1. In the beginning, I ripped apart the clumps everyday. As they mature and establish themselves you definitely don't have to rip nearly as much. It was pretty important to me to keep the sections relatively neat so I stayed on top of it.
This is because some naturals don't like to admit that they do anything to their hair to maintain it. Then when they get called on doing ripping and separating: 'Oh, well of course I do that ...but I don't spend time on it!' It's like it's a dirty little secrect that they put any degree of effort into their hair. :shower:
I don't understand the term 'ripping'. There is nothing to rip. Just clumps to 'move'. I 'move' them apart. Maybe I've got weird hair or something. Its gone so loose its almost back to 'combed' hair, yet it seemed to be clumping and knotting quite fast at first.
hmmm... and I don't quite get what you mean by moving them apart? Do you mean pulling them apart? If so, it's the same thing. By ripping, I mean pulling apart hairs from each other that I don't want to merge. So if the hair clumped into a larger size than I wanted I would separate them apart. The term "ripping" is often used because when you pull apart 2 dreads that have been trying to merge for awhile it can make a ripping sound.
