If you slide you teeth to your right, and only your right canines contact during this lateral excursion, then you have canine guidance. Canine guidance is reckoned to be a good thing, as canines are excellent at coping with lateral forces. If this happens, you are said to have a canine-protected occlusion. The same idea applies to the left of course. You may have heard the phrases posterior guidance and anterior guidance used when the mandible moves about in protrusive and lateral excursions. Dynamic occlusion is the study of the contacts that teeth make when the mandible is moving – contacts when the jaw moves sideways, forwards, backwards, or at an angle. The contacts are not points, they are lines. If you get a patient to grind their teeth in every direction on piece of articulating paper, you will see the lines formed by dynamic occlusion. Working side and non-working side can be defined in relation to lateral excursions. Types of anterior guidance in lateral excursions include canine guidance, group function, working side interference, and non-working side interference.