oh I am just full of questions these days.

I watched a video of a NAF player and on long slow vibrato notes his cheeks seem to be going in and out with small muscle movements. What is happening here?

Any tips on getting that vibrato effect period. It is comign, but very slowly.

There is no harm in asking lots of questions! The more you ask, the more you learn, so keep firing!

I'm not sure what is happening there...when I use vibrato, it comes from my diaphragm...but I've never watched to see if my cheeks move too! Will have to go play in front of the mirror for a bit

I know it's not much use, but I I didn't really learn to generate vibrato, or make a concious effort to...it just sort of...happened, after much practice

Featherwind is right, vibrato should come from the diaphragm. You can train it and learn it. You can try to start very slowly blow harder and softer and you will notice the tone will rise and fall. For example rise and fall evrey count. Then every half note, quarter etc. Speed up but do not hurry - try to keep control all the time. The vibrato will come then. There are also different kinds of excercises to make your diaphragm work, if you should need that.
In the end you should be able to keep a pure tone and have it go into a vibrato at the speed you wish.

You may ask any flute or recorder player for help - The technique is the same for any kind of flute.

Normally you want vibrato to come from the diaphragm, but some performers use the cheeks to produce other effects, that sound similar, but are different. Really good performers do a lot of things that ordinary players like me, don't master.

My current teacher does both. As I recall, the cheek method is developed when playing the recorder, and it can be used on NAF as well. Guess you could say some techniques come from related disciplines, more than from the NAF itself. While I have a recorder, I haven't spent any serious time with it as yet, so I haven't any direct experience to relate, in that regard.

Kally
All these suggestions have been good. To me a good vibrato is what seperates the average player from the outstanding players. To me it is the most important effect. Use of the diaphram is important. Without a flute just practice forcing out air using your diaphram and saying hehehehehe............... Then slow it down and speed it up. You can practice this anywhere , anytime whether you have a flute or not. Using the cheeks is something on the order of playing a didge. You may want to use your cheeks to play a vibrato with much less force giving a different effect. You might want to combine them both. Mr. Nakai has one of the best vibratos and I have seen him use his cheeks as well. You can hold air in your cheeks then puff it out.
Mark Holland teaches a long tone excercise. Play each note on the flute and hold it as long as you can. This will strenghten your muscles and think about your breathing. Do one repetitiion using a vibrato on each note. Do one rep with note bends, another with flutter tonguing, etc.

Since this is a wind instrument how well you push air through the instrument will largely determine how good a player you become. To me the best in this area is none other than Miss Mary Youngblood. The passion with which she plays is palpable. Practicing in a mirror is a good idea. I do this with the Anasazi alot. I have only been playing this flute since Feb but have made great progress with the tutelege of Scott and G...............So far the best teacher for getting sound out of this flute that I have been around is Mr G Ellis. I think he should give a class at a NCFC event soon!!
Scott August has told me he practices every day at least one half hour, he usually practices scales.
When you take a class from one of these professionals and they make a suggestion by all means try it................you will find they know what they are talking about!!

When I use vibrato, it comes from my diaphragm...

And I just did what Featherwind suggested: I played in front of a mirror and watched to see if my cheeks move too!

And guess what: They did move, although only slightly.

Maybe that happens when the diaphragm applies a stronger vibratio than the air channel
of the flute is able to manage and therefore the cheeks (the air in the mouth) kind of act as catalisator?....
... does this make any sense ... ?

Rick, I suppose the cheek method is used by some playing recorder, but the standard method is the diaphragm. Beginners tend to want to produce vibrato-like sound with their cheeks, but they have to learn to use their diaphragm both for vibrato and some other things. Of course, after mastering this, anybody can experiment with any other kind of technique. In the end, there are no wrongs in playing as long as the result is as the player intends.
But it is important not to use the cheek method as a short-cut to fancy results.
Gerard

Whatever works to create the effect you want, is acceptable, I would think, although I personally am more of a diaphragm person, and not a cheeks person.

In principle, I agree. Nevertheless, at least when recorders are concerned, any player will in the long run benefit from learning using the diaphragm. Being able to conciously control diaphragm breathing does also enhance playing in other ways. People not using their diaphragm tend to have less air and can get problems with long phrases for instance. That's why I would recommend anybody to work on controlling the diaphragm movements. Only after being able to do that you will have a real choice whther to use cheeks or diaphragm