Song is essential to Tai Chi. I wrote about it in Taijiquan: Through the Western Gate and in previous blogs, such as Song and Song Kua: Clarification. Song is releasing muscular tension so that we can shift to a different source of internal power, the intrinsic structure of the body as a unified whole.
Bear Posture
Song is much more than just relaxing your muscles, but it does start there. Complete relaxation leaves you as a puddle on the floor. If you are standing up, you are using muscles. If you are breathing, there are muscles involved. You get the idea. We aren’t relaxing all muscles, just the ones that aren’t needed for the task at hand. Maybe you don’t need to tighten your shoulder and neck muscles to steer your car, for example. Letting go of that extraneous tension might make the car ride more enjoyable.
Training Song begins with shedding unnecessary tension. Most new student are not conscious of how tight they are holding their bodies…even when the teacher points it out to them. It usually takes a dramatic demonstration to bring awareness to the feeling of letting go which might then serve as a felt-sense going forward. But that experience may soon fade into memory as just another idea—unless we familarize ourselves with it through practice.
We learn how to let go of this involuntary tension through conscious feeling and movement. What was UNconscious becomes conscious. This is a gradual process that is never completed. Mindfulness in feeling and movement is where Tai Chi gets its power. And it is the first step in establishing Song.
When we clear muscular tension as much as we can right now (remember, you will get better at this through practice), we stop fighting ourselves for the moment and can then shift to a more efficient way of using our bodies, one based on the integration of body, mind, and spirit. We do this by establishing energetic coherence. (See Light, Lively, and Connected Throughout for a deeper dive into this.)
“Whenever one moves, the entire body must be light (qing) and lively (ling), and must above all be connected throughout (guanchuan)…There must always be completely one Qi.”
Taijiquan Jing, attributed to Zheng San Feng
Energetic coherence unifies the energy in the body-mind (“There must always be completely one Qi.”) It also unifies the body through the connective tissue system (tensegrity). Song training gradually creates trust in power of this “one body-one Qi.” This takes Gongfu (diligent effort for a long time).
Self-training Song entails three steps:
- Release extraneous muscular tension.
- Establish energetic coherence/ tensegrity.
- Test it.
These two videos guide you step-by-step in Self-training Song. The first explains Song and the second demonstrates how to implement it.
Self-training Song: A Step-by-step Method
