Dec 1, 20243 min read

Song Between Movements

Updated: 2 days ago

It’s impossible to jump off the floor without first of all bending your knees and sinking into the ground.

The implication of this is that all movement, in fact everything in life, is impossible without its opposite.

Relating this to Tai Chi and Song

If you put two tai chi or qigong movements together, e.g. let's say you are sitting on your back foot and you move on to your front foot and push your arms out, this is the horizontal equivalent of jumping off the floor. In order to push forwards, you have to sink into the ground first with your rear leg.

This means that every delivery of energy, first of all needs a 'winding up'.

So, if you put a string of movements together, it becomes a sequence of load up/deliver, load up/deliver, etc. They are mechanical actions, but to do tai chi or qigong they need to be more than that.

Both of these actions need to be sensations in the body, and have to relate to the feelings within the tissues of the body; they don't necessarily have to be physical actions.

Sensations

If I am going to jump off the floor, I need to load up, but it is impossible if, when bending my knees, I tense my body - the tension locks me in place.

When I load up, I completely relax - in fact I do what the Chinese refer to as 'Song', a complete letting go of all the tissues in the body, a feeling of sinking, a whole-body relaxation, a borrowing of gravity, a storing of energy within the tissues, an emptying of the body of tension, a collecting together of the torso and all the limbs, a connection of the fascial trains needed to produce power, and an ever-increasing compression as though loading a spring but without having to bend the knees or lower the body.

Compression

It is this gradually increasing compression that precedes the release of energy which is the push. It is the same feeling as when you throw a javelin, prepare yourself to return the tennis ball that is shooting towards you, or catch the cricket ball that's hurtling your

way.

There is a softness and a smoothness about it, a gentle release of tension, and if you were to draw the feeling on a graph, it would be a smooth curve with no sudden corners or sharp angles.

And the point is?

In tai chi and in some moving types of qigong, we constantly shift from one position to another.

Like walking, you expand to step, and you contact as your back foot comes alongside the stepping foot prior to the next step. We 'open' and we 'close' all the time. You can't have one movement without the other, and in the same way, when you move, you always have to 'generate energy' (the action) which is then followed by the 'loading up' (Song).

In the 'modern' forms, this is made very clear (less so in the older sets of movements).

If you take the Yang 24-Step as an example (being one of the better known forms), having done Parting the Wild Horse's Mane 1, you then sit back prior to doing PTWHM(2), and again you sit back before doing PTWHM(3). [Note that in this example you do need to bend the rear leg slightly].

This sitting back is a moment of Song, of release, of storing, of loading up, and during that moment the whole body needs to relax and let go before moving on.

(Above I said 'in the modern forms', this is because in the traditional or 'older' forms, you don't do the sitting back. This doesn't mean that Song isn't present, it is, but is more internalised, and less obvious).

Bringing it Into Everyday Life

Keep it simple, just observe your breathing, either the in-breath or the out-breath can be Song, although it's slightly easier to achieve with the out-breath. Notice it and relax!

James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.

Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.