Advice on Sung

[tiaji1983]

Hello all,

I am looking for help in a way in getting someone to understand the subject. I have a student I am trying to help. When they practice Taichi, they clearly carry a lot of shoulder tension and uses muscle strength when doing the movements. I can explain sung to them, and sometimes they can get it, sometimes they cant. I tried to explain to clear the mind first, and the body will follow, and I tried showing different exercises, but they just dont get it. Do you guys have any other ways of explaining it, any advice, or any exercises a student to do to get it all the time?

Im also worried because eventually they will be learning the Wudang Formless form which is based on the Daoist theory of being like a baby. You have to completely let go and while you do the form, be formless. It requires to be completely sung with a clear mind, and you can change the form, add movements but not delete movements to make it formless. If he can't be sung, and have a clear mind, he wont be able to grasp it.

[YouKnowWho]

In CMA we have to loose 3 joints, the wrist joint, elbow joint, and shoulder joint. It's called 通三关(Tong San Guan). There is a drill that can help people to achieve that. The part that help to loose the shoulder joint is to hold your right arm in front of your head. You move your arm to the right side of your body. Make sure your elbow joint is straight when you move your arm so you can concentrate on your shoulder joint only. You then repeat the left side.

[taai gihk yahn]

Hello all,

I am looking for help in a way in getting someone to understand the subject. I have a student I am trying to help. When they practice Taichi, they clearly carry a lot of shoulder tension and uses muscle strength when doing the movements. I can explain sung to them, and sometimes they can get it, sometimes they cant. I tried to explain to clear the mind first, and the body will follow, and I tried showing different exercises, but they just dont get it. Do you guys have any other ways of explaining it, any advice, or any exercises a student to do to get it all the time?

Im also worried because eventually they will be learning the Wudang Formless form which is based on the Daoist theory of being like a baby. You have to completely let go and while you do the form, be formless. It requires to be completely sung with a clear mind, and you can change the form, add movements but not delete movements to make it formless. If he can't be sung, and have a clear mind, he wont be able to grasp it.

the words I like are "resilient" and "buoyant"; sung is also sometime described as "released"; experientially, it's a specific, almost unique state - it's extremely hard to communicate through words, but w a touch I can get you to feel it pretty quickly; I think of it as a sort of "balanced tension" - not too loose, not too tight - just right (I like to talk about it as "the Goldilocks Principle"...);

so how to get it? one can start at either end, or in the middle - sometimes it's the pelvis, sometimes it's the head, sometimes it's the rib cage / respiratory diaphragm, sometimes it's the feet; sometimes you need to lie the person down, sometimes sit them in a chair and maneuver these areas;

if someone can get the "head float" feeling, this is a good way to start - having them slightly tuck the chin and think about the nape of the neck getting long and free - sometimes giving an upward force to the base of the occiput can help with this - either from below (in standing) or above (if they r in sitting), depending...but also, the breath kinda needs to be "released" and free - this is a tricky proposition...

again, to me, hands-on is the most direct and effective way of communicating this to someone - words alone usually don't get you very far, because it's not an intellectual concept (well, it is, but you can't "think" yourself "sung", you have to simple engage it kinesthetically - it's almost "pre-thought");

well, not much help all this, but good luck...

[YouKnowWho]

After you have wrestled for 15 rounds, your body will be so exhausted that you can't use any more "brute force", you will then understand what a true Sung suppose to feel.

[SPJ]

as pointed out there are many relaxation exercises

1. shaking wrist, rotate wrist clockwise, counterclockwise. bend fingers or the wirst as far back as you could

2. flicking fingers outward, grabing with fingers

3. rotate elbow clockwise and counterclockwise

4. shoulder" swing the whole arm forward and backward in a circle, swing the whole arm left and right, bend your arm back as far as you can

5. stretch back forward and back ward--

while you are doing all those exercises, your mind is focusing on relaxing and relaxing

these are warming up and stretching regime

some of tensions from daily life postures and previous MA experience needed to be dropped by unwinding from the exercise listed above.

actually, we do these every single time, before we do anything else.

tai chi or otherwise.

[KTS]

well, since there have been some exercises mentioned, i thought i would add a bit on the actual rules and perspective of it.

when you raise your arm, as an example, your elbow is heavy. your shoulder also sinks in and down roughly. your arm and hand should not feel force or tension as you raise and lower it.

roughly, u learn to maintain a ruleset to keep your frame from having as much excess tension as possible without compromising integrity.

so, the ruleset is to basically keep joints and the body from "popping", rising, "dragging" through space, or misaligned and not connected to the center.

[tiaji1983]

Ok thank you for your replies.

Tell me if Im on the right track to helping students.

First I teach the "Dying ****roach" which came from yoga.
Lay on back with palms on ground or bed or whatever. Start with toes, wiggle, feel, on inhale, as you exhale, relaxe and imagine them melting into earth. Repeat to feet, ankles, shins, knees, thighs, groin, hips, stomache, ribs, chest, shoulders, fingers, hands, wrists, forearms, upperarms, shoulders, neck, back of head, top of head, face, chin, and then inhale, feel whole body, exhale melt whole body. Repeat to bones, then to organs. After some time you can reach complete relaxation whenever you want by a deep inhale, feeling the body, then letting it go.

I teach standing on stake to feel the tension and release it.

I let the students experience it, by standing in peng, and have them rest thier arms on top of mine, then I tell them dont tense, just leave it there, and remove my arm. T then tell them that is the maximum amount of muscle strength to use when you do the form. Then I teach them how to sink and have them stand in peng, and slowly push against hier arm. I tell them use the minimum amount of energy required to resist, and sink with my push. When I cannot move them, they are surprised and ussually understand.

I also remind constantly to relax.


The issue is though, they forget and become tense. How can you train them not to forget?

Also with myself, I have been trying to stay sung 24/7 and I became aware of a lot of tension that I just cant release right away. I am getting better but its very difficult. I also have reached a stage when I can do the forms compeletely sung, so sung and relaxed I can actually feel the air part when I move. I cant do it all the time, but when I do its a wonderful feeling. Its not always recreatable. Same with when your tired. If you wear yourself out to become sung, how do you recreat it? Also I notice tension when I cross hands with someone else, that Im also getting better on. Anyone have any advise how to stay sung in those situations besides put yourself in those situations more?

[omarthefish]

the words I like are "resilient" and "buoyant"; sung is also sometime described as "released"; experientially, it's a specific, almost unique state - it's extremely hard to communicate through words...

You guys need to grab a dictionary.

"sung" just means "relaxed"

Nothing more. Nothing less.

All the rest is your own cultural baggage.

[YouKnowWho]

"Internal" guys always love to make simple thing complicate. A simple punch to the head can be .....

[omarthefish]

Ain't that the truth.

I can just hear folks out there explaining how English doesn't have a work for "sung". If that was true then they would have to accept the other side of that statement: Chinese has no word for "relax".

p.s.
Ok, so maybe "relax" is actually "fang song" and "song" just means "loose". Either way, there's nothing special or mysterious about the word.

[bawang]

wudang formless form, dying cawkroach stance, lol

[KC Elbows]

I have a special song I teach them. It's called "relax your shoulder."

It goes like this:

Relax your shoulder.
Better.
No, it's up again.
Do it over.
Your shoulder, relax it.
Yes, that was perfect except the part where your shoulder was higher than Whitney Houston on crack.
Better.
Relax your shoulder.

It's a common song in many branches of gongfu.

[dimethylsea]

Hello all,

I am looking for help in a way in getting someone to understand the subject. I have a student I am trying to help. When they practice Taichi, they clearly carry a lot of shoulder tension and uses muscle strength when doing the movements. I can explain sung to them, and sometimes they can get it, sometimes they cant. I tried to explain to clear the mind first, and the body will follow, and I tried showing different exercises, but they just dont get it. Do you guys have any other ways of explaining it, any advice, or any exercises a student to do to get it all the time?

Have them hold the ball for insane periods of time. Alternately have them hold the ball with palms forward, while twisting the arms and pushing out through the heels of the palm for a much shorter period of time.

Doing both of these till ya feel like your arms will fall off is good sh*t.

Also ridonculous amounts of teacups exercise. I also like holding kettlebells in the "shoulder rack" position ( a la Steve Cotter's Full KO Kettlebells).

All this stuff will help people learn to relax those shoulders in good ways. Kettlebells also are great for general physical preparedness and have a host of other training benefits.

[taai gihk yahn]

on a more prosaic level, you want them to relatively inhibit the following typically hypertonic muscles: scalenes / SCM, upper traps, pecs, biceps, subscapularis, lumbar extensors, hip flexors, hip adductors, piriformis, hamstrings and you want them to facilitate short neck flexors, shoulder external rotators, rhomboids, mid to lower traps (critical - perhaps the most important), hip extensors (gluteus maximus), hip abductors (gluteus medius), quads;

not that you are turning off the first group, but you are balancing the tone between them and the second group; if you can get all this, you're golden...

[Scott R. Brown]

on a more prosaic level, you want them to relatively inhibit the following typically hypertonic muscles: scalenes / SCM, upper traps, pecs, biceps, subscapularis, lumbar extensors, hip flexors, hip adductors, piriformis, hamstrings and you want them to facilitate short neck flexors, shoulder external rotators, rhomboids, mid to lower traps (critical - perhaps the most important), hip extensors (gluteus maximus), hip abductors (gluteus medius), quads;

not that you are turning off the first group, but you are balancing the tone between them and the second group; if you can get all this, you're golden...

I can see it now;

<As you whack the student with a newspaper> "YOU ARE NOT RELAXING YOUR PIRIFORMIS, SUBSCAPULARIS AND RHOMBOIDS!!! Now do it again, and you will KEEP doing it until you do it RIGHT!!!!"