Toby had posted......
I totally disagree with the school of thought that relaxation is the path to internal mastery. There is nothing correct in that video from my perspective, nothing at all. We are also taught that in the first section of SLT there is a lot more going on than meets the eye, but none of that is evident in anything else I've seen. Simply standing there and saying relax and feel the chi in the fingertips, nope, doesn't do anything IMHO.
Life is about balance and so to is anything you do IMO. But a balance between what depends on the thing your doing. We are doing Kung Fu so its mainly physical.

To fully relax is to cut off your nose despite your face IMO. So i agree with toby somewhat.

One thing about that clip i noticed is, from my POV his body mechanics suffer as a result of trying to relax.
As an example - after the center punch most lineages turn to Tan Sau then roll that action into a fist via huen sau and take it back.. "huen sau sau kuen"

When i do this action (huen rolling from tan to Kuen) my elbow is straight, Why ? to isolate the wrist for huen Sau giving it a better range of motion trianing my inch power in the wrist more so than if my elbow was bent slightly.

Try and feel with elbow bent then elbow straight. Isolating the wrist improves the training of the action IME.
Now in the clip his relaxed elbow doesnt isolate the wrist so the heun isnt as effective in improving power dexterity etc etc.
Now perhaps hes focused on just the relaxation and his explosive power but thats to the detriment of improving his inch power or wrist force which is fairly important in my VT.

So with that example in mind, which applies to other actions i saw in the clip to.... relaxing is fine but one needs to know how much relaxation to have and how that affects other atributes of your training...ESPECIALLY IN THE FORMS.

He may not be concerned with isolating the wrist which is his perogitive but looking at clips of others and trying to make it work for you can be a hit and miss affair IMO. More than likely you may have differnt priorities.

For me, im about body mechanics and trainnig muscles and tendons to work together with my VT techs, so im relaxed in ways seperate to whats shown....i have my own version of balance between relaxation and body mechanics based on what im trying to accomplish physically.

IMHO one common example of using relaxation in the forms seen today is in CK.

Some schools in the second section turing with Lan sau then turning back to middle Bong etc. some pull lan Sau and then turn straight from the Lan into Bong.
Others lower the hands from Lan into a crossed wrist type position around the waist then turn the horse and into the middle Bong.

When i noticed the changes or difference to how i was taught years ago i asked my teacher and he had told me his teacher Lok Yiu had made that change in the form (for our lineage anyway) for two reasons. One of which was relaxing the shoulders after than Lan Sau.. the other was to help emphasise the elbow force which is more apparent when turning into bong with the hands coming from a lowered waist position.

So depending on your purpose relaxing is fine just be aware of its downstream effect on your habbit actions and behaviour of body mechanics.

My view on SLT is far removed from a Chi Gong (sp?) exercise. and i can still be very soft if you touch hands with me.

DREW