everything wrote:if you literally do and feel "sink the qi", you might feel more relaxation and heaviness or rootedness. If you try to actively do things with muscle, there isn't anything wrong with that, but it's kind of the opposite of the "song/relax" advice (unless "relax" is the thing you are doing, I suppose).
Hi everything,
The idea that everything must be "relaxed" is one that is very often misunderstood. Being "song" doesn't mean that the entire body is a limp noodle. To make make "peng" and actively move "qi," there must be some muscle and connective tissue tension. We play off the dynamic tensions of complementary-opposite (some would say "opposing") forces -- Yin and Yang, not in an esoteric way, but with very real, specific muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia.
At the outset, beginners start a baseline of learning how to create a clear pathway in their bodies (i.e. their aligned vertebrae and joints) through which force can travel... at first, passively, by "dropping" the mass down through the alignment. For that, yes, most of the body is relaxed except for what is absolutely needed to maintain structure. You don't want to collapse in a heap.
Later, after this pathway has been recognized and can be created at will, students learn exactly which muscles and connective tissues to contract in order to condense the center of mass, in effect actively drawing it rather than passively letting it "drop." Conversely, they also learn which muscles to contract to create the effect of expansion and propulsion, to return force from the ground to the extremities and/or point of contact with an opponent.
Using these specified muscles (which are not the ones conventionally used by most people to generate force) allows the person to relax the "conventional" muscles and muscle groups, particularly the upper back, shoulder and arm muscles that people are accustomed to flexing and tensing, but also outer-layer muscles of the torso and abdomen. If you were to grab their arms, shoulders, etc., everything would feel soft and relaxed. The tissues that are working hard, however, are elsewhere.