Kelley Graham wrote:Letting go, relaxing, fansong, hanging the spine, and other verbal concepts do not directly address the underlying issue. the underlying issue is our big brains and compensatory structural changes. this is a deep topic. what feels normal and relaxed for the beginner is the opposite of what internal training reveals over time. language, culture, power structures and social expectations reinforce these compensatory adaptations. a list of points or affirmations in practice do little to address issues of internal power in a full everyday life context. i teach according to this principle. "Big brains and socialization result in funny movement." Our identity is based on these postural expectations and adaptations and is very difficult to change. Again, a very deep topic.
Postural, structural and alignment habits are very difficult to change if a litany of directives (like the things you listed) are pushed to the forefront of the learner's mind - especially in the case of a beginner. It's a big mistake to put that in front of what a person is working with regards their current/immediate state of being at the outset of studying internal method(s). An even bigger mistake is to believe that a beginner doesn't have it within themselves to at least glimpse the integration of internal method in very short order - maybe, and sometimes, on their first day.
Without ever being told all that BS having to do with YCF's Ten Essentials or the Torso Methods etc, it's been my experience that an individual can physically understand the essence of internal method as far as their body is able, at any given time. Every body has to start somewhere and it's far better to start with no instruction and continue to study with no instruction for at least several months.
'Normal and relaxed' per se is replaced with free and easy, natural and spontaneous. Moving from the center can be experienced - and physically understood - on a person's first day without ever having been told that moving from the center is one of the things they're training toward. That experience of moving from the center serves as a reference point and proprioceptive 'memory' of what it feels like to move from the center. The same holds true regards dantien.
One approach to experiencing the development and a working knowledge of internal method is to have the learner explore the training material intuitively without instruction or jargon. Testing the development as much as working the material in solo is also essential - right from the first day - so that what has been self-imparted will stick as their current working knowledge of internal method. In that way, free and easy will always be normal and relaxed. Proper training and time spent takes care of everything else.