Song, what does it mean?

[willie]

In my opinion if the master does not have a very heavy feel to his applications then find a new master immediately.

My experience has been that Taijiquan is like a coin, with two sides. One side involves being hard, heavy, immovable. The other side involves being imperceptibly soft, light and "not there" when someone pushes or attacks. The most skilled of those that I've met are able to instantaneously switch between the two at will.

I'd suggest that if you have a teacher who can only be hard, heavy and immovable, to learn what you can from that teacher and then move on to someone who can teach the other side of the coin. Depending, of course, upon what kinds of skill you are interested in developing.

hi Charles. That's a fair assumption on your part from what I wrote, but no my teacher can switch from light to heavy or from agile to unmovable.
Years ago, I used to speak of using what I was taught originally, it's more like ghost hands. I believe that It's sort of what Windwalker is describing.
What I have found after meeting my primary teacher that it is easy to acquire a very light touch and it is very difficult to acquire the heavy hands that are necessary to have high-level taijiquan. What actually occurs when ghost hands meet these heavy hands of fang song is that the heavy hands will cut right through the ghost hands and Destroy them like nothing.

[windwalker]

remove the intent of maintaining a shape while still presenting a shape.

That's an interesting statement. If one reaches for a glass of water, for example, one doesn't focus their attention on the arm/hand reaching for the glass of water. Instead, one focuses their intention on the end result, grasping the glass of water. In Taijiquan, one shouldn't focus their attention on the shape of a posture (or application), but instead focus on the intended result - hitting, displacing, etc. Similarly, one is told not to focus on qi, itself, but, rather, use intent to lead it/have it arrive where intended. How about this, if one is focused on "maintaining a shape" its double weighted, mind and body on the same point. The opposite is double light, body empty, unsupported by mind. Taiji is formed from the interaction of what is there with what is not.
When you pluck a string, one should not be focused on the string but the sound made by plucking the string. The string has to be set up right to be able to produce the type and quality of sound one expects to hear. ie intended result

I was recently doing some push hands with a fellow student who had not yet conceived of the above point. He was largely trying to make choreography (form shapes) work in application with limited success. While working with him, I demonstrated for him how one can use intent to direct force/"qi" to displace a partner without having any real regard for the opponent. It's almost as if the partner just happens to be in a location that is peripheral to one's movement and the opponent gets displaced by the action. The focus/intent is not on the opponent and not on the physical shape of the action. It's difficult to put in writing, but easy to demonstrate and easy to teach.
https://spark.adobe.com/page/WbRbg/

The image shows a shape used to focus a force that comes from it, but is not because of it. If the hand is to loose ie with out mind it wont work, if the mind is focused on the hand itself it wont work. In one case one might say not enough "pung" jin is being expressed, in the other one might say its not "fan song" enough we can call this "treading the knifes edge" to much, not enough.

To be a little more precise one could refer to it as a mode shape...

I understand your viewpoint of density, medium and mode/vibration, but find it too abstract.

Abstract ha,,,It is interesting.

[suckinlhbf]

it is easy to acquire a very light touch and it is very difficult to acquire the heavy hands

remove the intent of maintaining a shape while still presenting a shape

"Removing the intent of maintaining a shape" comes after fang song enought to clear all/most of the blockages of the body, then can move without intent and still presenting a shape. Then it comes the lightness after the heavy hands as can't feel the hands.

[willie]

it is easy to acquire a very light touch and it is very difficult to acquire the heavy hands

remove the intent of maintaining a shape while still presenting a shape

"Removing the intent of maintaining a shape" comes after fang song enought to clear all/most of the blockages of the body, then can move without intent and still presenting a shape. Then it comes the lightness after the heavy hands as can't feel the hands.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say.
Tai Chi is a machine and you don't engineer a machine on riddles. So all those cute little phrases that people seem to cling on to have absolutely no tangible meaning when compared to the designs that were drawn by the engineers who created it. The only real mysterious parts of Tai Chi that I have found so far is qi, Shen and maybe even some sort of spiritual mediumship as in ji tong. And the spiritual part obviously cannot be proved so anyone's guess is pretty much as good as mine.

[grzegorz]

To me song is basically the opposite of stiff. If you ever do any manual labor you will notice that those with experience don't tense up while someone new seems to be fighting their body to get things done.

To me a good monitor is the breathe.

[suckinlhbf]

@ Willie

Cars are machine driven by human, and human is complex. Different feelings come from driving front wheel, rear wheel, all wheel, sedan, and muscle cars. The same car behaves not in the same manner with different human in it. No matter who and how the car is driven, it goes from one destination to another.

Ghost hand is a start (my perception may not be the same as yours). Trying to do it would change the habit to move. The muscles may be engaged less (fang song), and other body parts would get involve. Then it comes the coalaberation of muscles, tendons, ligiments, fascia, membrances into the move. In the process, everything like relax, tightening, pushing, pulling, twisting, shut-down might be used. It comes to a point that the movements are so even that the body does not feel any points with stress then it comes the feeling of lightness. The body keeps on fa song, and the opponent may feel the hand is getting heavier and heavier. The body would reject the lightness feeling as it likes to cling on something. It feels so good with a powerful contraction to makes it feels that its power is enormous. So it is a big block to overcome to switch from "light to heavy". The "light to heavy" is not how the body feels but it is how the opponents feel. So somebody said heavy is the last thing to allure to. To me, Qi and Shen and something something.... are mysterious descriptive words. It lead to illusion and self-enjoyment. Most of the time, it does have self-enjoyment in the training. Illusion is the thing to avoid.

[willie]

@ Willie


Ghost hand is a start (my perception may not be the same as yours). Trying to do it would change the habit to move. The muscles may be engaged less (fang song), and other body parts would get involve. Then it comes the coalaberation of muscles, tendons, ligiments, fascia, membrances into the move. In the process, everything like relax, tightening, pushing, pulling, twisting, shut-down might be used. It comes to a point that the movements are so even that the body does not feel any points with stress then it comes the feeling of lightness. The body keeps on fa song, and the opponent may feel the hand is getting heavier and heavier. The body would reject the lightness feeling as it likes to cling on something. It feels so good with a powerful contraction to makes it feels that its power is enormous. So it is a big block to overcome to switch from "light to heavy". The "light to heavy" is not how the body feels but it is how the opponents feel. So somebody said heavy is the last thing to allure to. To me, Qi and Shen and something something.... are mysterious descriptive words. It lead to illusion and self-enjoyment. Most of the time, it does have self-enjoyment in the training. Illusion is the thing to avoid.

That post was pretty good. I have to say that I mostly agree. Ghost hands as it was taught to me was supposed to be the higher level. What I have found from my most recent teacher is that light hands are not the higher level , it's the heavy hands that are. It is like you said ghost hands is not connected to the fascia as good as being Fang song . The reason why is basically the effect that heavy hands have on the opponent. Imagine throwing a wet towel over a clothesline and then do the same thing with a dry towel. You will see that the effect all of the wet heavy towel is much more powerful than the lighter dry towel. If someone hopes to reach the highest levels of Tai Chi which is the applications from the form then the hands must be heavy to get the proper effect, if not the applications will be worthless.
On a side note, the happiness and illusion of qi, shen, and perhaps the spiritual part is probably the most important thing. Happiness is important don't you think? Projecting happiness onto others is also important. Do you see how things work?

[grzegorz]

Relaxing under pressure, for me, is one of the goals of push hands but unfortunately due to the competitive nature of it as well as push hands competitions this has been lost in most push hands I see.

Most push hands I have observed is basically a waste of time.

[charles]

Imagine throwing a wet towel over a clothesline and then do the same thing with a dry towel. You will see that the effect all of the wet heavy towel is much more powerful than the lighter dry towel.

Try throwing a towel, wet or dry, over a clothesline only to find that the clothesline will bare no weight and the towel, wet or dry, has nothing on which to land or exert against.

Skills are relative. If you have one person being heavy against another who is being "light", if the heavy person is better, he'll find purchase on the lighter one. If the lighter person is better, the heavy person won't find purchase and will be ineffective. It depends who has the better skills. Sort of the immovable meeting the unstoppable, dilemma, with one being more so than the other.

[willie]

Imagine throwing a wet towel over a clothesline and then do the same thing with a dry towel. You will see that the effect all of the wet heavy towel is much more powerful than the lighter dry towel.

Try throwing a towel, wet or dry, over a clothesline only to find that the clothesline will bare no weight and the towel, wet or dry, has nothing on which to land or exert against.

Skills are relative. If you have one person being heavy against another who is being "light", if the heavy person is better, he'll find purchase on the lighter one. If the lighter person is better, the heavy person won't find purchase and will be ineffective. It depends who has the better skills. Sort of the immovable meeting the unstoppable, dilemma, with one being more so than the other.

Yes this is definitely a consideration. Like I said though, acquiring the very light hands is very easy and acquiring the high level heavy hands is very difficult. I could go 2 push hand meetups and find one after another after another after another student or teacher and all of them have no more than the other as far as Fang song. When you find Fang song which is that very heavy-handed applications you will know it.

[windwalker]

The interesting point is why, what makes the hands heavy or light is this actually what's happening.

If one cannot feel the ground through the other they can't do it. If one can feel the intent of an action before the action is started it can't be completed. This is called starting late arriving first.

No hard broken or tight spots we want the sensing medium to be the same so that when one part moves all parts move.

There are levels of interaction without being fan song, one might not be able to engage or interact with the medium they think they are. It's called acquiring the correct touch.

[suckinlhbf]

what makes the hands heavy or light is this actually what's happening

Dump the physical once get it. Move to Intent vs intent. Dump the body before getting to its fullness leads to illusion. But....feel happy until one day meet somebody doing fist not exercise.

[windwalker]

what makes the hands heavy or light is this actually what's happening

Dump the physical once get it. Move to Intent vs intent. Dump the body before getting to its fullness leads to illusion. But....feel happy until one day meet somebody doing fist not exercise.

A rhetorical question.. agree with the answer.

I am interested in peoples understanding of Song, what does it mean? My current understanding is that it has to do with having space within oneself, or to reside within ones own space. Meaning, that one has the space to change internally regardless of external restrictions. It remains very mysterious to me. If we say Song means to relax or release, How does relaxation effect application?

It might help to look at a model


https://spark.adobe.com/page/WbRbg/

1. A force is applied on the sphere/ball.
The cross or x the point of application.

2. the force produced goes straight towards the back.

3. the "dead point" or what could be thought of as a node, comes alive ie it becomes moveable. It is moved in accordance with the incoming forces to neutralize and become "alive" ie an antinode that reflects the force back.

At no point is the structure used directly except to form a shape. The shape itself composed of emptiness and soldiness is used to detect and direct forces applied. yin/yang present both solid and empty at the same time producing a force that the mind/body reacts to.

If one can not detect what are called dead "immovable" or alive "moveable" points ie nodal points or understand a shape is composed of both solid and empty space, this type of force is not available to them.

Fansong is the first step of a process that allows one to be able to understand, identify, access, and use them.

[willie]

what makes the hands heavy or light is this actually what's happening

Dump the physical once get it. Move to Intent vs intent. Dump the body before getting to its fullness leads to illusion. But....feel happy until one day meet somebody doing fist not exercise.

I have to disagree. We are not some sort of Jedi who can project intent and destroy our enemies LOL!

[willie]

It might help to look at a model


https://spark.adobe.com/page/WbRbg/

1. A force is applied on the sphere/ball.
The cross or x the point of application.

2. the force produced goes straight towards the back.

3. the "dead point" or what could be thought of as a node, comes alive ie it becomes moveable. It is moved in accordance with the incoming forces to neutralize and become "alive" ie an antinode that reflects the force back.

At no point is the structure used directly except to form a shape. The shape itself composed of emptiness and soldiness is used to detect and direct forces applied. yin/yang present both solid and empty at the same time producing a force that the mind/body reacts to.

If one can not detect what are called dead "immovable" or alive "moveable" points ie nodal points or understand a shape is composed of both solid and empty space, this type of force is not available to them.

Fansong is the first step of a process that allows one to be able to understand, identify, access, and use them.

Holy crap ola! Can we stop with the riddles already? This has nothing to do with Fang song. In fact the other guy grzegorz who said that tensing up on a construction site is the opposite of fang song is much closer than your example. And I will tell you why. If a man tenses up, then he cannot get out of his own way and he cannot effectively shift the load that is required at any given moment. so by relaxing and opening the joints, he finds a new level of freedom. this level of Freedom allows him to redirect the load as on a construction site.