Zhan zhuang and relaxation

[Manaus]

Following to the letter Lam Kam Chuen's instructions, that it to relax the body, each and every part of it, I feel it as flabby and tender. The second part is quite a pleasure, to be noted. But I do not think the posture is so lax. The hands are there, maybe the thumbs fall.

 

Anyone lived the same impressions?

 

Thanks

[thelerner]

From my Ki- Aikido days we learned relaxation was kinda like a streaming fire hose.   No muscular tension but a dancers extension.  The feeling can be likened to right after you've thrown a ball and you keep your arm out and feel the ball moving away as if through the fingers.  Extend intent/ki/chi.  

 

So in many of the holding ball stances, the relaxed extension flows through the arm, through each finger and thumb. A gentle living extension.

 

In Aikido when we do forward rolls starting over the curved arm.  If your using strength the arm may collapse under your falling weight, or using relaxed extension the arm keeps the circular shape perfectly and you roll nicely. 

[idquest]

First, relaxation doesn't mean being collapsed. When you say you become flabby, this could be due to your body structure getting collapsed.

Second - and this is my interpretation that could be incorrect - when Chinese say "relaxed" they in fact mean "Song". Being Song is quite different from being relaxed. You could do some research on this.

[gendao]

What many practitioners don't realize is that a lot of tension is chronic and subconscious (think Reichian armor or Rolfing's emotional muscular tension) - and therefore cannot simply be released consciously (in beta state) mentally in real-time. In fact, most people aren't even consciously aware of it to begin with! "Hey, I'm relaxed man...even though I can't come even close to touching my toes or a backbend!"

But, I believe that is precisely a lot of the underlying excess tension that needs to be released for fluid flowing...

Relaxing conscious tension is relatively easy. Relaxing subconscious tension takes a lot more clever work...but is arguably even more important.

Edited August 25, 2015 by gendao

[GreytoWhite]

Aye, it's one of the reasons we all need a good teacher. A good teacher should be able to point out where we hold chronic tension and what is hindering us from doing these arts properly. Training solo makes for a much slower time of working through this.