# How Do You Add Softness to Your Form?



## chi-ca

I've been learning yang style for a few years now and am still struggling with softness. I know it's not mushy/floppy/limpness. I know it involves sinking after the expansion of each posture. But for as many times as my teacher has said, "shoulders, chest loose" as we move from the expansion of yang into the contraction of yin those words just aren't clicking with me. My form just doesn't have that beautiful "taffy-like" quality that you see with superior players. So my question is, how do you all bring that type of softness into your forms?


----------



## Xue Sheng

Relax, don't worry about it and practice there is no secret.

How long have you been doing Yang?

How many times a day do you practice your form?

What form(s) are we talking about?

EDIT

Also look here
The Ten Essentials of Taijiquan


----------



## chi-ca

Xue Shen-

I've been doing this for 4ish years. I started with the simplified-24 form and moved into the traditional & sword forms. I try to practice daily but that's not always possible.  

I'm sure there isn't a secret to softness but there are probably some techniques that I'm not applying/grasping.

-chi-ca


----------



## mograph

When I'm soft, I feel homogeneous, inflated and springy. At least I _think_ that's "soft".


----------



## tshadowchaser

forgeting about trying to be soft is a starting place.. Just do the moves  or let the moves come from you  not you do them.


----------



## Xue Sheng

chi-ca said:


> Xue Shen-
> 
> I've been doing this for 4ish years. I started with the simplified-24 form and moved into the traditional & sword forms. I try to practice daily but that's not always possible.
> 
> I'm sure there isn't a secret to softness but there are probably some techniques that I'm not applying/grasping.
> 
> -chi-ca


 
Train and don't worry about it, you can't force it, train and you will relax and then it will come. And since we are talking Yang style read Yang Chengfu's The Ten Essentials of Taijiquan that I previosly linked and practice with those in mind. Per my sifu and his sifu it is best to do the long form 3 times a day but if you can't... and most do not have that kind of time... it will still come, it will just take a bit longer.

And tshadowchaser gave some great advice 



tshadowchaser said:


> forgeting about trying to be soft is a starting place.. Just do the moves or let the moves come from you not you do them.


----------



## chi-ca

Xue Sheng said:


> Train and don't worry about it, you can't force it, train and you will relax and then it will come. And since we are talking Yang style read Yang Chengfu's The Ten Essentials of Taijiquan that I previosly linked and practice with those in mind. Per my sifu and his sifu it is best to do the long form 3 times a day but if you can't... and most do not have that kind of time... it will still come, it will just take a bit longer.
> 
> And tshadowchaser gave some great advice


 

Thanks to both of you. I'll review the Ten Essentials.

chi-ca


----------



## kaizasosei

qigong and relaxation!

conciousness of the whole body, each part and extremity as well as the balance of the whole. move those fingers and feel the wrists guiding...

the essence of taichi is not martial yet it is martial-so that, there must be some sense in the movements that can be learned through dance, communication or martial arts.

theres no way around streching. but in essence, it is not some unwanted inflexibility that must be removed, rather through practice and exercise, the body is also being built and strengthened in certain mysterious ways. 

ive heard the expression, -you must be as limp as a doll seeming to be moved by invisible strings attached to the natural structure of your body.

soft as cotton but hard as steel

j


----------



## East Winds

chi-ca,

Here is a short article which I think will help you solve your problem.

http://www.uswushuacademy.com/articles/3rings.htm

Very best wishes


----------



## tshadowchaser

nice informative article  
thanks for the link


----------



## chi-ca

East Winds said:


> chi-ca,
> 
> Here is a short article which I think will help you solve your problem.
> 
> http://www.uswushuacademy.com/articles/3rings.htm
> 
> Very best wishes


 
Terrific, thank you. I've read that article before but it's very helpful to review.  Now about the sinking part...just a reversal of the expansion of the 3 rings?


----------



## mograph

To add to or paraphrase the article contributed by East Winds:

There is also the difference between *making* your body parts do things and *letting* your body parts do things. 

Most of the time, we focus on our arms and legs, making them move, when we really should make our *waist* move and let our arms and legs follow.

When I say waist, ideally it should be the dantien, I suppose.

In my opinion.


----------



## Formosa Neijia

chi-ca said:


> I've been learning yang style for a few years now and am still struggling with softness. I know it's not mushy/floppy/limpness. I know it involves sinking after the expansion of each posture. But for as many times as my teacher has said, "shoulders, chest loose" as we move from the expansion of yang into the contraction of yin those words just aren't clicking with me. My form just doesn't have that beautiful "taffy-like" quality that you see with superior players. So my question is, how do you all bring that type of softness into your forms?



There are different approaches to doing this. Some may go against the grain of what you're learning. For example, one of the best ways is go just as soft as you can. Just practice standing and then be totally floppy. Be completely relaxed (as much as you can) and then find points that aren't relaxed. Then relax them. Let everything drain downwards.

Sometimes this going to the far extreme is necessary in order to find your relaxation. Some taiji teachers frown on this because it doesn't contain peng or structure. But trying to maintain that while relaxing is too much for some people. You may need to isolate one thing and one thing only until you get it. Doing relaxation and peng at the same time may not work for you at first.

Good luck.


----------



## kaizasosei

mograph said:  





> Most of the time, we focus on our arms and legs, making them move, when we really should make our *waist* move and let our arms and legs follow.
> 
> When I say waist, ideally it should be the dantien, I suppose.


 
this is the exact conclusion that i came to after reading the article and thinking about it more...


----------



## Qi_man

Chi Ca,

I have struggled with this concept too. 

In my humble opinion what I have come to understand is that softness is a combination of coordination and control. Control is supported by your strength and flexibility. When you have developed the proper strength and flexibility you can control your movement. When you can control and coordinate (i.e. harmonze the three rings) your movement should seem soft. 

My experience is that it is not "floppy", but rather the ability to hold the structure (through strength and flexibility) while moving with continuity to make it appear easy(soft). 


I hope this may help you.


----------



## chi-ca

Qi_man said:


> Chi Ca,
> 
> I have struggled with this concept too.
> 
> In my humble opinion what I have come to understand is that softness is a combination of coordination and control. Control is supported by your strength and flexibility. When you have developed the proper strength and flexibility you can control your movement. When you can control and coordinate (i.e. harmonze the three rings) your movement should seem soft.
> 
> My experience is that it is not "floppy", but rather the ability to hold the structure (through strength and flexibility) while moving with continuity to make it appear easy(soft).
> 
> 
> I hope this may help you.


 

Thanks everyone. I'm glad to hear that someone else is struggling with this element. After reading all of your thoughts, I think my issue lies in the first ring. I need to practice moving the waist FIRST. What is it they say about Carnegie Hall....

chi-ca


----------



## pete

Here is an article written by my teacher a few years ago that found its way to Tai Chi magazine... hope it helps~

http://silvertigertaichi.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=59


----------



## ggg214

what is the softness?
before we discuss how to do it, first we should make a defination of softness.
do you have any idea?


----------



## chi-ca

ggg214 said:


> what is the softness?
> before we discuss how to do it, first we should make a defination of softness.
> do you have any idea?


 
Great question! It'll be interesting to see if we are all thinking about softness in the same way.  

I have thought of softness as a quality that goes beyond slow and relaxed; it is that point where the physical body and the form look elastic. The form is controlled and expansive but just as the body reaches the limits of expansion it contracts in such a graceful way that the player almost seems to be moving under water.  I'll try to find something on YouTube to illustrate my thoughts.  

How does everyone else define "softness"?


----------



## East Winds

Here is a beautiful example of "softness" within Chen style Taiji performed by Kelly McLean. I first became aware of Kelly when I saw her performing 48 step in a Liang Shou-Yu video some years ago.






Very best wishes


----------



## chi-ca

East Winds said:


> Here is a beautiful example of "softness" within Chen style Taiji performed by Kelly McLean. I first became aware of Kelly when I saw her performing 48 step in a Liang Shou-Yu video some years ago.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Very best wishes


 

Thanks you did my homework for me.  

Watching Kelly I was also thinking about Qi_Man's comment about strength, flexibility & control.  Achieving control goes back to the Three Rings and the 10 Essences...and of course practice, practice, practice.


----------



## chi-ca

pete said:


> Here is an article written by my teacher a few years ago that found its way to Tai Chi magazine... hope it helps~
> 
> http://silvertigertaichi.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=59


 

Thanks, Pete. It's an interesting article, very visual, and works well with a lot of the other information in this thread


----------



## ggg214

softness, in my understanding, is cotton with a needle hidden in it (&#26825;&#37324;&#38024.
it means when you touch it, you feel it soft, but when you hit it, you feel it hard.
it also comply with the concept of Yin and yang, no single yin, neither single yang.
there is always yin in heart of yang, and yang in heart of yin.
taiji is soft in body, but hard in its structure!


----------



## East Winds

chi-ca,
"
_*Watching Kelly I was also thinking about Qi_Man's comment about strength, flexibility & control. Achieving control goes back to the Three Rings and the 10 Essences...and of course practice, practice, practice".*_

Yep, you got it!!
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 Now you are thinking the right way.

Very best wishes


----------



## kaizasosei

softness for fighting, i define as the ability to remain relaxed and actively use relaxation to counter conventional force. flawless external technique can even be softness at some level.

softness in essence i define as the ability to sense and manipulate the inner pathways of energy within the body so as to attain physical and mental power.

so then what would hardness be?? mmnnn

hardness i define as the outer and inner position of the body that one cannot hide. in essence hardness is not moving-does not need to move.
hardness is not only expressed in violent action, hardness is the impact itself. 
as many external ma will say, there is no soft power or reason for practicing or focusing on the soft arts because it is a waste of time, in the same way, one could say that hardness does not exist because there is hardness without softness(or relatively little) but there cannot be softness without hardness.

do not pull up the knee at the same time as the rest, but rather play with it. the movements should come out of nowhere and be able to change in any direction like the wind. cohesive and yet completely fragmented- on average, how many parts of body moving can a human brain manage at the same time??? i dunno, but i think that's a big part of the exercises that move slower than time seems to
whilts the movements are free and independant of positive and negative, at the core, the movements translate to truths or physical and mental .
states of being


----------



## charyuop

Softness is practice...nothing that you will ever be able to find in written words or nice videos (BTW, East Wings, I really loved that video...it mesmerized me! Long time that a Taiji video didn't have this effect on me).

Practice your form an reach softness there and then practice with a partner and lose all the softness...no surprises there, we all do. Constantly I got stop during a technique (after over 3 years training) and get a nice hard patting on my shoulders along with the phrase "go ahead, you can get them tighter, try, try harder".
You said there is a secret? Well, there is actually and it is called trust! The day you will be confident in your techniques and so you will trust them and yourself, you will be able to actually face an opponent without facing him. What I mean is that you will be no longer applying a technique using certain steps, certain movement of the arms, relaxing these parts of the body, bending the knees and other...doing all this so that the technique works. When you will be beyond all this process (that you might not be aware of it, but it is in your head), you will start simply moving in a way that has become natural to you, so you will trust your movements to be effective (and so your techniques).

I will give you an example. If you stand with your back against the wall and I tell you to walk to the opposite wall avoiding the things lying on the floor you will do it easily. No tension will be there because you are not focusing on anything, just doing what you have been doing for years.
Now I turn off the light and change position to the obstacles. Your walking will be different, alot of tension will be present and yes, maybe even easier to lose balance. Why? Coz now you no longer trust you walk, you started focusing on your movements and the floor.
The same thing is with Taiji. You don't do what is natural (and maybe it is not yet that natural to you), but you trying to do. You focus on certain things coz you are not trusting them to come out correctly or not to be effective...you are just not aware of the fact that this wanting it to work, actually won't make it work.


----------



## Ninebird8

I feel your tenseness...LOL! In all seriousness, I did not start Yang tai chi long form, gim sword, saber, two person set, etc. until almost 12 years ago after already 20 years of kung fu training. It was very difficult for me, at first, to go slow much less learn how to be soft and flowing. Over the years, I have found really concentrating on each move, then the next, while relaxing and rooting, then incorporating the connectivity with the breathing (qigong, embryotic/reverse breathing, etc.)are essential in learning the softness. There is another great treatise written by Yang Chen Fu where he describes the tai chi movements in poetry called Yang Style Transmissions. I have the book and it is incredible. I also found, to probably no one else's surprise here, that after about 5-7 years of tai chi practice, it naturally started invading my long time kung fu practice and through it I learned to incorporate both softness and fa jing into my kung fu until now both are the same. Softness is NOT limpiness, as each move should fill the peng. Speaking of that, if you slowly practice the peng liu chi on movements many times, you will also understand the softness intended. Softness is no more than two things to me: incorporation and completeness of the yin/yang with the yin now in balance with the yang, and filling each movement with peng. One other thing that will help you.....begin now with your sifu, if you have not already, doing push hands and investing in loss!!! This is the greatest immediate feedback to understanding whether you have achieved softness in your tai chi!!! In my opinion!! And, if you do kung fu as well, you will see great results once the softness grows.  Just my humble advice to a fellow traveler!!


----------



## Ninebird8

Chary brings up a great point: stop worrying about the technique of the movement and understand the naturalness of it!! That is a great step toward softness!!


----------



## kaizasosei

great comparison with the walk in the dark... i really like that.  i will have to remember that one.

rereading my own writings, i found what i wrote to be somewhat contradicting...but somehow still ok...-whatever, i think i should be silent and continue stretching in a corner somewhere..

j


----------



## East Winds

Ninebird8,

That's a pretty good summing up. As you rightly say, softness has nothing whatever to do with limpness. The main energy of Yang Taiji is Peng. If you have Peng in your form, you cannot be limp. Floppy limpness is New Age crap with no understanding of Taiji's energies. However, learning the energies of Taiji is no easy matter and the greatest difficulty is distinguishing between stiffness and true Peng energy.

Very best wishes


----------



## kaizasosei

yeah, i was thinking pretty much similar stuff.  i mean, the main functions that going slow has are to capture the conciousness of the observer as well as maybe try to push oneself to the limits of ones own conciousness. (sure it looks cool)
but other than than, it doesnt really matter the speed i think...
i personally need lots of stiff jerking movements to retain my forms

j


----------



## Ninebird8

One other hint: remember that the movements start at the feet, move through the legs to the waist, from the waist to the shoulders, and expressed out through the hands. In other words, two points: in tai ji, the root is always commencing from the ground up, not from the shoulders down, and secondly, something my tai chi master taught me: the hands are the result of everything, the cause of nothing!! Also, let me draw another analogy: in kung fu, like tai chi, a distinction is made between power and strength, relaxed jing and tense power. Power does not emanate from big muscles or a tense face, but rather a flow of energy through the entire body to the point of exit penetrating into an opponent. Softness is not anything magical, and I am postulating that the Chinese word for this term does not exactly equate to the word softness (to our Chinese speaking brethern, is this true?). The word Yin is opposite of the word Yang, but completes the circle. That leads me to my last point: relaxation is on both sides of the circle, but the term softness should be taken into the context of completeness of the total yin/yang structure, not unto itself. Softness completes the movement within the tai ji form, but also helps connect to the next movement. Again, doing stationary or moving push hands will point this out more than anything, and without softness fa jing, silk reeling, peng, or appropriate stepping and feigning cannot occur, and sensitivity will never happen!


----------

