Bruce Frantzis & Craig Barnes – Sung in Tai Chi 2023: Distinguishing Relaxing and Releasing Your Qi

Description Of Sung in Tai Chi

Distinguishing Relaxing And Releasing Your Qi:

Fan Sung (relaxation) And Sung (complete Release) In Tai Chi

What You Will Learn In Sung in Tai Chi 2023

“The most common word that people hear when learning Tai Chi, even if they have been doing it for years, is the mantra of relax, relax, relax. But in terms of what is in the founding documents of Tai Chi, relaxation does not mean what it commonly does in the West, which is about people’s emotional states. What is usually translated as relaxation in the Tai Chi Classics is the word “Sung,” which has many implications including release: release of all bound tension in the body.

This goes quite beyond ordinary relaxation. It is talking about the release of all tension right to your bones. This is a much deeper relaxation and releasing than most human beings are aware of and one which does not happen by accident.

Many of the techniques within Tai Chi are taught by demonstrating them on another human being and saying, “This is what it is.” Now although that may be what it is, this method doesn’t tell you how you can train to acquire it. Watching a film does not teach you how to make a film. The focus of this workshop will not be so much on how well Bruce can do Sung, it will be to teach you the process for which you can do it yourself and teach it to others, and that is the difference between teaching and demonstrating.

Classically, learning what is called Sung in Tai Chi is learned through a basic 4 part process, each one of which builds upon and is dependent upon the previous stages being stable. In all 4 stages, you must consciously put your mind inside your body until you can recognize what your mind is contacting, and by mental command alone, you can cause your body to obey.”

-Master Bruce Frantzis

Detailed Breakdown by Weekend and Progressive Stages:

The beginning of stage 1 is to relax your body: relaxing your most surface muscles. Most people’s muscles are relatively hard and tense both naturally and from lifestyle, especially in their arms. Because they’re tense, they can’t move freely. Their natural movement with power is restricted. Most Western sports training has a specific goal of being in the process of toning the muscles, making them tense.

This 1st stage is about relaxing those most outer muscles of your body: your abs, triceps, biceps, quadriceps, and all your other muscles so that if squeezed, they become soft and move like you’re squeezing a teddy bear. After this is achieved, this level of relaxation gives you access to what lies below your skin and those outer muscles: ligaments, fascia, tendons, and eventually blood vessels.

Weekend One

Stage 1

The beginning of stage 1 is to relax your body: relaxing your most surface muscles. Most people’s muscles are relatively hard and tense both naturally and from lifestyle, especially in their arms. Because they’re tense, they can’t move freely. Their natural movement with power is restricted. Most Western sports training has a specific goal of being in the process of toning the muscles, making them tense.

This 1st stage is about relaxing those most outer muscles of your body: your abs, triceps, biceps, quadriceps, and all your other muscles so that if squeezed, they become soft and move like you’re squeezing a teddy bear. After this is achieved, this level of relaxation gives you access to what lies below your skin and those outer muscles: ligaments, fascia, tendons, and eventually blood vessels.

Stage 2

This stage is about connecting your soft tissues to the insertion points inside your bones. After relaxing the surface muscles of the body in Stage 1, you find it becomes possible to feel what they’re connected to below your skin: ligaments, fascia, tendons, and eventually bones.

Before you can release what is below your skin and its contents, it requires that you are able to consciously put your mind inside any individual part of your body. As you begin to relax your ligaments, tendons, muscles, and fascia, beginning to stretch the body from the bone and your internal organs, your arm (as an example) will begin to lengthen from your body. Meaning, if you were only able to stretch your arms out to say 30 inches from your spine, you could find your arms now going as much as 33-35 inches after achieving Fan Sung, or relaxation, and overcoming the inherent initial contractions inside the body. Any contraction is the opposite of relaxation.

This next step is releasing these soft tissues until you feel how they connect to and fit into the bones deeper, larger parts of the body. At this point, with the bending and extending of your limbs, like stretching and releasing a rubber band, the soft tissues stretch with a springiness in them, which eventually gives you access to the qi inside your bones at a later stage. This is all part of the Neigong technique of lengthening. In and of itself, this will engender a strong sense of ordinary relaxation due to reducing the normal congestion within people’s muscles.

This is still relaxation, or Fan Sung. This is accomplished in stages until you can create this relaxed, springy soft tissue state throughout your entire body. In the process, the contractions which prevent your body’s soft tissues from reaching their complete, uncontracted (not relaxed) state loosen, relax, and are resolved.

Weekend Two: Getting the Stabilized Structures to Become Fluid

Stage 3

3rd Stage is again like stretching and releasing a rubber band, though at a deeper level throughout the body: having the soft tissues of tendons, ligaments, and fascia do this with all the bones, so they too become soft and springy and release the innate tension which makes the body not as stretched as it should be, much as yoga postures do.

This bending and stretching of the soft tissues inside your body piece by piece starts releasing everything inside your body, including your blood vessels, so that more blood can flow through them both toward and away from the heart. By the time this is completed, the inside of the body attains a felt sense of immense space and freedom. This is first done by focusing on specific areas of the body – not just the bones and spine, but also the internal organs and other major structures in the body – until you can do this opening and closing with the entire body.

Now, you’re going to try to get your mind inside your body and not just relax, but release any contraction inside the body: not just the spine, arms, etc. but everything. Even the blood vessels will relax and release, so they operate at a submaximal level: operating by having the blood vessels have their maximum range of motion either releasing within or expanding outward without maximal effort or strain.

This 3rd stage is usually done while doing standing postures or forms of Qigong or Tai Chi. You can’t relax water, but you can release it into steam. You have water in a pot. When boiled, it turns to steam, which then releases the steam from the water. This process is done systematically, first with parts, then eventually with the entirety of the body. Have your mind go through and contact everything inside your body, so you can release it like steam.

When you are able to truly start releasing what’s inside your body, that’s when a human will recognize a few things: first, the blood flowing through the body, feeling it as tangible substance. Next thing concurrently, a person will start to feel their Chi just Iike they feel their blood. To consciously move the chi is moving the blood and vice versa.

Stage 4

You are now going deep inside the body. Start opening up all the blood vessels in the body, through which your chi is going to flow so not only can you feel physical tissues and blood but the process of feeling your chi begins. At the same time, if you wish to go further, what you’re doing with your body allows you to go in and out of your heart-mind (Hsin) releasing whatever is blocked on mental and spiritual levels.

The final stage of Sung is not just specific parts of the body, but every part of the body and mind, everything without exception, again doing this through the mind. Contraction within the body or mind prevents the free flow of chi and vice versa. At this 4th Stage of Sung, the entirety of the body will be fully relaxed and released simultaneously.

At the 5th Stage, this total release will extend into the etheric body. If time and the capability of the people physically present in the room allows, Bruce will go into the 5th Stage.

Great for Beginners and Advanced Practitioners:

If you are new to Tai Chi, we will teach you an easy-to-learn simple form called Tai Chi Circling Hands which you will be able to use during the course. This will be taught in a preparation session with Senior Instructor Craig Barnes

For those who know Tai Chi, the emphasis of this course will be to apply the deeper form of relaxing, within the Tai Chi form.

About Bruce Frantzis And Craig Barnes

About Bruce Frantzis

Bruce Frantzis is the Founder of Energy Arts and has been called the foremost Western expert in Wu style tai chi and Yang style tai chi, holding direct lineages from China. He teaches six powerful qigong sets, as well as bagua zhang and hsing-i from the martial, health, and meditation perspectives. His passion is teaching the Daoist meditation tradition, a direct path to awakening your highest potential.

About Craig Barnes

Craig Barnes is a Senior Instructor in the Energy Arts system and has been practicing and teaching tai chi, qigong, meditation, and the internal arts for over 30 years. He has studied actively with Master Frantzis since 1987 and has taught his own courses all over the world. He is one of only a few instructors who have been authorized by Master Frantzis to certify instructors in his system. Craig is known for his gentle yet thorough approach, and his ability to present complex material in a direct way that makes it come to life and take root.

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