The Song–Jin Dialectic 松紧

Not a state but an alternation

Song (松) means “loose”, Jin (紧) means “tense”. In Yiquan the two characters almost always appear together, because neither is meant without the other. The practice aims not at one of the two states but at the passage between them, 松紧转换 (the change of Song and Jin).

Yao Chengguang puts it in one sentence for partner contact: “If you are slack it does not work; if you are too tense you cannot change.” And he compares the trained body to a flag in the wind: motionless from afar, but inside in fast, constant alternation between releasing and tensing. Song/Jin is thus less a posture than a rate of change.

The basic contradiction of movement

Bo Jiacong, a student of Yao Zongxun, goes further: “Song and Jin are the basic contradiction of which human movement consists.” Strength, speed, agility, coordination and endurance could all be traced back to this alternation. The whole of training, in the end, is the question of mastering Song and Jin properly.

What matters is where the alternation begins. According to Bo Jiacong, first in the mind: the mind steers the nerve, the nerve the muscle. Hence the 意 in the name of Yiquan. A mnemonic verse sets the measure: “松紧紧松勿过正，虚实实虚得中平” — never overdo releasing and tensing, keep empty and full in balance. Or shorter: relaxed without going limp, tense without going rigid (松而不懈，紧而不僵).

Distributed against habit

In everyday life and in ordinary strength training the body usually works tight above and loose below: the shoulders pull up, the arms grip, the legs carry along passively. Yu Yong Nian describes the distribution in standing as exactly the reverse:

• released above, tense below;
• shoulder and arm released, the leg working;
• the chest released, the belly tense;
• the back released, the hip tense;
• the form released, the mind tense.

The last line is the most important. It also appears in tradition as a formula of its own: 身松意紧, the body loose, the intent awake. Song/Jin is therefore not only an alternation in time but also a distribution in space: what is tense in one zone of the body is released in another.

How it is practised

In standing. Yu Yong Nian builds up the alternation step by step: first tensing and releasing a single muscle group deliberately, the calf for instance; then both legs, alternately and together; then the arms; finally trunk, arms and legs at once, with opposed directions of force. This is his own teaching model of the “second kinetic” (→ Two Kinetics), physiologically a set of practice instructions, not a classification of muscles.

In feeling for force. In Mo Jin the alternation is built into the basic form. Andrzej Kalisz calls the phase of movement with the imagined resistance 紧, although one stays almost relaxed in it, and the stop 松: at the stop all forces vanish, then new ones appear.

In the connections. The inner connections pass through three stages: first feeling a connection, then letting it work while relaxed, finally pressing and pulling actively under tension, alternating with phases of relaxation. That is Song/Jin, practised on a single pair of body parts.

With the voice. In Shi Sheng the rule is 松多紧少: practise mostly soft, with only a few hard bursts, and release at once after each burst.

Where it leads

In Fa Li the alternation shows most clearly. Issuing force is a brief moment of Jin between two phases of Song: gathering, discharging, straight back into relaxation. Whoever stays tense after the burst is too slow for the next movement.

In Tuishou the alternation becomes perception. Only someone who can release feels the partner's force (Ting Jin); only someone who tenses again fast enough can set something against it. Taijiquan has the pair of supporting and yielding for this (→ Peng and Lü); in Yiquan it is called 松紧转换.

Dialectic without metaphysics

Song and Jin are the most tangible yin–yang pair in Yiquan: opposed, dependent on each other, constantly passing into each other. Relaxation already holds tension, tension already holds relaxation. Yiquan takes the structure from this and leaves out the cosmology (demystification). What remains is a description of what a muscle and a nervous system actually do.

Keeping the terms apart

• Fang Song is the ability to release without going limp. It is the precondition: whoever cannot release cannot alternate either.
• Relaxation (Song) is the general principle training starts with.
• Song/Jin is the deliberate alternation itself, in the stance, in movement and in contact.