Methods for Understanding the Relaxed Shoulder or Song Jian 鬆肩

One of the common problems to development of connection with relaxed shoulders (song jian, 鬆肩) is having good methods to understanding the feel of this while moving. In many of the internal art understanding the relaxed or “song” shoulder is a very prevalent issue with many practitioners and the same is true in the practice of Wujifa.

Of course there are many tricks to relaxing the shoulders. Relaxing or dropping the elbows is very commonly talked about. Also, warm ups like turning or rotating the head, crossing one arm across the chest and stretching it with the other hand, tightening the shoulders pulling them up toward the ears, holding for them there for a count of 5 or 10 and then letting them drop and other such methods are seemingly customary. Personally I believe those maybe good for a beginner to get some hint of how tight their shoulders are, although may not be all that helpful at understanding how a relaxed shoulder feels and moves.

In the following video are a couple of “methods” which aim to give some insights to the practitioner and enthusiasts of how the relaxed shoulder feels is real time while moving.



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In the first example the hand are place on the “swing” and use the arcing of the swing to create a couple dimensions of movement to be explored. The movement is slightly down and forward as the practitioner moves forward and the opposite shifting back. This can be changed by where in the arch of the swing one chooses to practice. The key to this first method is allowing the shoulder joint to simply be a pivot point. There is a tendency for people to want to do more than needed and by simply allowing and noticing, many insights can be discovered in real time in repeated practice. Remember Wujifa aims at finding experiential understanding in doing. Now remember the saying “the method is not the truth” and this is true here as well. The key is to notice how freely the pivot points in the shoulders feel and move.

The second exercise is much more difficult and it is include here as a variations in this example of real time feedback. Again having an experiential understanding in doing with a form of simple bio-feed such as this can be very helpful in a very real and practical way.

Those of you who have seen some of the methods shared here on this blog will notice that what may seem very simple on the surface can and may have a very deep impact on practice. One of the keys is the willingness to experience simple methods such as these in the repeated doing. As one gains deeper and direct kinesthetic understanding of a practice the more that can be discovered over time in the practices. Like the finger pointing at the moon the key is to understand what your purpose is for doing something and then being open to what the practice is allowing you to explore. One of course should, as we said many times before, will need the help of senior school brothers and instructors as for 3rd party verification of your understanding. Remember, at the same time you are doing the work and being open and responsible for your own growth is also a real key to making progress.