Song Kua

Loosening the Hips - Song Kua – and Leg Stength

 by Nick Gudge 2007 - updated December 2013

This article is about beginning the process of loosening the hips.

The saying “song kua” is central to taijiquan instruction. Usually translated as ‘relax or loosen the hips,’ the simplicity of this statement does not do justice to the implications of it. Relaxing or loosening the hips is gruelling work. The phrase “eat bitter” does not even start to describe the work required to maintain “song kua” and move smoothly. Each step in the loosening process will provide a significant increase in the load of the weighted leg. It is unequivocal when it happens. There is no mistaking it. A few seconds at first seems like an eternity even for someone with strong legs. Loosening the hips gets to parts of the leg which are difficult to train. (I speculate in part these difficult to reach parts as the fascia tissues which knit into the various thigh muscles.) This is why someone with very strong legs can be in difficulty even with just a few minutes of correct practice.

The hip joint has a large range of muscles passing across it. For ease of understanding they can be separated into 5 areas, namely the top of the hip, the front of the hip, the back of the hip, the underneath of the hip and the outside of the hip. (I am not sure whether these distinctions help generally but they were of assistance to me. I started to learn how to loosen them in the order listed above.) Each area is not distinct. Nevertheless, the approximate areas can be easily determined when corrected by someone with sufficient understanding. Regular correction from someone with the appropriate degree of understanding, teaching skill and willingness will bring familiarity with the need to pay attention to these areas.

I recommend training specifically in a way that makes the legs work exceptionally hard without disavowing the other taijiquan principles. This is what Wang Hai Jun taught me. After first training with Wang Hai Jun and having difficulty walking the next day, I asked him the next time I saw him how long it would take for my legs to stop hurting.  He thought for a moment and replied ‘about three years’(!!!) He said the method was ‘to go to bed with tired legs and wake up with tired legs.’ He also that if someone ‘did not train correctly then their legs would not hurt.’

Training while practicing loosening the hips will make the thighs work. Training this every day over a few months brings about considerably increased leg strength and allows increased mobility in the waist and hips. I think almost everyone (99.999%) training taijiquan underestimate the work that needs to be done by the legs. Without loosening the hips this work simply will not get done and the legs will not have the correct strength.

The leg strength learned from taijiquan is not the leg strength learned from cycling, running, dancing, weight-lifting or even swimming. I know this from my own training of a national level swimmer, national level gymnast, some good cyclists with thighs like tree trunks, several professional dancers, an international power lifter and several marathon runners. They came to training with very strong legs but their legs (initially) could not do the work for more than a few minutes once they had relaxed their hips. I would add that this was a surprise to all of them.

An exercise to aid understanding Loosening the Hips

It is very difficult to know how to relax the hips without being told. Simply watching this does not help much as most of the relaxing cannot be seen except by an experienced eye. It needs hands on correction from someone with experience of what to do and how to do it. You can try the following exercise by yourself but it is difficult. I have provided a generic description with the same specific example in brackets. Simply to attempt this exercise correctly requires a certain degree of proprioception or an ability to listen and comprehend what is happening inside the body. Most people do not have this. It can be trained over time.

(It is easier to have someone read this to you as you try it so you do not get distracted by reading it. Read and understand the instructions as you try it. Having a friend lightly touch that part of your body you are trying to relax can help you bring your mind to that point.)

Take a wide, feet-parallel stance (say two shoulder widths apart) and then turn out one set of toes to the corner so there is around 45^o between the feet.(e.g. right toes facing the right corner and left toes facing straight ahead.) Stay facing forward. Put most of your weight (70+%) on one leg (e.g. right leg.) Do not bend the knees too much, the shin of the weighted leg (e.g. the right leg) should be almost vertical and the knee over the middle of the foot.

Now, try to relax your unweighted (e.g. left) hip. Both knees should be loose (not straight.) Do not bend your supporting  knee more, simply relax your left hip as follows. First loosen the top of the hip for a few moments – let it relax and sink without bending you knee. Then loosen the front of the hip: it relaxes back, in and down. Then loosen the back of the hip, letting the buttock and related musculature loosen and unclench – the buttocks will feel like they spread apart. Next loosen the underneath of the hip, letting it sink down and open. Finally the outside of the hip generally can be relaxed. This brief exercise should be rewarded by a small but significant increase in work load on the weighted (e.g. right) leg.

Now try to relax the weighted hip (e.g. the right hip.) First loosen the top of the hip for a few moments – let it relax and sink without bending you knee. Then loosen the front of the hip: it relaxes back, in and down. Then loosen the back of the hip, letting the buttock and related musculature loosen and unclench – the buttocks will feel like they spread apart. Next loosen the underneath of the hip, letting it sink down and open. Finally the outside of the hip generally can be relaxed.

The exercise in now complete. It should only have taken around a minute (or at most two) to complete. If you supporting leg is complaining loudly then congratulate yourself on gaining some understanding of the effect of loosening the hips on strengthening the legs. If working with loose hips for a few moments causes the legs to work this hard, how strong would they be if they were working that hard through every training session? How much harder would they work if you  were to perfect the practice of loosening them?

If your supporting leg is not complaining then unfortunately you have not manage to loosen your hips. (Do not fool yourself into thinking it is because your legs are already strong. That way leads to inefficiency of practice and stunting of understanding.) Most people (95%+) will make one or more simple mistakes which will not allow them to relax their hips. I have tested this. For the remaining few percent perhaps this exercise will act as an eye opener.

Generally it takes considerable time to build up leg strength. Once someone understands how to loosen their hips and practices it continually, then significant increases in leg strength with happen. Chen style writing recommend around half a year of training everyday for a couple of hours per day, (10 laojia yilu per day in Chen style training – around 2,000 laojia yilu worth of training,) without a single break.

(I speculate that it may be possible to learn to loosen all four hip components (top, front, back and underside) together although I shudder to think of the strength gain implications (read 'pain') in the load this might put on the leg. With someone of Wang Hai Jun's ability to continually put someone in the correct position, that person being smart enough to understand what is being taught and willing to endure the training, then I imagine it might be achieved in only a few years.) When there is this minimum of leg strength conditioned into the body while stationary and in motion, then someone may be capable of considering what can be achieved when the hips are relaxed. Before this, considering the hip rotation as a method of power transmission and generation is a waste of time.

 

Nick Gudge is a student of Wang Hai Jun and teaches Chen style taijiquan (tai chi) classes in Limerick.