A sub-topic came up in this thread viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7671 about experienced students having trouble with softness. There's a few specific ways that I find teaching softness or referring to it when training with a partner difficult. Particularly, it is hard to put feedback about it across to people who want to learn *some* tai chi without engaging in martial arts practice. My assumption here is that it's good for people to go to tai chi classes even if they're not pushing hands. I wonder if other people have similar experiences and some ways of approaching the problem.
In general, it's hard to get anyone to react to trouble with softness. That is the basic, surface level problem and I think it's probably why taijiquan systems look the way they do in the first place. But...
Specifically, I've come to find that people (beginners, me, non beginners) approach their practice already feeling like they're soft, like it's the default position to be in, and then fail to notice they're not unless constantly made aware of it verbally on top of whatever exercise they're doing. Sometimes people are limp instead, but I find most often they are tense and rigid. I encounter this *especially* with people who normally abstain from all martial-seeming exercises out of principle or just lack of interest. I can sympathize with that sentiment, but the result is that you have people in the class presumably feeling super peaceful about themselves, but actually being super tense, at least where it's possible to observe.
It makes me worry about the way people are doing things like the form, and whether they're getting anything of value out of their practice in terms of relaxation or softness. I have seen white knuckles once or twice, etc
So my question isn't about how to make people great, complete taijiquan practitioners, but how to make sure they're getting some of the fundamental benefit they're seeking out of the practice. I'd like people in that position not just to get better at balancing, but also to be able to relax.
Any thoughts?