Tap Sao — Movement Communication

Tap Sao is a paired exer­cise in com­mu­ni­ca­tion through touch, sen­sa­tion, and move­ment. It is a “con­ver­sa­tion” with­out words. It devel­ops lis­ten­ing and inter­pret­ing inten­tions (t’ing, jin) of move­ment and its changes on a very sub­tle level.

By the very nature of this Taoist exer­cise, there are no win­ners or losers.

Tap Sao is part of one of the two styles we prac­tice in our school — the Tai Ki Kung style (by Dr. Ming Wong Y. C.).

Basic Tech­ni­cal Variant:

• Stand with feet placed par­al­lel. The dis­tance between the feet is slight­ly larg­er than the length of one foot. Weight is even­ly dis­trib­uted on both feet.
• Part­ners stand fac­ing each other.
• They touch each oth­er with one hand. One part­ner uses the right hand, the oth­er the left. This is lat­er switched.
• The touch­ing hands cre­ate a cir­cle with a ver­ti­cal axis, con­nect­ing both part­ners. This is in the plane between both partners.
• In the touch, posi­tions alter­nate between the part­ners touch­ing palms (hands at the top of the cir­cle — the high­est point) and the backs of their hands (hands at the bot­tom of the cir­cle — the low­est point). The points of con­tact change flu­id­ly between these extreme points.
• The hand that is not touch­ing the part­ner is on the hip.
• The move­ments of turn­ing the hands involve the entire body (waist, spine, etc.).
• Dur­ing the exer­cise, con­tact should not be lost. There is no des­ig­nat­ed leader of the move­ment, and each part­ner can change the direc­tion of turn­ing at any time. The oth­er part­ner responds by fol­low­ing the same direction.
• It is impor­tant that part­ners do not speak words dur­ing the exer­cise and that all com­mu­ni­ca­tion is trans­ferred to the realm of touch and sensation.

Some Tasks to Work on in Tap Sao:

• Cre­ate a nice, smooth circle.
• Reduce the pres­sure of mutu­al touch to a min­i­mum, explor­ing how much “force” is min­i­mal­ly need­ed to main­tain contact.
• One or both part­ners close their eyes.
• Sens­ing bal­ance (har­mo­ny) and its lack in one­self and the partner.