About Ting Song
Ting Song is a play on words of "Sing Song", but these relatively simple Chinese terms hold deeper meaning.
Why Ting Song?
Ting
Ting means listening, or to listen. In the context of my work it's a way of paying attention to our breath and our body, specifically for our singing and speaking voices.
Song
Song means to loosen and release. It can be described as a method to transform one form of energy into another, i.e. releasing to a point where resistance and tension work with you, not against you.
The attention we develop with Ting informs and directs Song. With Ting Song we learn how to listen or pay attention to the body and the breath. By practising this awareness we learn to notice what moves us - and, in turn, how and what we move!
As a result of effect-driven singing or speaking we lose some of the body's inbuilt ability to be as efficient and expressive as it could be. Rather than listening to the outcome, with Ting Song we learn to listen to the cause and inform the production.
We learn to step back from effect or result-driven intention to change our default head-led responses. Then we can begin to perceive a point of reference, e.g. centre or being centred. Our bodies know how to breathe!