Right now I’m taking my lunch break at work and I thought I’d make a mention of what I was doing just a few minutes ago.
I believe, from all my inquiries into such things, that “song kua” and/or “loosening the hip-joints” is of prime importance for any real success that I’ll have pursuing taijiquan. Now my work involves a lot of standing at work tables and doing stuff; reaching for this and that, turning to and fro; picking things up from various heights and putting them elsewhere. Under time-pressure and some days feeling better than others, there’s a constant temptation to take short-cuts by using poor body mechanics. I fight back by always trying to use good body mechanics… which quite often overlap with taiji methods.
I’ll try to make this brief. Sometimes it’s helpful to use what I call “heavy feet”. If I’m standing in place and there’s little need to step here and there, I imagine my feet cemented to the floor; or in cement shoes anyway. I bend my knees just a little. I imagine my torso to be bouyant. The overall effect is I’m like a water plant rooted at the bottom of a lake. Then as I make all the various movements to perform my tasks, I’m very aware of my pelvis floating atop my legs; connected at the hip joints. It feels good and the best part is, I use kua movements as much as possible instead of bending at the waist, twisting my torso out of CL alignment, etc.
Doesn’t sound like much when I write it down here. But I believe that constant incorporation of taiji movements into everyday activities can be very beneficial. I could go on at length about this subject, but I’ll finish here by simply mentioning one more piece of advice: always use Horse Stance while brushing your teeth. (I don’t imagine I’m the only person who’s doing these kinds of things!) 
Postscript: It sounded a little odd when I wrote about “making my torso bouyant” and I just figured out why. It’s frustrating sometimes but I cannot always keep my head-top lifted at work. Oh, I can work on doing this as aften as possible, but I’m paid to look at my work and that direction is often downward. So in this simple kua exercise I’m trying to set up the best most relaxed taiji body I can even while my head’s not really in the right place. I can still work on good Open and Close, weight transfer, and moving from the Centre. That’s plenty to practice in the middle of a busy day, even if one of the most important postural points cannot be consistently employed (in this case, because I want to remain consistently employed).
