The general idea of reeling silk is to practice smooth, soft, continuous movement, "as if reeling silk from a coccoon". Coordinating whole body movement within the alignments of the taijiquan body structure. Common examples are: Grasping Bird's Tail Waving Hands in Clouds Trying to bring awareness to all of the small circles within the joints, and how they affect a movement and power generation.
airweaver, do you mean the concepts of reeling/pulling silk,or the actual silk reeling exercises such as Chen system contains?
Besides it's used in Taiji, the - sinking power, - expending power, - twisting power (silk reeling at 2.38), are 3 Baji power generation methods. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYikolf7udw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYikolf7udw[/ame]
Pulling silk (Chou Si) and reeling silk (Chan Si) are slightly distinct in that they have come to describe slightly different aspects of the body method. You will need to "pull silk" before you can "reel silk", so to speak. The purpose of silk reeling is to both condition the body and connect it in a way that produces circling and spiralling powered through the dantien/ core to the extremities. Pulling silk, put simply, describes the actions of stretching or extending the body for movement purposes in such a way that it removes slack and creates connection. We had a thread on it here: http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1074845653#post1074845653 Check out the link I posted towards the end of that thread for some good information.
Well, YouKnowWho raise the same questions in that thread. Maybe we should have a look at his questions: - What's the usage of this in combat? - What's the difference between if you have it, or if you don't have it? - Will it help you to increase your punching power? - How can you prove it? - What drill do you use to train it.
