oragami_itto wrote:, since silk reeling energy is the fountain of the martial application of Taijiquan, so to hear them spoken of separately and distinctly is very strange. Was hoping for some more knowledgeable insight
IMHO It's hard to know what he's aiming at. Here, he's probably just speaking about having different focuses, practicing on various things at various things. I must admit that I like the more free and playful attitude. There's a certain creativity of practice that I feel is very important but few teachers encourage.
If he teach yang or Chen type of silk reeling, I don't know. But he says "like drawing silk", not reeling. In Yang style, drawing silk is a slightly different concept than Chen silk reeling. Regardless what, there are many schools that just teach it as a concept amongst others and don't teach it as a principle of foundation of movement, or only regard it as an element of form practice.