Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

[yeniseri]

SIlk reeling exercises of one type or another has always been part of certain types of CMA, part of the concept of liuhebafa (6 combinations, 8 methods).
CXW created his own set because Chenjiagou oldsters had left, died or stopped practice, or went to other places (Xian) in China to excape persecutions, struggle sessions, etc. Even Zhaobao the nearby village, has its silk reeling routines and they share similar concepts. CXW, being of the lineage and one of the "senior" present masters at that time, was able to put together the routine that became a standard for further practice.

As someone stated, even relatives in Chenjiagou have their own versions of silk reeling exercises!

[robert]

Robert,

I know that CXW and FZQ worked together quite a bit, and so was just trying to figure out who taught who, as they are very similar.

I'm not aware of that. Can you provide more information? I know a communist official in Chen Village invited FZQ to the village a couple of times, but I didn't know that he and CXW worked together.

Chen Fake, FZQ's teacher, came from Chen Village. A number of people in Chen Village including CXW, CZL, WXA, and ZTC got their gongfu from Chen Zhaopei and he got his advanced training from Chen Fake, so I would expect them to be pretty similar. CXW, CZL, WXA, ZTC, and others of that generation credit Chen Zhaopei and Chen Zhaokui with their training. What I was taught in Yang, Wu, and Chen style is documented in old taijiquan manuals and they all say basically the same thing. YMMV.

[Bao]

Just another version of the Tien Gan
I have a set from the Wu style that I do that is very similar
Also the Yang noi gung

I agree. I learned tian gan as part of my xingyi training. In bagua I learned the tea cup exercise, windmill arms, piercing palms and so on. These are silk reeling exercises as well. When I was first learning taiji I studied with BK Frantzis and he had us learn a couple qigongs before we learned the Wu style short form. Simple exercises to learn loose, relaxed, connected movement. HXX's five loosening exercises and so on.

They studied XY in Chen village and took theory from it. But many exercises are common in many arts, so it’s hard to know who took it from who. Tongbei jibengong and loosening exercises are found in Bagua and Taiji lineages, but then again, some people say that Tai Chi was developed from Tongbei. So the history might be a bit diffuse.

[robert]

They studied XY in Chen village

Sources?

[Bob]

One of the first books I bought when I was interested in Chen Style Taijiquan (1996 release, I think)

https://www.plumpub.com/sales/taichi/collbk_chenTC.htm



KC005 Chen TaijiQuan
Chen Xiao Wang, Feng Zhi Qiang, & Feng Da Biao
$16.95, Softbound, 227 pages

This is a major book. It's been around a while but this is still one of the best books on Chen Style published in China. Two Chen style Taiji (T'ai Ch'i) sets with examples of self-defense applications. Short set performed by Chen Xiao-Wang. A fine introduction for those interested in Chen style. Demonstrations of usage and good English breakdowns along with some decent pages on theory. Topics include:
Names of the Forms in Road One
Diagrams of Attack-Defense in Road One
Names of Road Two
Diagrams of Attack-Defense in Road Two
Names of the postures in Chen 38 form TaiJi
Profiles of: Chen Fa-Ke, Feng Zhi-Qiang and Chen Xiao-Wang
See Chen Xiao Wang's DVD and English language VCD series

[Steve James]

Chen Style Taijiquan (1996 release, I think)

First edition is 1984. The PRC published them after the Beijing Wushu troop toured the states in the early 80s. There were also texts published for Wu (WJQ), Sun, and Yang styles. These were intended to be authoritative. In the 90s, people started searching out the "family" books and books not PRC authorized. But, the PRC books are all good.

[robert]

Yeah, my copy is 1984. I have the Yang Blue book with YZD, and the Wu green book with Wang Peisheng & Zeng Weiqi. In the Chen Style Taijiquan book FZQ and CXW are in separate sections. FQZ's section shows applications, but he's working with Zhang Chundong. I guess it does show that CXW has a national presence by 1984. People who are familiar with CMAs know that the guys mentioned above are working with the Chinese Wushu Research Institute in the 1980s.

[cloudz]

Haven't been familiar with the Tien Gan neigung; looks really nice.

[GrahamB]

If you look back at the 10 Thesis of Yue Fei documents, which are potentially hundreds of years old, they say "It is also useful if the boxing is tightly reeled using Qi in the haft grip”.

Here haft grip is probably referring to a spear, so you have the concepts of reeling and spear work connected a very long time ago.

[GrahamB]

I don't see anywhere in what I quoted above that CXW says he invented silk reeling. What CXW did was put together a set of SREs to teach people the basic body mechanics of taijiquan. CXW put together a new training system for Chen taijiquan.

Yes. Obviously he didn't invent the concept, but he does seem to be saying he invented the stand-alone exercises. From the same interview you quoted he says:

"Q: People are often surprised to hear that the reeling silk exercises are such a recent addition to the Chen Taijiquan training syllabus, assuming that they have always been trained in Chenjiagou?

CXW: Before that nobody can produce any material regarding this. Before 1984 any reference to silk reeling must be considered as anecdotal as there is no written record available to support it. You can look up all written material prior to this and you would not find any mention to support its use. "

So, it seems he's not saying he invented the concept of silk reeling, but he is saying he invented the exercises in 1984. However, the Shen and Gu book from 1963, would seem to contradict this.

(He also says his exercises which he came up with in 1980 were published in WuLin magazine in 1981, so that's also before 1984:

"I put some thought into it and set about compiling something. It occurred to me then that I needed to work out how best to show the movement rules and principles of our system. In 1980 the set was compiled and in 1982 it was published in Wulin magazine. I don’t think that it would be easy to find a copy of the magazine now. In 1984 [the reeling silk exercises] were officially published as Chen Taijiquan’s jibengong in the book Taijiquan Handed Down Through Generations published by People’s Sport Publications. This was the first time that zhan zhuang, front reeling silk, side reeling silk etc.. were formally recorded."

He must mean 'recorded in relation to Chen style' as there were Yi Quan books published in the 1930s. e.g.: https://brennantranslation.wordpress.co ... of-yiquan/

[robert]

"Q: People are often surprised to hear that the reeling silk exercises are such a recent addition to the Chen Taijiquan training syllabus, assuming that they have always been trained in Chenjiagou?

CXW: Before that nobody can produce any material regarding this. Before 1984 any reference to silk reeling must be considered as anecdotal as there is no written record available to support it. You can look up all written material prior to this and you would not find any mention to support its use. "

So, it seems he's not saying he invented the concept of silk reeling, but he is saying he invented the exercises in 1984. However, the Shen and Gu book from 1963, would seem to contradict this.

The question is
Q: People are often surprised to hear that the reeling silk exercises are such a recent addition to the Chen Taijiquan training syllabus, assuming that they have always been trained in Chenjiagou?

If you take one move in taijiquan and repeat it over and over with connected movement that is a silk reeling exercise. If someone is having a hard time with yun shou and you have them do it with one arm with connected movement, that's a silk reeling exercise. That's not part of a syllabus, that's just training. The illustration in Shen Jiazhen's book is used to help explain shun and ni silk reeling. It's not said to be part of a syllabus.

[Bao]

If you take one move in taijiquan and repeat it over and over with connected movement that is a silk reeling exercise. If someone is having a hard time with yun shou and you have them do it with one arm with connected movement, that's a silk reeling exercise. That's not part of a syllabus, that's just training.

Even though I find the the single handed exercise pointless and overrated in order to develop connected whole body movement, I believe that you are correct in everything else. With silk reeling, Chen Xin meant a general principle for all internal arts.

CXW only refer to his exercises, however, Chen Chenglei described the principle as such:

“”What is Chen Style Silk Reeling Energy? The requirement of the entire routine is that there is no flat surface, there is no straight line, no broken links or points [in the energy line], the whole body is round [and] it moves in arcs and spi­rals.” Whether it is the hand, the leg, the waist, the body, whatever, it moves in spirals, […] So, the whole body is a spiral.”

Again, the whole body is not moving one limb only.

[wayne hansen]

Not sure I would call Tien Gan noi gung

[charles]

Hi all,

I am curious about the origin of silk reeling exercises in chen style taijiquan. I have read references made to Chen xiaowang being the originator, but as Feng zhiqiang also practiced the silk reeling Qigong, it seems like it would have passed from FZQ to CXW. Really just academic, I'm just curious. Thanks for any information.

I'm not going to go into the details of it but CXW and FZQ were not on good terms. According to Feng and his group, Feng taught CXW "silk reeling".

In Chen Taijiquan, regardless of sub style, "silk reeling" is a method of coordinating the body in whole-body motion. It is found in all movements. One can take any movement from any form or two-person exercise and practice it isolating the motions in that movement. If one does that one is practicing a "silk reeling exercise".

Feng has his set of about 30 isolated exercises called the "18 ball" set that has one or more exercises focusing on each of the 18 major "joints" of the body. Some of those are the same as what are included in Chen Village sets, some are not. In general, the Village sets focus on the two "arm" circles. Feng's set focuses much more broadly on use of other parts of the body, such as chest striking, shoulder striking, etc. Zhu Tiancai teaches the same Village "arm" circles, but explicitly teaches them as combinations of the two basic circles. His set is a 13 posture neigong. Hong Junsheng also taught exercises that he called ji ben gong, rather than "silk reeling" exercises. They too are based on two circles, positive and negative, but have significant differences in how they are performed. Those likely pre-dated Feng's set and CXW's set.

In Chen Xin's book from early 1900's, he give an very academic/theoretical discussion of "silk reeling" in which he describes traversing a Taiji symbol. His description illustrates the rotation of the arm/palm to describe shun and ni and the inflection points while traversing the two basic "arm" circles, which are jointed with a transition. I have yet to meet any skilled Chen practitioner who practices "silk reeling" by tracing in the air a Taiji symbol with arms or legs. A number of Yang style practitioners have expounded on Chen Xin's description and put forth tracing Taiji symbols with arms and legs as a means to training silk reeling. Zhou Tsung Hwa went into some detail about the practice in his book. In doing so, he misunderstood the nature of the "exercise" and has shun and ni backwards.

[cloudz]

Are we to take it that Chen style has no straight line force to speak of
No straightforward straight punch or kick in practical fighting application ?

training in circular and or spiral motion is all very well, but at high speeds (real time) this often becomes superfluous and even pointless - in certain free fighting situations. Transitional flow not withstanding..

the point, should be spiral force, as and when needed..

either a matter of dogma; or not being able to discern between training theory and usage, the former is almost aways subject to dogma - maybe rightly so.
but any (one) good or versed and practiced in genuine real life combat martial artist will know (or should) there are no absolutes or that they have no real place in a self defence scenario or life or death martial art.

Isn't Ji an example of straight line force in TCC or is Chen style exempt of that ? Or must everything run through the spiral machine that seems to have become Chen style at some point in time ...

there should be a place for both frankly speaking.
the circle from the square and square from the circle ..