Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby cloudz on Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:53 pm

charles wrote:
cloudz wrote:the definition of helical is contradictory to straight line force; I just looked it up.
it's as a helix; spiral by definition.


A helix, by definition, is not a spiral. A helix is a 3D motion, a spiral, a 2D motion, by definition. In common language, the two are used interchangeably, but that is incorrect.

it's either spiral force or it's 'straight line'..


I'm a mechanical engineer. There are many, many mechanisms that produce linear motion from angular ("circular"/"rotational") motion, not to mention mechanisms that produce rotational motion from linear motion. One that is common is called a crank mechanism and is what makes your car go: pistons move in a linear motion to turn a crank shaft rotating the wheels. A screw driver is another - it produces linear in/out motion by rotation of the screw driver, driving the helical thread of a screw. An Archimedien screw is another and uses rotational motion to produce linear lift. And many other examples. The human body is capable of doing the same. It does so in Chen and other arts.

if everyone and their dog uses spiral force, all the time, by definition and anatomy... it renders 'silk reeling' as fairly meaningless I would think.


Pretty much true. The term is over-used and under understood. The question then is what is unique about Chen Taijiquan - and other styles of Taijiquan - that makes this an important mechanism of movement for that/those styles? There has to be SOME reason that it is central to the style. If you wish to understand it, that is the question to which to find the answer. When one cuts through all the esoterica, the answer isn't all that complicated, but one has to want to understand it.


see my clarification Charles.

my issue isn't about rotational motion per se. It's about spiral force vs. straight line force as it relates to silk reeling.
your wording in the initial post I addressed didn't sit well with me.

Being a mechanical engineer is all very well, but we aren't machines and our bodies are not made of gears or whatever... mechanical things you want to cite to me.
I get what produces a spiral and what doesn't. I know what a curved motion looks like and what doesn't. I know what silk reeling looks like and what Yang and Wu forms don't map directly to those kind of body motions...

Does that apply to similar forms in Chen, or are they completely absent. Or is it something else ?
Last edited by cloudz on Sun Oct 02, 2022 3:06 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby cloudz on Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:57 pm

dictionary definition of helical

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/helical
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby cloudz on Sun Oct 02, 2022 3:04 pm

how is any motion a human produces not 3D
can you explain me that ?

I mean we exist (and move) in 3D we don't exist on an engineers drawing board or whatever..

let's talk about force then.

the point of chansi gong is commonly haled as spiral force - to the best of my knowledge. that's what it produces; a type of force..
Is there some difference in what would be helical force or spiral force.

I mean we just describe force as spiral (in the case of chansi) - we shouldn't have to invoke all manner of mechanical definitions.
spiral is spiral.

what's the other dimension that would make that helical. the body moves in 3D -okay. but there is the body movement and the quality of force it produces.

If silk reeling movement - as seen in the typical exercises - doesn't produce a different quality of force at the point of contact - then what ?
Last edited by cloudz on Sun Oct 02, 2022 3:19 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby cloudz on Sun Oct 02, 2022 3:30 pm

let's be clear; I never described or spoke about body motions themselves being 'spiral' - it's always the force that's described as spiral.
I spoke about the body in terms of making rotations.

it's kind of an odd distinction to make in this context; as i said our bodies are 3D.
so the same way you can talk about a spiral staircase, you can talk about a whole body motion as spiral as it moves through the body for example.
Let's stick to plain English rather than mechanical engineer specific or specialist language; because frankly it serves our purposes just as well, if not better..

force; okay..

is it 3D or 2D, that's beyond my pay grade frankly. But I'd gamble on 2D.. maybe.
lol, that's a head scratcher. it probably doesn't even apply? (or matter)
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby cloudz on Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:36 am

If the Chen village guys wanted help.. restructuring the system or building it back up (or whatever the story is..), I would have thought nearby would have been the best/ more obvious place to look first.eg. zhaobao/ chen small frame rather than Beijing.

Chen Fake for example would have arrived in Beijing and on one level would have wanted to set himself apart from the other Taiji systems, already established. He was there for his rice bowl.
From what I have read about his teaching; he focused on 'the spiral'..

It's hardly an uncommon theme in TCIMA.
Last edited by cloudz on Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:43 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby cloudz on Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:56 am

charles wrote:
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.

.


I've bolded the part I find interesting..

I'm not 'against that' in any way shape or form. I'm sure they are useful exercises. And when I see guys like Chen Yu it makes sense - the way they move. The close range shoulders, elbows. the chi na, the grappling. All well and good. It seems very much related to the dan tien connection and rotation of that area of the body. Again that very much makes sense.

You do say all the form. Again I have to repeat; i don't think 'silk reeling' can be particularly optimal for a front kick some of the other techniques i mentioned. silk reeling is either whole body or it isn't - you said so yourself - it's supposed to be a 'whole body exercise'... If it's not whole body then it's not spiraling force to the extremities - the hands and feet, or perhaps other closer body parts - in the kind of techniques I offered as examples. It's more about connection and circularity otherwise - rather than spiral force. circular body motions to deliver an elbow maybe. there are styles of elbow technique where the arm won't rotate in the shoulder socket. but around - remaining 'held' and being swung. that goes for certain kicks and knees.

I just find it a bit limiting for it's own sake. To insist on a certain circularity or roundness to every strike and motion.
If you did say want to maintain deliver spiral force with a chest strike - for me you still have to use the arm rotation- just not rotating them (swinging) around the socket. The arm circles you mentioned that include rotating arms. You (obviously) can drop the arm circles, but keep the rotation.

I'm going by other IMA here not what they specifically do in Chen styles.. but ultimately it's principles of body movement; these things are universal and become about what is chosen and preferred. when I say, for me, the reason i do them (the exercises) isn't circularity per se but spiral force. Whilst they are useful for dan-tien and connection - that is not predicated or reliant on circularity OR spiral force.. But certainly you could 'shove it all in' so to speak.
Last edited by cloudz on Mon Oct 03, 2022 3:43 am, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby cloudz on Mon Oct 03, 2022 3:00 am

windwalker wrote::)

pointless.....



that sums up about 95% of your posts.
which are basically a repeat of what you've been posting the past 6 or whatever years.
It doesn't matter what's being discussed, how much you know or don't about THAT particular topic..

out comes the push hands woo woo and explanations from god knows what planet.

ridiculous. learn to be on topic, why don't you.
instead of dictating your agenda and questionable beliefs over and over.
Last edited by cloudz on Mon Oct 03, 2022 3:44 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby cloudz on Mon Oct 03, 2022 3:08 am

wayne hansen wrote:Not sure I would call Tien Gan noi gung



Now there's a million dollar question on a IMA board if ever I saw one.
I think some people still believe it's moving your belly muscles around in concert with the rest of it. or some other 'mechanic'..

but yea, that would be a good chat..

I think what happened is I took a cursory look on youtube to get a look at what it was..
I saw it translated as heavenly stem.. and in one title heavenly stem neigong that's why repeated the term here.

neigong (certain mind and or breath work) could be in any static or moving exercise - depending on the physical difficulty and capability of the practitioner. (basically)
so I certainly can't tell from a video.
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby wayne hansen on Mon Oct 03, 2022 3:43 am

Two words
Tien. Heaven
Yang . Stem
The other word is tacked on
We might have vastly different ideas of what is noi gung
Most of what most people call noi gung these days I would call chi gung
Don't put power into the form let it naturally arise from the form
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby cloudz on Mon Oct 03, 2022 3:53 am

nah

chi gung is just a term that started to be used in fairly recent chinese history
there are books written about it.

it all comes from nei dan or where martial arts is concerned it's called nei gong

there are just lot's of types of it.
some types of meditation are called shen gong in cultivation.

... so if you're not thinking of yi/ mind stuff or yi with breath, then I don't know what.

However Bruce Frantzis does say in one of his books that what differentiates chi gong from neigong is Timing of the breath with the movements. Which I thought was quite interesting..
I don't really know how right he is. But I don't think the distinction is that important. Nei gong is a better umbrella term for different kinds of work. Using either the mind in some way and or the breath.
Last edited by cloudz on Mon Oct 03, 2022 3:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby cloudz on Mon Oct 03, 2022 7:00 am

just one more thing...

I can really dig the way a guy like Chen Yu moves; he's probably my favourite of the Chen people I've seen.
But my overriding feeling is that whilst it's great for close quarters it's doesn't really translate so well for mid range to longer range.
at least the way I see it performed either in form or application.

just a personal opinion
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby GrahamB on Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:09 pm

I think that's a fair comment about ranges. And one of the reasons I think mixing Tai Chi with a long range style is a good idea.

Edit: And ground fighting of course! That way you've got all 3 ranges covered - long, short and ground. (I don't think mid range exists, but that's just how I slice the pie).
Last edited by GrahamB on Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby wayne hansen on Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:54 pm

My understanding of chi gung v noi gung comes thru word of mouth thru my teachers
I don’t take Bruce Francis as an authority
Training in correct pushing teaches how to use all ranges
Not that you practice it at different ranges but it trains your awareness that can be used at all ranges
I remember fighting a lama boxer who noted after the fight
When I jumped in the air you followed when I went down to the ground u were there
I have never had this happen before how do u do it
My response That’s sticking
With correct training it’s all there
Don't put power into the form let it naturally arise from the form
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby charles on Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:00 am

George,

You've asked some good questions. I'll try to address them as best as I can based on my experience, which will differ from others’ experiences. I’ll try to be as brief as possible.

First, in any human activity, there are relatively few who achieve very high skill in that activity. There are a variety of reasons for that, including the amount of sustained dedicated effort required to achieve that level of skill. In the 1990’s, Chen Xiaowang (CXW) put forward a description of five levels of Chen Taijiquan skill. He stated that the vast majority of practitioners, including many teachers, were below a level of 1.5, with most being below 1.0.

This leads to the curious situation where if you ask the “average” Chen Taijiquan practitioner about Taijiquan, he or she can do little more than abstractly talk about skills they haven’t experienced and don’t themselves possess. He or she repeats dogma and abstract platitudes he or she has been taught but has largely not experienced.

Understanding of Taijiquan comes from first-hand experience of it. That is, the understanding of it comes through experiencing it rather than from academic or theoretical discussion of it. That is difficult to do given that the vast majority of practitioners can’t demonstrate the skills found at higher levels of the art. That brings us to the Catch 22 of Taijiquan: to truly understand the art one must experience first-hand the skills of a high-level practitioner but the ease of finding such a practitioner is only slightly more common than finding a unicorn. In the absence of such an experience, most students take it on faith what the art is about.

That certainly sounds like the ultimate cop-out. Certainly, one can discuss academic or theoretical aspects of the art – and many do and have - but to truly understand the art, one must experience it first-hand. Describing in words to someone who has never experienced a beautiful sunset one doesn’t really gain what it is like to experience such a sunset. Words go only so far in describing the experience. Ditto for describing higher-level skills in Taijiquan: the words, the theories, the descriptions only go so far towards actual understanding.

For that reason, I have long since abandoned protracted abstract theoretical discussions on Taijiquan. Granted, on a discussion forum, one can’t do much beyond having such discussions. I’ll be happy to try, up to a point, but I’m well aware that no amount of discussion is really going to help someone understand it who hasn’t experienced it.

With that said, in my opinion, a good Taiji teacher presents a student with a progression of exercises that are designed to lead the student towards having very specific experiences. By having those specific experiences, the student can then gain understanding of specific aspects of Taijiquan that the progression of experiences was intended to highlight. Rather than go into protracted, abstract, theoretical discussions that will likely bring about little result, here’s an exercise you can try with a partner. The exercise is intended to have you, and your partner, experience something very specific, from which you might gain greater insight, more than if we have a protracted academic discussion of force.

Mutual Dependance
Stand with your feet shoulder width apart facing your partner who also stands with feet shoulder width apart. Extend your arms forward, toward your partner, at shoulder height. Your partner does the same. When both you and your partner’s arms are fully extended, there should be about a foot or more of space between your outstretched arms/hands and his. Both you and your partner lean inwards towards each other until your right palm is against his left palm and your left palm is against his right palm. Each of you supports the other. If one of you were to suddenly disappear, the other would fall forward.

In the above arrangement, move your right hand to your right. Have your partner try to prevent you from moving your hand. Regardless of how much force or effort your partner uses he cannot prevent you from moving your hand. Also, he cannot prevent his hand, against yours, from moving when you move yours. If you move your right hand to the left, or up, down or inwards and outwards, he similarly cannot prevent you from doing so and cannot prevent the movement of your hand from moving his hand. Ditto for your left hand and his right hand. Reverse roles and have him move his hands while you try to prevent it. This situation involves each of you being dependent upon the other: neither or you can prevent the other from moving his hands.

You Independent, Your Partner Dependent, or “I know my opponent, but he does not know me”
Next, while your partner remains exactly as he was, leaning in with your hands supporting him, you step inwards so that you are now fully upright. Repeat the above by moving your right hand to the left, right, up or down. As before, have your partner try to prevent you moving your hand. Repeat with the other hand. As with the previous situation, your partner cannot prevent you from moving your hands and cannot prevent the moving of your hands moving his hands.

Next, have your partner move his hands and have you try to prevent his moving his hands. In this situation, you can easily prevent him from moving his hands and he has no control over the motion of your hands. In this situation, he is dependent upon you, but you are not dependent upon him. You control him but he has no control over you.

You Dependent, Partner Independent
Last, reverse roles and have you lean inwards while he stands upright and supports you. Try to prevent him from moving his hands. Try to prevent him from moving your hands.

This is not a “thought experiment”. Instead, it is something you should experience first-hand with a partner. The experience illustrates several things. First, if each of you is dependent upon the other, neither of you can prevent the movement of the other. No amount of force by one of you prevents the other from moving his hands. Second, if your partner is dependent upon you, but you are not dependent upon him – as when he is leaning and supported by you, while you are standing upright – you have complete control over the movement of your hands AND his. No amount of force that he exerts prevents your control over yourself and him. Third, the amount of force used is irrelevant – using more force or less force does not change the outcome. Fourth, in any “practical” situation, it is beneficial for you to be independent of your partner while your partner is dependent upon you: in any “practical” situation, it is detrimental for you to be dependent upon your partner.

So what relevance does this have to Taijiquan? It illustrates that in a specific situation, the amount of force used is irrelevant to the outcome: the outcome is not dependent upon the magnitude of force used – or the “type”, such as “linear” versus “spiral”. It also illustrates that in that specific situation one can control the movement of a partner preventing a partner from effectively manifesting force, such as a strike or kick.

The obvious question is can such a situation of dependence/independence be created outside of the very specific arrangement of this exercise? The answer is yes. How does one do that? A substantial part of a good syllabus of Taiji training is about how to do that. Finding such training is only slightly more common than finding a unicorn.
Last edited by charles on Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:49 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

Postby cloudz on Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:42 am

Charles

thank you so much for taking the time to respond so thoroughly
as always i take what you say on board; it's great for people like us (enthusiasts) that we have such diverse and dedicated people and arts to discuss and take inspiration from.

It's always an added bonus to hear from someone with the hard yards experience in a particular topic/style such as yourself. and can articulate themselves accordingly.

happy training. Will do my my best to digest your response with the attentiveness it deserves.

edit: spooky coincidence
I wrote a post @16.20 (on another thread) before I came on this one talking about unicorns.. they were on my mind all afternoon. ;D
Last edited by cloudz on Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:50 am, edited 3 times in total.
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