Origins of silk reeling Qigong in Chen style taijiquan

[Appledog]

Twocircles, whoever came up with that exercise shown in the video unquestionably is aware of silk reeling on some level. But, I had always assumed Wayne was talking about a Hung Gar exercise known as "iron wire". Wayne could you please clarify are you talking about Hung Gar internal training or something along the lines of what is shown in the video?

Although it is not as comprehensive as Feng's silk reeling set, I would be happy to do the exercise in the video, finding it comparable. I find Feng's a little overanalytic. I don't think you really need 30 or 40 different kinds of silk reeling. Although I found the elbow and shoulder moves very interesting, and helpful. I also find some of the "arm stretch" exercises from Feng's are very similar to some other qigongs I know, such as nestlings receive food. I really like, however, how it has been "turned into" a silk reeling exercise. This is actually a very helpful clue to me, very interesting.

[HotSoup]

He’s talking about the 天干 exercises of Gao Bagua.

[wayne hansen]

I was not talking about Tin Sid Kune iron Wire
One of my teachers who taught me the 24 noi gung also had practiced iron wire in his youth
Even though I never practiced it we discussed it at length when he was teaching me the 24
I don’t really see the similarity
He also did the white crane noi gung which was also discussed

[charles]

Chansijin is its own thing. Don’t confuse it with the name given to the Chen TJQ exercises to develop what’s called Zhuanhuan, which is movements that are happening in the core of one’s abdomen. These movements will be outwardly expressed or felt better if one has developed Chansijin in their body but not necessary to begin learning Zhuanhuan. So the goal of the Silk Reeling is to practice Zhuanhuan and further develop it.

CXW has been very clear in his statement that the First Principle of (Chen) Taijiquan is that, "When one part moves, all parts move", or, "When the dan tian moves the entire body moves". He has been equally clear that there are three techniques for achieving that Principle: moving the dan tian left and right, moving the dan tian forward and back and the combination of moving the dan tian left/right and forward/back. He teaches variations of two "arm circles" and one wrist circling exercise as those techniques. He calls that chan si gong.

But Chen Xiao Wang told me that he wishes he could go back and change how these simple exercises took on a holy grail like status. He said Zhuanhuan is developed better, more naturally and easier by just doing the form.

In the mid 1990's CXW put out a list of what he considered to be the five levels of Taijiquan skill or ability. He noted that nearly all practitioners are at a level of 1.5 or less, including most teachers, with most practitioners being less that 1. One possible way of interpreting that is that while "it's all in the form", not many practitioners are figuring it out just by doing forms.

In the latter half of the 1990's, CXW travelled the world giving seminars. The seminars were mostly about standing and silk reeling. (Later, he taught some short form and yi lu.) After every seminar stop in North America, discussion fora where a buzz with questions about what he taught, mostly along the lines of, "at number 4, does the qi go to the fingers or the dan tian." Few seemed to recall that these were techniques for - means of - achieving the First Principle. Most got lost in the trees, few forests. So, it shouldn't really come as a surprise that many of those who attended his seminars came away with the message that standing and silk reeling were the gateway to "the prize".

Was it that he wished he had "packaged" and presented what he taught differently? His "packaging" was his own, different to what many others taught.

The SRE are too simple and people without the practical knowledge of moving their abdomen have added in all sorts of junk.

I agree that lots of people have added all sorts of irrelevant junk. I don't agree that "silk reeling exercises" are too simple. If they are, one is doing them wrong. They are an encyclopedia of how the body is used in Chen Taijiquan, just as forms are.

[charles]

Twocircles, whoever came up with that exercise shown in the video unquestionably is aware of silk reeling on some level.

Regardless of what choses to call it, chan si jin is something very specific. While I'm not suggesting that it is the "special sauce" that only Chen Taijiquan has, not every movement that involves twisting demonstrates chan si jin.

Although it is not as comprehensive as Feng's silk reeling set, I would be happy to do the exercise in the video, finding it comparable.

I have no complaints with the exercises in the video but, in my opinion, comparing them to Feng's silk reeling set is like comparing apples and oranges.

I find Feng's a little overanalytic. I don't think you really need 30 or 40 different kinds of silk reeling.

Just to be clear, there aren't 30 or 40 different kinds of silk reeling. There are many exercises that involve silk reeling - the entire form is filled with them - but there are really only a small number of "kinds" of silk reeling. (I'd suggest probably two, but others have categorized them down differently.)

My suggestion to beginners is to start with 2 or 3 exercises. Not more. Work on those 2 or 3 for 6 months or so until things begin to "gel". Then, and only then, add in 1 or 2 more.

Although I found the elbow and shoulder moves very interesting, and helpful. I also find some of the "arm stretch" exercises from Feng's are very similar to some other qigongs I know, such as nestlings receive food. I really like, however, how it has been "turned into" a silk reeling exercise. This is actually a very helpful clue to me, very interesting.

Can you be more specific on which are the "arm stretch" exercises?

Almost any movement can be "turned into" a silk reeling exercise. It isn't about the choreography, it's about what one drives the choreography with. That's true throughout Taijiquan, regardless of style.

[twocircles13]

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6XHcjbVrFiUI_4ooxsKSxIur4hV6V58R

Thanks for providing this playlist. It helped me get a better understanding of Tien Gan. I didn’t realize that the system came from Baguazhang. That helps me understand it even more. Do you do all of these exercises?

My appraisal is that some Tien Gan exercises would develop many of the same neural pathways developed by Chen silk reeling exercises, and some would develop the neural pathways of some of the Chen jibengong exercises. It does develop some pathways that would be inappropriate for Chen Taijiquan. So, I am not saying that they are the same, but there is a huge overlap. Despite their similarities, I would still treat them as apples and oranges or better, MacIntosh and Golden Delicious, two good-to-eat apples of different varieties, flavors, and uses.

My Wutan system teachers often quoted Liu Yunqiao, “All Chinese martial arts are sons of the same mother.” I wondered what that mother martial art was. My teachers quickly disabused me of that notion, but they didn’t give me an answer and left me to ponder. It wasn’t until I visited China that I began understand that no Chinese martial art was ever created, but they were developed through evolution in a melting pot consisting of the villages, temples, neighborhoods, militias, armies, and foreign invaders of China; by field commanders trying to keep their solders alive, by ritual theater troupes trying to express feeling through body movement and gesture, by teachers trying to preserve the next generation, by rebels and secret societies fighting for power against oppression, by common defense societies trying to keep the neighborhoods, regions, towns, and villages safe. In short, the mother of all Chinese martial arts is the culture and hardship, the wen and the wu, of the Chinese people.

So, every Chinese, especially northern, martial art has much in common with every other Chinese martial art and none had a monopoly on any one skill. However, the hardships of the 19th and 20th centuries have made this less true. If we want to restore the glory and strength of Chinese martial arts, we need to focus on what the arts, and we, have in common and share and appreciate our differences to fill in the gaps of deprivation.

Thanks for enduring my rant.

If I had a suggestion about Tien Gan, it appears to teach the yang of activation and looseness well. To take the art to the next level, it needs to teach also the yin stillness and precision as well. But, that is true of all Taijiquan also. Perhaps, Baquazhang teaches the yin side elsewhere in its training. This is the Heavenly (Yang) Stem not the Earthly (Yin) Stem after all.

Good stuff though.

[wayne hansen]

I do all the Tien gan
This is a playlist of what is out there
I don’t find any of them done very well
Without deep instruction and years of practice by an intelligent student it is impossible to judge them
Master HSU changed them to a much more Hsing I way of practice in his last few years
CZW was teaching his 5 levels when I trained with him in 88
I remember him laughing when I asked him if they related to the Wu Hsing
I think he was still in a very non philosophical way of talking then
Nothing was mentioned about Tan Tien movement

[Appledog]

a, Just to be clear, there aren't 30 or 40 different kinds of silk reeling.
b, My suggestion to beginners is to start with 2 or 3 exercises. Not more. Work on those 2 or 3 for 6 months or so until things begin to "gel". Then, and only then, add in 1 or 2 more.
c, Can you be more specific on which are the "arm stretch" exercises?

a, I was working through B.Guan and ZXX's online videos of the Feng silk reeling and hunyuan qigong sets. Approximately half of what they show appears in the stuff I was taught, so I look upon it as an "academic" version of what I do in the sense that it is complete but that I may not need to know every detail or every exercise. By the way, I was working on a response to your DM but this is kind of an answer to the question of what I am looking for. I feel a great affinity to Ma Hong and Feng Zhiqiang's material. I do however dislike practical method because I am scared I will have to relearn my form completely, and I am not sure that is necessary. Maybe I am scared for nothing?

b, It is entirely possible the reason I only know a small number of variations of these exercises is because I am not ready to be at that level yet as you say, and I need to work on what I have already been taught. Lately I have had this nagging feeling I should just pick one of the ones I like and do it a million times. Last time I tried that I had great results. I want to see what will happen this time. I will take your advice.

Until now I worked through the demos B.Guan and ZXX did (one is linked below). Physically I can handle it, but it does feel a bit long and "academic" in the sense that, I probably don't really need to take an hour and do all of it like that. I like a lot of the exercises tho. Especially the shoulder ones. I really liked learning some of these in White Crane. For the record I don't do white crane but I am friends with some people who do it and the shoulder exercises are really good. But, it's all part of the same three circle intersection. (In my system) there is a warmup routine where we do shoulder rolls. The rest of it is just a natural extension of that. Doing them forwards as well as backwards, then on both sides, etc.

c, The movements where the backs of the palms face each other. Similar to Nestlings Receive Food (I was sure you would be familiar with that one, but, it's the exercises presented here



That is the main set of videos I was following.

[Appledog]

It isn't about the choreography, it's about what one drives the choreography with.

I don’t find any of them done very well
Without deep instruction and years of practice by an intelligent student it is impossible to judge them
[...]Nothing was mentioned about Tan Tien movement

1. What informs the exercise?

I find it hard to accept the notion that (they; silk reeling, tien gan) can possibly be performed poorly, given reasonable instruction -- even, the kind of instruction you get in some of the videos on that playlist (or ex. in BGuan's videos). It is my experience that the true teaching is an emergent property of the exercise itself -- not that the exercise must be performed properly, informed by some hard to explain physical concept, and then the exercise becomes a demonstration of that principle. I believe it is in fact the other way around, that the exercise causes the development. I believe that if someone is doing something improperly, doing the exercise many times will at least cause the faults to bubble to the surface, where they can be easily spotted and corrected by the teacher, or even sometimes the student (if he has the right gist of what should be going on or what comes next).

My examples would be something like Sun Style open and close or "draw the bow on both sides" from Wang Ziping's qigong. I think Feng Zhiqiang has a similar exercise which is like tree hugging but the arms expand and contract with the breathing. All these are the same exercise. So from this I have the idea that it is literally impossible to do these exercises incorrectly after the first (say) 10,000 times. If your doing it and even making a passive attempt at natural breathing I cannot see how you could miss it.

2. Dantian movement? What's that?

Perhaps this is a personal failing of mine or perhaps I am just a "newbie", but if I can't feel the Disney Magic I have a deep inner fear that I am somehow not good enough. Given that, I find it impossible that if someone were to do these exercises for a significant amount of time, they would not develop dantian movement -- whatever that means. I say "whatever" because all of the (few) Disney Magic experiences I have had, none of them involve dantian movement. They involve things happening in the corner of my vision that I experience but did not intend to do. Such as in sun style open and close, I feel everything moving open and close in my chest, which feels like magnetic expansion and contraction. Or during wave hands like clouds, I will feel the qi moving out and then returning. But this mythical "rotating dantian" continues to elude me. Even when discussed in terms of xinyi/xingyi five elements I don't really see it. Ok so Pao Quan is diagonal? I mean it makes a sort of sense but I don't "get it".

In short, if these are the exercises then this must be the way to get the disney magic secret sauce. Therefore I do not care so much about what drives the choreography, I just want the choreography. I mean, of course, I want as much as I can get, but with that, I believe the choreography will help me. If someone is not doing Tien Gan, for example, very well, is that really so concerning? Can they not improve through practice? Some of the videos in that playlist appear to explain the finer points very well and show precision in movement. They also appear to come from relatively reputable sources.

3. Death Pact with Enlightenment

And yet here I am, afraid that I have nothing. Well, looking back on my training, perhaps I train too many different things. Perhaps I skipped too many days when I was young. So from today I will start a new leaf. I will pick an exercise and do it 30,000 times per day. This is in addition to my regular training. In one year that is ten million times. So if you do a move 1 million times I will do it 10 million times.

This is my death pact with enlightenment. Like a Zen Monk. If I cannot get Disney Magic from this then I will have yet still done science; I will have proven that it is impossible to get disney magic secret sauce from doing these exercises. Will I really be able to say "I did this movement ten million times and I got nothing?" I am willing to find out.

Who's with me?

Now, if only I could find some way to track these movements using an exercise watch or something.

[charles]

I find it hard to accept the notion that (they; silk reeling, tien gan) can possibly be performed poorly, given reasonable instruction -- even, the kind of instruction you get in some of the videos on that playlist (or ex. in BGuan's videos). It is my experience that the true teaching is an emergent property of the exercise itself -- not that the exercise must be performed properly, informed by some hard to explain physical concept, and then the exercise becomes a demonstration of that principle. I believe it is in fact the other way around, that the exercise causes the development. I believe that if someone is doing something improperly, doing the exercise many times will at least cause the faults to bubble to the surface, where they can be easily spotted and corrected by the teacher, or even sometimes the student (if he has the right gist of what should be going on or what comes next).

My examples would be something like Sun Style open and close or "draw the bow on both sides" from Wang Ziping's qigong. I think Feng Zhiqiang has a similar exercise which is like tree hugging but the arms expand and contract with the breathing. All these are the same exercise. So from this I have the idea that it is literally impossible to do these exercises incorrectly after the first (say) 10,000 times. If you're doing it and even making a passive attempt at natural breathing I cannot see how you could miss it.

This history of human achievement is dotted with individuals who invented or discovered something new. Once identified or discovered, those who came after that individual used, adapted and/or improved on that achievement. The history of human civilization is the story of each generation building on what the previous generation did, rather than each generation, literally, reinventing the wheel.

I know that I am not sufficiently cleaver and won't live long enough to invent or discover all of the things that I rely upon daily. That includes inventing the light bulb, the internal combustion engine, indoor plumbing and a lot of other things, including Taijiquan. If I had not been taught these already invented or discovered things by people who already knew them, I could not create them. That includes Taijiquan.

Chen Xiaowang's assessment, as I previously stated, is that the vast majority of Taijiquan practitioners don't get beyond the first level - they are perpetually low-skilled beginners. Chen Zhonghua used to say, "There is no point in keeping [Taijiquan] secrets because even if I GIVE the material to students they don't get it." And many other similar "indicators". The point is that very few people develop higher level skills and understanding in Taijiquan. With the millions of Taiji practitioners worldwide, if simply repeating a set of choreography was sufficient, there would be many skilled practitioners. There aren't. (As an aside, in most human endeavours, relatively few reach high levels of achievement.)

Experience shows us that without "good" instruction, only the most gifted will figure out the basics of the art of Taijiquan. Experience also shows us while "good" instruction is necessary, it is not sufficient.

That brings us to the question of "good" instruction. Most students believe that they are getting "good" instruction from their teachers. Most students believe that their teachers are "sufficiently skilled" to teach them the endeavour. If they didn't believe that, most would change teachers. However, given that most practitioners - including most teachers - are of a relatively low knowledge and skill level, what is it, exactly, that most students are learning? For most, it is some choreography, with or without some fancy philosophical stuff.

A few years ago, I had a discussion with the student of a local teacher: I've known the teacher for about 25 years. The student had a background in Karate and had studied Taiji with his teacher for about 2 years. I asked the student what is it that distinguishes what Taijiquan is. He didn't really know. I then asked him if he knew why Taiji is usually practiced slowly. He didn't know. I then asked him if he practiced Karate slowly, at the same speed as Taiji, does that make his Karate Taijiquan? He said it did. He, like his fellow students, have complete faith in their teacher's knowledge and skills.

As you stated, practicing an exercises many times should reveal the errors to a "good" teacher. (Actually, a "good" teacher will see the errors immediately and doesn't require the student to practice it many times before he or she can see them.) That assumes the teacher actually has the knowledge and skills to identify the errors. That is a very big assumption, one experience has collectively taught us often isn't valid.

I do, however, agree that repetition of the exercises - performed with an eye towards what is "correct" - is what causes the actual learning. That is the "sufficient" part, while the teaching is the "necessary" part.

2. Dantian movement? What's that?

Perhaps this is a personal failing of mine or perhaps I am just a "newbie", but if I can't feel the Disney Magic I have a deep inner fear that I am somehow not good enough. Given that, I find it impossible that if someone were to do these exercises for a significant amount of time, they would not develop dantian movement -- whatever that means. I say "whatever" because all of the (few) Disney Magic experiences I have had, none of them involve dantian movement. They involve things happening in the corner of my vision that I experience but did not intend to do. Such as in sun style open and close, I feel everything moving open and close in my chest, which feels like magnetic expansion and contraction. Or during wave hands like clouds, I will feel the qi moving out and then returning. But this mythical "rotating dantian" continues to elude me. Even when discussed in terms of xinyi/xingyi five elements I don't really see it. Ok so Pao Quan is diagonal? I mean it makes a sort of sense but I don't "get it".

First, there is no part of the human anatomy that is "the dantian". From the perspective of martial arts, rather than Traditional Chinese Medicine, there is muscle, bone, connective tissues and organs. Naming the specific parts of the anatomy involved isn't particularly relevant. "Chasing" the Dantian and "qi" are counterproductive. If one practices the right thing, the right way with sufficient intensity for long enough, those things will reveal themselves. Each part of that statement is necessary: the right thing, the right way, sufficiently long, sufficient intensity. It isn't easy and it isn't obvious. That's why one needs a "good" teacher and one needs to be willing to work at it.

In short, if these are the exercises then this must be the way to get the disney magic secret sauce. Therefore I do not care so much about what drives the choreography, I just want the choreography. I mean, of course, I want as much as I can get, but with that, I believe the choreography will help me. If someone is not doing Tien Gan, for example, very well, is that really so concerning? Can they not improve through practice? Some of the videos in that playlist appear to explain the finer points very well and show precision in movement. They also appear to come from relatively reputable sources.

There is the Taijiquan expression, "Miss by an inch, lose by a mile". If you practice the exercise without understanding its purpose, its goal, what you get from the exercise is based on how you practiced it. Practice it one way, you get one thing, practice it another, you get something else. If you are after a very specific thing, an exercise needs to be performed in a way that will, eventually, take you to that thing. For the novice, this involves some level of faith that the exercise will, indeed, lead to the desired result.

Only when you start to pay attention to the small details will you attain much result. Choreography is just choreography, neither special nor magic. The "secret sauce" comes from what you put into the choreography. Many, many people are practicing choreography, particularly "empty" forms.

In my early days, I picked up a copy of Jou Tsunghwa's book, The Tao of Tai-Chi Chuan. In his book, he provided instruction on tracing Taiji diagrams with one's arm and with one's leg. He put this forward as a means of practicing/learning silk reeling (chan si jin). That was my "introduction" to silk reeling. I spent 6 months or so practicing the tracing of Taiji diagrams over and over and over again. Later, I found skilled teachers and realized that no amount of tracing Tai Chi diagrams with my arms and legs was going to produce anything but the ability to trace Tai Chi diagrams in the air. It is irrelevant to actual chan si jin or the development thereof. Can one put chan si jin into the choreography of tracing of a Tai Chi diagram? Sure, but how to do that isn't obvious and isn't easy and isn't learned by tracing Tai Chi diagrams. Jou had misunderstood Chen Xin's writing, including getting "shun" and "ni" backwards. Under the heading of "good teaching", many consider Jou to be a Grandmaster.

3. Death Pact with Enlightenment

And yet here I am, afraid that I have nothing. Well, looking back on my training, perhaps I train too many different things. Perhaps I skipped too many days when I was young. So from today I will start a new leaf. I will pick an exercise and do it 30,000 times per day. This is in addition to my regular training. In one year that is ten million times. So if you do a move 1 million times I will do it 10 million times.

Many, many Taiji practitioners have "nothing". Just practicing empty choreography makes one good at empty choreography. Mindfully paying attention while practicing 100 times will take one much further. As I suggested before, practice fewer exercises so that one can focus heavily on fewer things. Otherwise, just practice forms, which, effectively are many individual exercises strung together.

This is my death pact with enlightenment. Like a Zen Monk. If I cannot get Disney Magic from this then I will have yet still done science; I will have proven that it is impossible to get disney magic secret sauce from doing these exercises. Will I really be able to say "I did this movement ten million times and I got nothing?" I am willing to find out.

It is a fool's errand. The only enlightenment you are likely to achieve is what is already known. Look around at the millions of people who practice Taiji. Most of those practice the same thing over and over and over again and still develop little knowledge or skill. Save yourself a lot of time and effort and work with one or more skilled teachers. "The devil is in the details." The choreography is just choreography.

[Bhassler]

2. Dantian movement? What's that?

Perhaps this is a personal failing of mine or perhaps I am just a "newbie", but if I can't feel the Disney Magic I have a deep inner fear that I am somehow not good enough. Given that, I find it impossible that if someone were to do these exercises for a significant amount of time, they would not develop dantian movement -- whatever that means. I say "whatever" because all of the (few) Disney Magic experiences I have had, none of them involve dantian movement. They involve things happening in the corner of my vision that I experience but did not intend to do. Such as in sun style open and close, I feel everything moving open and close in my chest, which feels like magnetic expansion and contraction. Or during wave hands like clouds, I will feel the qi moving out and then returning. But this mythical "rotating dantian" continues to elude me. Even when discussed in terms of xinyi/xingyi five elements I don't really see it. Ok so Pao Quan is diagonal? I mean it makes a sort of sense but I don't "get it".

In short, if these are the exercises then this must be the way to get the disney magic secret sauce. Therefore I do not care so much about what drives the choreography, I just want the choreography. I mean, of course, I want as much as I can get, but with that, I believe the choreography will help me. If someone is not doing Tien Gan, for example, very well, is that really so concerning? Can they not improve through practice? Some of the videos in that playlist appear to explain the finer points very well and show precision in movement. They also appear to come from relatively reputable sources.

What do YOU mean by dantian movement? Different people have different ideas of what they're after.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyg0OEv ... Gongfutube

You can see plenty of dantian movement here-- no Disney magic, at all. Also, this kind of movement won't just magically appear by practicing choreography; it has to be deliberately built. Once you go past a very superficial level, there's no point in talking about "taijiquan" in a generic sense. You have to address specific lineages and practices, and realize that they may not be compatible with one another. That's the nature of having a coherent system.

[Urs Krebs]

Twocircles, whoever came up with that exercise shown in the video unquestionably is aware of silk reeling on some level. But, I had always assumed Wayne was talking about a Hung Gar exercise known as "iron wire". Wayne could you please clarify are you talking about Hung Gar internal training or something along the lines of what is shown in the video?

Tit Sin Kuen (Iron Wire Form) is something very different. You use tension in Hung Kuen where you use relaxation in Taijiquan. Breathing is different also. The thing in common: Both is Nei Gong.

[Bao]

Dantian rotation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNRsQULQX_c

[wayne hansen]

The more I see about Dan Tien rotation thé more I see pelvic and stomach muscle mechanics

[BruceP]

2. Dantian movement? What's that?

Perhaps this is a personal failing of mine or perhaps I am just a "newbie", but if I can't feel the Disney Magic I have a deep inner fear that I am somehow not good enough. Given that, I find it impossible that if someone were to do these exercises for a significant amount of time, they would not develop dantian movement -- whatever that means. I say "whatever" because all of the (few) Disney Magic experiences I have had, none of them involve dantian movement. They involve things happening in the corner of my vision that I experience but did not intend to do. Such as in sun style open and close, I feel everything moving open and close in my chest, which feels like magnetic expansion and contraction. Or during wave hands like clouds, I will feel the qi moving out and then returning. But this mythical "rotating dantian" continues to elude me. Even when discussed in terms of xinyi/xingyi five elements I don't really see it. Ok so Pao Quan is diagonal? I mean it makes a sort of sense but I don't "get it".

First, there is no part of the human anatomy that is "the dantian". From the perspective of martial arts, rather than Traditional Chinese Medicine, there is muscle, bone, connective tissues and organs. Naming the specific parts of the anatomy involved isn't particularly relevant. "Chasing" the Dantian and "qi" are counterproductive. If one practices the right thing, the right way with sufficient intensity for long enough, those things will reveal themselves. Each part of that statement is necessary: the right thing, the right way, sufficiently long, sufficient intensity. It isn't easy and it isn't obvious. That's why one needs a "good" teacher and one needs to be willing to work at it.

golly...

If your tai chi teacher can't show you how to at least feel your 'dantien' moving (all by itself) in five minutes or less, they're not really your tai chi teacher. The real work of playing at directing and leading 'dantien' in solo training can only go so far as talent and creativity will allow, but that's got a limit. Partner work is required or it'll never be anything more than a cup-and-ball toy



*This thread turned into Cyberkwoon 2.0