Mike Sigman silk reeling exercises

[GrahamB]

Hopefully this thread won't descend into the pit, because Mike has recently been putting a lot of accurate and useful information on video for free, and it's too good not to share. If you're interested in internal arts you need to look at this stuff. To me it seems logical, straightforward and practical, and can only add benefit to your training.

Have a look at this one on silk reeling, for example:

https://vimeo.com/170493068

There's more like this you can get on the 6H forum on Facebook.

[GrahamB]

By "hopefully this thread won't descend into the pit" I didn't mean nobody say anything at all - lol

[cloudz]

blurp

[GrahamB]

Thanks

To kick something off - I think what he's describing at the 3 minute mark about the open and close positions of the body, the muscle tendon channels that connect the movement, and how the dan tien controls it is the fundamental way all the "internal" arts operate, and what separates them from "external" arts.

[cloudz]

Hi G,

the description sounds decent to me.
I saw a bit of his silk reeling in the thread where we had an interesting exchange.
Sometimes it's just a case of time to watch and read all the things you think you should.

I'm not sure what I could say positive and or negative about his descriptions and movement performance.
I would like to give him a fair go before I blurted something out.

But FWIW when I have read his articles, he does know good stuff. Though I as I have mentioned in that discussion we had it's very much coming from a 'style perspective' in my view and that's not really a big issue at all. I would probably choose another way to organize and express it is all.

I am aware that Mr. Sigman has had criticism for either his interactions and or his performance of chansi drills and other things I am not too familiar with.
I would probably have to study his movement carefully to get my own opinion on that. As I am not really from a background where I have been formally taught Chen silk reeling from a recognised teacher face to face, I'm not sure what value my opinion really holds.

Maybe Charles could oblige on that score.

[GrahamB]

I don't think the "open and close positions of the body, the muscle tendon channels that connect the movement, and how the dan tien controls it ", are particularly style limited. I think they go across all the internals?

Agree, the silk reeling bit is more Chen style, and I don't think it's taught in Yang style ('pulling silk' is, but that's different), but you can easily add it in. I think it just makes for better movement. When I see Tai Chi I don't like it's because it's not coming from the dantien.

[cloudz]

Yes indeed that description makes sense to me and is fine and good, no complaints. But it doesn't describe chansi per se on it's own, but that's by the by. I was thinking of the wider thrust of the general Chen perspective of it (chansi). No need rehash that conversation though.

[charles]

Maybe Charles could oblige on that score.

Chen Xin, who was an academic member of the Chenjiagou Chen family, wrote a thick book on (small frame) Chen family Taijiquan. Included in his book is a very academic illustration of one aspect of silk reeling, the turning of the palms of the hands. He used the tracing of a Taiji diagram to illustrate the changing orientation of the palm. If you already know what he is talking about, then his illustration makes complete sense, though it is unnecessarily complex. Jou Tsunghua included in his own book his own interpretation of Chen Xin's illustration and added the additional exercise of tracing the Taiji diagram with one's foot/leg. One can see video footage of he and his students practicing the tracing of the Taiji diagram with hands and feet. What is demonstrated isn't good. It isn't bad. It is just irrelevant to silk reeling and misunderstands/misrepresents the concept Chen Xin was illustrating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs_BppsSv6M

That's how I feel about what Mike is showing in his silk reeling video. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It is just irrelevant to developing traditional Taijiquan skills as demonstrated by leading practitioners.

[yeniseri]

I met Mr Sigman about 25 years or so ago and found him to be a decent chap! He always brought reality to the usual qi crazed, form only magical crowd. The latter are fun to be experienced, nonetheless.
Silk reeling exercise are just one beneficial part of the whole schema (aka shabang). How can one just ignore that essential part of training

[GrahamB]

Maybe Charles could oblige on that score.

Chen Xin, who was an academic member of the Chenjiagou Chen family, wrote a thick book on (small frame) Chen family Taijiquan. Included in his book is a very academic illustration of one aspect of silk reeling, the turning of the palms of the hands. He used the tracing of a Taiji diagram to illustrate the changing orientation of the palm. If you already know what he is talking about, then his illustration makes complete sense, though it is unnecessarily complex. Jou Tsunghua included in his own book his own interpretation of Chen Xin's illustration and added the additional exercise of tracing the Taiji diagram with one's foot/leg. One can see video footage of he and his students practicing the tracing of the Taiji diagram with hands and feet. What is demonstrated isn't good. It isn't bad. It is just irrelevant to silk reeling and misunderstands/misrepresents the concept Chen Xin was illustrating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs_BppsSv6M

That's how I feel about what Mike is showing in his silk reeling video. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It is just irrelevant to developing traditional Taijiquan skills as demonstrated by leading practitioners.

Charles,

I think really silk reeling should be about learning to transfer the power of the lower body into the hands. That's the 'heart' (or root, if you like) of it, and the thing that sadly I see missing in a lot of practitioners. Even the ones with instructional DVDs....

Silk reeling should be giving you the power to do things like this:

https://vimeo.com/159137285

[kenneth fish]

IMO the video does not really do a good job of explaining the power generation (chain of mechanical events) that produce chan si jin. Also, IMO, training for chan si jin presupposes that one has already achieved a decent degree of connection. There are other exercises that focus mainly on connection.

Your mileage may vary.

[shawnsegler]

The thing about Sigman is that he's nothing special. His stuff is nothing special.

I suppose if you're committed to doing something that doesn't include these sorts of things and you want to add it to what you do rather than seeking out the good stuff then sure, I suppose there's some value. IME I think you'll get a lot more out of finding someone who's really good who's got really good stuff and go from there.

This is an honest appraisal of the material. I just felt I needed to say that if the assumption was that I wasn't inclined to give Sigman praise because of his tendency to be a massive dick-hole and my dislike of him for his unfortunate lack of social skills. I just really don't think his stuff is anything worth getting excited about it. In my estimation his reputation is based on A: having taken something known for its secrecy and making what he knew of it public a very long time ago now and B: the general lack of understanding and skill of the population at large. C: Apes crave status and if someone sets them up as some sort of alpha and has longevity at it then their are plenty of betas waiting in the wings. FWIW.

"The skills of an average man and a brilliant man are not the same"- Sun Xi Kun.

Best,

S

[wayne hansen]

Well grahame you threw out the bait and got a nibble but not the big fish
Keep angling

[Steve James]

I've always wondered about the claims for silk-reeling (that is characteristic of Chen style). Many people claim that it makes Chen style more martial than Yang, say, or CMC style, in particular. That's never been demonstrated, and I can refer specifically back to the 90s Chen Village push hands tournament that was won by a CMC guy. But, it would be silly, imo, to claim that CMC style power generation was superior to Chen style.

My issue is that, whatever the manner of power generation, the only important thing is whether it is sufficient for the required work to be done. It might certainly be good to have more than enough power available, but if the issue is "enough" power, then doing the same work with less power is more efficient --at least.

I think this principle can also apply to bjj (or catch, etc) grappling.

[charles]

I've always wondered about the claims for silk-reeling (that is characteristic of Chen style). Many people claim that it makes Chen style more martial than Yang, say, or CMC style, in particular.

That simply suggests that silk reeling (chan si), as done in Chen style Taijiquan, is not well understood. There are a variety of ways of describing the spiral actions that are called silk reeling, and their purpose. One way is as Chen Xiaowang approaches it. He states that the first principle of Taijiquan is, "When one part moves all the parts move". Most people practicing any style of Taijiquan are familiar with that "first principle". Stated another way, "When the dan tian moves, the whole body moves".

The question is then, how does one physically (or "energetically") achieve that? CXW states there are three "techniques" for doing so: moving the dan tian left and right; moving the dan tian forward and back and; a combination of the two. These "techniques" are "silk reeling" or chan si jin - at least as practiced in Chenjiagou. Their purpose is to unify the parts of the body, or, as he states, "move qi from the dan tian to the extremities and back from the extremities to the dan tian". The techniques - the chan si jin - can be used for a variety of purposes but are not limited to generating "power".

My issue is that, whatever the manner of power generation, the only important thing is whether it is sufficient for the required work to be done. It might certainly be good to have more than enough power available, but if the issue is "enough" power, then doing the same work with less power is more efficient --at least.

In a skilled practitioner of Taijiquan, "power" is one method of finishing an encounter. It isn't the only method. And, it isn't - or shouldn't be - the only tool in one's arsenal. Skilled practitioners are usually capable of being very soft or very hard, at will. They can choose to be very subtle and imbalance an opponent with little apparent movement and little apparent force. They can also chose to use sudden, explosive force, as the situation dictates. Of the two, having soft, subtle skills is the more difficult.

When one sees demonstrations of Chen style Taijiquan, the demonstrator often wants the demonstration to look - and sound - impressive - and "martial". Hence, they demonstrate with lots of explosive "power", stamping of the feet and so on. It looks good, but is, at best, only one side of the coin. The demonstrated performance may give viewers the impression that the core of Chen Taijiquan is "power" generation: it is not. If done well, it is much like any other style of Taijiquan done well.

What makes one style of Taijiquan more martial than another is what the individual practitoner practices and how he practices it. Generally, one style is not inherently more martial than the others. For example, look up video footage of Fu Zhongwen practicing long pole exercises: same stuff as done in Chen style, done the same way, and for the same purpose. In general, the "styles" of Taijiquan have more in common than they have differences. Unfortunately, few individual practitioners have access to good, complete instruction from skilled practitioners. That takes us back to the video posted by the OP.