<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Gu Rou Chen:
I appreciate the wormspit.com link. What a great experiment and exercise!
Here are a couple of pictures of more traditional silk reeling methods. You may have seen these before.
Handfuls of cocoons are placed into a pot of boiling water. The harvester draws out a single filament from each of several cocoons. She then stirs the water and winds the twisting filaments around a reel or wheel by steadily pulling the thread. http://www.travelingtiger.com/travelingtiger/silk_weaving/images/tiger_reeling.jpghttp://www.travelingtiger.com/travelingtiger/silk_weaving/images/silk_reeling.jpg
Chan can be translated "reeling" ( or unreeling), "winding" and "twining." Twining is an rarely used word. It is the action of twisting fibers into twine, string or thread. It is certainly the appropriate term for the two pictures above.
The often-observed quality of reeling silk is that all actions must be smooth and continuous or the silk filaments will break. But foremost in the process is chan, twining or rotation that creates the thread. This rotation (the unwinding cocoons) within rotation (the stirred pot twisting the filaments) within rotation (the winding reel) that creates a characteristic quality is what is to be captured by the term, chansi.
Here are a couple of quotations all translated by Jerry Karin. Thanks Jerry! The first is from Jerry's translation of Shen Jiazhen's section in Chen Style Taijiquan (1964). Found on http://www.yangfamilytaichi.com/rep/archives/silk_reeling.htm
"When we say in Tai Chi Chuan the movements must be like unreeling silk, or like pulling silk, these two images both mean that the shape of the movements is like a spiral. At the same time that this spiraling must go in a curve - much like the way a bullet follows the spiral rifling in a gun barrel so that as it moves through space it has an inherent turning in a spiral shape - it also has a trajectory along another line like that of the bullet hitting a target. Silk reeling energy in Tai Chi Chuan has this same kind of quality."
Shen again uses a spiraling, rotating metaphor. In the following paragraph he says,
"As we have already explained, movements must be like silk reeling, but how in our actual movements are we to realize this theory?...This is precisely like the way the earth turns on its own axis at the same time it moves in a curve around the sun. That is why Tai Chi energy is not circling in a plane but rather spiraling upward in three dimensions."
Again the rotating, revolving metaphor. Here's the method I cut out.
"In fact it's quite ordinary and simple: within the requirements for the entire movement, as you move, the palms rotate from facing inward to outward or from facing outward to inward, causing them to form a shape like the Tai Chi symbol (see figure 1). At the same time, owing to the rotation of the palms inward and outward, there is manifest in the upper body a turning of the wrists and upper arms and in the lower body a turning of the ankles and legs, and in the torso this is manifested as turning of the waist and backbone. Combining the three, this forms a curving line turning in space with its "root in the feet, commanded by the waist, and manifested in the fingers". This is a requirement which we must achieve in Tai Chi Chuan. Because of this the boxing manuals particularly point out that whether in broadly extending out or in shrinking and drawing in, we can never for a moment depart from the Tai Chi energy of rotating the palms and turning the wrists and upper arms."
Here's an excerpt from Jerry Karin's translation form Gu Liuxin that he put on this thread.
"The method of practicing silk reeling is actually extremely ordinary and simple. Within the requirements of "use the mind to move the qi, use the qi to move the body" and so if one part moves all parts move with inner and outer matching up, one continuously rotates waist and turns backbone, above rotating upper arm and forearm, turning the palms, below rotating ankle and knee, changing the energy at the crotch, forming a fused body into a whole system endlessly extending in space making up a spiraling movement. "
Here's something I once wrote:
"Hong Junsheng, another major disciple of Chen Fake, describes chansi referring to the “self-rotation” (the turning arms and legs), “global rotation” (the turning of the torso) and the resultant circling path of the hand. Notice how chansi is the rotational energy of the body that creates the trajectory of the hand. Today, it is all too common to inscribe the shape of the circle with our hands and not have any rotational strength coming from the body. Again, it is the rotations within the rotations that create the chansi jin."
Louis Swaim earlier referred to chansi jin as "threading the joints together." And so it does. Just like the drive train (transmission, drive shaft, differential, etc.) of a car threads the engine to the wheels. Chansi is not just a quality. It is a method for generating and transmitting jin (energy, power, force or strength).
Although I primarily practice Chen style forms now, I consider myself just a Taijiquan practitioner (independent of style). I began with Yang style and later learned the CMC form. I now cannot imagine Yang style without chansijn. The hands rotate back and forth while doing the Yang form. How is it that they rotate? Do the arms and hands rotate independently, or are they moved by the whole-body method of chansi jin?
[This message has been edited by Richard Johnson (edited 04-03-2006).]