Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts Blog

Watch a Silk-Reeling Class for Beginners Recorded Live with Ken Gullette

chen tai chi silk reeling silk reeling exercises spiraling movement in tai chi tai chi silk-reeling Oct 18, 2022

This class was recorded on Saturday, October 15, 2022. I invited the members of this website plus people who are on my email list who receive my Internal Tip-of-the-Week emails.

In this video, I go over the first silk-reeling exercise that I teach students. I learned this exercise from Chen Xiaowang and my first Chen taiji teacher, Jim Criscimagna. The instruction also reflects insights I've picked up from others along the way, including Chen Xiaoxing, Mark Wasson, Chen Huixian and Nabil Ranne.

This is a good example of my live Zoom classes, which I hold for members of this website. I do two live Taiji classes on Wednesdays, and I do live Zoom classes on Xingyi and Bagua at varying times. Members of the website get all the content on the site (close to 1,000 videos and pdf downloads) plus live classes and live one-on-one sessions, at no extra cost.

This video runs 32 minutes but it contains information you won't find on most silk-reeling videos.

Silk-Reeling and Self-Defense: Strategic Handling of External Force

bagua self-defense internal arts training internal self-defense silk-reeling energy spiraling movement in tai chi Jul 13, 2013

Yesterday, when my new Silk-Reeling Energy ebook was released through Amazon's Kindle, a couple of friends gave me grief for believing -- they thought -- in an invisible mystical energy that can't be measured by scientific methods.

My partner attempts to do an armbar.

I laughed, because the use of the word "energy" throws off a lot of Westerners. Let me clarify. And as I do, I will show some photos of a self-defense application for one of the exercises that are described in the Silk-Reeling Energy ebook and on the Silk-Reeling DVD.

When the Chinese talk about a certain energy, such as the 8 Energies of Taiji, it is a bad translation when we think of it as a scientifically valid energy. Actually, it is a method or particular skill that helps you strategically handle external force that is applied to you -- a punch, for example.

I begin spiraling the elbow away from his force.

Think of it like a good baseball hitter -- my hero Pete Rose, for example. Pete was not a gifted at...

Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

Watch a Silk-Reeling Class for Beginners Recorded Live with Ken Gullette

Silk-Reeling and Self-Defense: Strategic Handling of External Force

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