Weaving a silky cocoon - the Tai Chi way

At a recent session, Sifu John talked about maintaining a rocking motion in the easy tai chi form, calling it Chan Su Chin or Chan Xu Jing, depending on your Chinese - please correct me if this is incorrect! It's kind of like weaving a silky cocoon - not sure of the exact translation...anyone want to have a try? Leave your translation in the comments area at the end of this post!

Larvae spin silken cocoons and pupate inside. (Photo by Lacy L. Hyche)

Sifu was referring to the softness and smoothness of the movements of each posture and the connecting movements between postures in the easy tai chi form. Sifu considers this one of the fundamentals of Yang style T'ai Chi Chu'an. It reminds me too of the saying: smooth as silk and also light as a feather! You may notice this too when you are doing pushing hands.

The following link shows a slideshow of Master Chen Wei Ming doing the Tai Chi form. Chen Wei Ming was the senoir student of Yang Chen Fu, the great master of what is now our Yang style T'ai chi today!

Doing Tai Chi demonstrations

Image source: BIOM.net

Those of you who are interested in doing a tai chi demo and can be available on Tuesday May 17 at 1-2pm and/or Thursday May 19 12-1pm, please contact either Brendan or Marg via email or at training.

It would be great to have 10-15 people (or more!!) from the club join in the demos so we can also show the strength of the club as well as the great progress everyone has made in the form!

We would like to demonstrate:
1. easy tai chi format
2. maybe push hands
3. some of the sword form (you can see what you can train up to!)

Please let us know by Thursday May 5th (next week). May thanks!! :oD