Reeling Silk

For thousands of years the Chinese have cultivated silk. Silk is a very delicate material to work with. To draw a silken thread out of a cocoon the action must be very smooth and even with no jerkiness or changes of direction. Otherwise the thread will snap. Too fast and the silk breaks, too slow and it sticks to itself and becomes tangled.

The concept of reeling silk has been used in the Chinese martial arts for centuries, particularly in the art of tai chi. Different schools describe and teac…