The way of moving in Tai Chi, I was told, should be like the action of drawing silk out of the cocoon: slow, smooth, steady. If you do not pull firmly enough, nothing will happen; if you pull too sharply the thread will break. Cool, gentle and firm was the way to wind the fine thread onto a reel: this was for many years the image which I understood. So when I heard Chen Xiao Wang’s explanation of the name, I was startled. He likened the internal movements of chansijin to the writhings of the silkworm as it creates silk from within itself. The taiji body wreathes and writhes in an ever changing pattern of connected turnings. It was not the silk, it was the worm.

Kinthissa, Turning Silk: A Diary of Chen Taiji Practice, the Quan of Change