The foregoing passage represents the gist of Chen Wei-Ming's recorded comments made by his teacher Yang Chen Fu.

I have eliminated some of the repetitive references to acupuncture meridians and the resemblance to rivers and the similarity of the flow of Qi and water. I feel these connections tend to mislead and confuse we erstwhile martially inclined practitioners, although I would assume the confusion has arisen from the translation.

In their original form of pictograms perhaps they were meaningfully simple. There appears to be this underlying suggestion that if you can relax, chill out, smooth the meridians project the Qi, there is more power to your elbow. This is not to deny the theory of Qi and all its universal applications and benefits, however in my experience the use of power (not force) has a number of other aces up the sleeve, and when you are on the receiving end it feels mystical although there is nothing mystical about it at all. It's the result of many hours of sweat and hard work.

In one of Professor Li Deyin's talks at Dudley he referred to the strategy of the Vietnam war and how the most powerful nation was unable to subdue the Vietcong, one employing sledgehammer force, the other using guerrilla tactics. There are many examples in history of strategic withdrawal of an inferior force leading to eventual victory, appearing to lose the battle but winning the war.

In the American War of Independence there is no better example of a strategic withdrawal than the colonial force's evacuation of Bunker Hill, Boston. The art of warfare is often quoted in reference to Chinese martial arts and a number of systems of Chinese Wushu have as their historical connection military personages.

With hindsight it's easy to admire great military feats even perhaps for those of passive leaning. On reflection all military success is born of intelligence, planning, cunning and is therefore in the doman of the mind (thought and will).

Many of the attributes required for good pushing hands (Tui Shou) are developed in the repetitive practice of correct form, otherwise why would Yang Cheng Fu leave his ten important points for practice. If we bear in mind that the ten points are unitive when we research number six the question is "do we employ the previous five instructions" and if we do we have surely reached the point of 'Engage Mind'.

This is one facet that separates Taiji from most other activities. If we are not using our will to direct meditative awareness to our movements in form practice are we really practising correctly? To use the military analogy, how can we apply softness or simply not be there when force or brute strength is exerted upon us. Perhaps softness overcoming hardness is the wrong use of semantics in translation, if we can replace (at the risk of upsetting the purist) the word 'softness' with 'redirect' or 'neutralise' the connection with the art of war is a little easier to see.

So, take a look at the idea of extreme softness becoming extremely hard. If you take a tennis ball and its relative softness and try to crush it with your hand it will reveal its inherent hardness, this is similar to looking at the softness of an egg and being naive enough to think it can be crushed in a palm. I tried this gag on my grandchildren recently, they were all convinced it would be quite simple to crush an egg. It is quite easy to accept that anything soft, given enough compression, its density will change to hardness.

Providing we can develop the Taiji concept of rooting, relaxing totally and allowing our adversary to compact us into our root, softness in the guise of mindful relaxation can have changed the structure to relative hardness.

When Howard Choy visited (from Australia) I put the question to him regarding the use of Qi in Taijiquan. In a number of ways Howard, as a Taiji practitioner of Chinese extraction, trained as a professional architect, westernised without losing contact with his cultural instincts made me feel quite optimistic about his reply. His answer was simple and devoid of mystery and nonsense: "In a nutshell, its a metaphor fo a process."

When using power (not brute force) the power must follow a correct route, the route is from the root (controlled, compressed relaxation) through a correct structure to any point of contact. The correct structure also aligns the meridians and this process can be referred to as 'Whole Body Power'. Any point of tension in the structure creates the possibility of disturbing the equilibrium (the pulling of one hair). An important point in the relaxation process is what we learn as sinking the Qi to the Dan Tien, the whole area of the hips, abdomen, inguinal creases, need to be relaxed and open to allow the passage to the root in the feet to be open.

This simply allows the body mass to respond to the pull of gravity. Human beings are subject to the laws of our universe, the physics, gravity, matter and energy. I feel our consciousness is linked to gravity. In certain states of consciousness (fainting, sleeping etc) we surrender our gravity, perhaps this is a clue to use the mind and not force in Taijiquan.

Meditative attention to what we are doing is elevating our consciousness, expanding our awareness and increasing our sense of gravity (we are down to earth). Sounds quite practical when you write it down, but we know it takes a lifetime or two or three.

Whole Body Power Response

It can be an interesting exercise to find words in English that give a flavour to the nature of the power response. Early writers used to refer to three types of Taiqi structures, wood: too hard; grass: too soft; bamboo: was a mental image to

nurture when training form or push hands. Power response can be triggered from retreating into compressed relaxation and rooting (neutralising the incoming force).

Two words that conjure up positive images for me. The first one is "Tenacity" - holding fast, strongly cohesive, immovable, unyielding, adhesive and sticky. The second is "Resile" - to recoil, spring back, rebound, to recover form and position elastically. From resile: resilience, elasticity, physical and mental.

So the process can be described thus, incoming brute force can be intercepted with resilience and tenacity and then employ the meaning of the word resile (recoil) as the power response. Perhaps the foregoing description can construe a

little light on "Use the Mind and Not Force."