"Don't insist, don't resist" - this is where the magic happens

Dr Tao used to say "don't insist, don't resist". This was his translation for the expression Bu Dui Bu Ding . This is one of the most important features of Taichichuan. When you push back against your opponent, you engage your tendons, which act as kinetic bridges allowing the force of your opponent to cross all those bridges/joints and meet your feet , de-stabilizing you . The end result is you will feel that you are in a struggle in which the strongest person wins . The other error is to disconnect from the contact by retreating or pulling away slightly. This allows for momentum to build up, which is difficult to overcome. When I am being pushed , any intent in my mind or body to resist the push is a form of interacting with your partners power in a way that actually gives them power. The idea is to mentally disregard their power which allows the tissue to soften naturally. When this skill is developing, you then learn to sequentially release from the root to the middle to the tip which acts to draw the opponent's horizontal force vector into a vertical vector. Once it becomes a vertical force factor then their power actually adds to your power instead of de-stabilizing it. This is very subtle in terms of success or failure. The slightest twinge of resistance is failure and learning to not give that resistant response overtime develops into a sensitivity, where one uses their own listening skill within their own body to make sure that they are not violating principles regarding strength . The quality of the tissue changes from rigid to soft, allowing for hydraulic and other energetic transfers to occur. If you look at this purely from a mechanical standpoint, the more Song/released that I am , the more opportunity I have to explode, even if I'm using my muscles . The following example shows me getting into the opening posture of a tai chi form while Aaron pushes on me from the side or pulls on me . If I am concerned whether they're going to push or pull, then that means that I am endeavoring to resist that force with some bracing or some pull back and that is an error. This is very much faith based and it is something that is cultivated with partner work. Your partner has to give enough force to tip you if you resist, but not all the force that they can give . You build up overtime to excepting bigger and bigger forces through success of weaker forces and the reinforcement of faith. When these arts are approached from a competitive standpoint, your training partner basically put all of their efforts into your continual failure until you will abandon developing such skills as pointless. This is the reason that I moved away from competition many many years ago, and made a sincere promise to myself, that I would achieve the results without using strength in accordance with the classics.

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