When asked why his students did not make his acheivements, Cheng Man Ching replied ” Faith, they do not have enough faith to believe it’s possible…” The first character in Mr. Chans four character secret is 信 – Xin – to believe, trust, because this is necessary for any of the other achievements to occur. The amount of strength necessary to abandon is so tiny and delicate that you would give up long before you make the achievement. I was free playing with a skilled sports push hands practitioner and when I had an opportunity to push him and didn’t he asked why. I told him it was because I would not have been able to push him without strength in that particular situation so I didn’t push him at all. He then said well why don’t I just turn it on and off when I need it ? I replied that it would become habitual and that I am trying to move away from those kind of responses. I am trying to “invest in loss”. I am trying to “give up my self to follow others”. If you stay faithful and stay on whatever path you have chosen , you have a good chance of making an achievement. It is like having a good recipe. If you follow the recipe to the letter, then you are likely to produce very similar results. The bottom line is that the qualities in the body necessary to actually perform Taijiquan are very light, very soft, and very delicate…
