Many years ago a renowned Tai Chi Master arrived unannounced at my teacher's class accompanied by a large group of his faithful accolytes. Armed with a camera , his intention was obvious - he wanted to kick our butts and display the photographic evidence of our inferiority to the Martial World.

Having stated quite equivocally that neither my teacher nor myself were in possession of the mysterious "Qi" power much sought after in the Tai Chi World he proposed that his 6ft4ins student demonstrate his "Qi" powers on my teacher in the Tai Chi way - a pushing hands contest.

My teacher declined the invitation indicating that he would only test his skills against the Master however his student could test himself against me.

I am not very tall, 5ft7ins, and weighed considerably less than my opponent. Bearing this in mind it seems to me that he imust have thought that he could blow me away very easily. I prepared myself by settling into my stance and closing my eyes to remove all distractions. He rushed at me at high speed and attempted to knock me over. The moment I felt contact with him I reacted and the fellow ended up on his back much to the surprise of everybody present, especially myself as I had used hardly any force to bring about this effect. It was many years later before I realised how I achieved that particular feat, but that is another story.

Suffice it to say the Master tried to brush it off as a fluke and said "Again". This time his student didn't even wait for me to get into position and was at me with his knee in my groin. I reacted to this situation by stepping away from his knee, while spinning him off balance before pushing him with maximum fa jing into a wall which was about 10 ft away. The Master's response to this was "He moved his foot" and I could only concur, I had indeed moved my foot but my opponent had moved both his feet and his body and was a crumpled heap on the floor 10ft away.

I have pushed hands with many people and am constantly surprised by people who point out that I moved my foot whilst they are picking themsleves off the floor. I am a grown up, I am completely aware if I move my feet. I do not need to be informed of that fact by somebody who cannot even remain on their feet.

The question is why they feel the need to make this statement. It seems to me that they are far too concerned with winning and losing and thus are not interested in actually understanding and learning. If I were thrown to the ground my first thoughts would be to attempt to work out how my opponent did this to me I would not be concerned about inconsequential readjustments in their stance. It stems from a misunderstanding of the role of freestyle pushing hands which is fundamentally about balance and understanding the nature of force. The competitive element is useful but can bring out the worst in people. They try too hard to win and thus end up losing or even worse they attain a short term victory using underhand tactics.

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