I have included excerpts from Patrick Kelly’s ‘Infinite Dao’ denoting his involvement with Grand Master Ma Yeuliang of the Wu Style Tai chi.

Main New Zealand 1991

During 1991 Master Ma Yueliang - son-in-law of Wu Jianquan the founder of Wujia (Wu family or Wu style) Taijiquan - spent time at my school in Auckland. For the previous 6 months he had been living in Wellington with his 2 close Chinese students, MS and her husband SY. Master Ma Yueliang (1901-1999) and his wife Wu Yinghua (1907-1996) were en route to their home in Shanghai. Master Ma almost certainly had the most complete knowledge of Wujia Taijiquan of all who were alive at that time. Page 259

Though normally talking little, Master Ma and I finally established a good conversation, when we both realised he understood better English than the translator - though his speech was halting at first. Understandably so, given his explanation that in the past he had been fluent in English but had not spoken it for 40 years. Apparently he had been a professor in medical biology at Shanghai University before the Second World War. Many of the other professors were from the USA and most of the teaching was in English. Page 259

Interestingly as well, I discovered that he was good friends with Grandmaster Zheng Manqing and that they had met daily and "practised Chinese chess" together over a period of several years. Could two of the greatest exponents of Taiji in the world have managed to meet daily and only play chess? I find that a little hard to imagine, although on a subsequent visit to his family home in Shanghai he actually produced that same chess board for my inspection as if to prove his point. Page 259

Master Ma Yueliang gave an exhibition at our Auckland Taiji School in return for hospitality received. Wu Yinghua demonstrated the Slow Taiji-form while MS performed the Taiji-sword. Most interesting was Master Ma's Fast Taiji-form. He completed the first half and then sat down. This apparently was all he ever showed in public. After looking thoughtful for a minute he stood up and continued on through to the end, for the first time ever in public, I was told. He appeared to be in a good mood. Finally he demonstrated the Wujia Taiji Pushing hands, fixed step, moving step and free style - throwing his student SY effortlessly across the room. Page 260

Master Ma was generous enough to do some free pushing with me, and I found his excellence to be in the realm of the Yi and Deep Mind. Though this aspect of Taiji was my speciality, there was no chance to match a 93 year old man with almost 80 years experience. I asked him my principal weakness and he suggested that I kept my, "Arms too close to the body, giving the partner more chance to attack." Master Ma, in applications, would extend his arms out to meet his partner, then lead them in from a safe distance. This required strong shoulder girdle control and power. To that end he practised the "9 foot pole". Even in his 90s he was easily capable of maintaining this heavy pole horizontally at arm's length while grasping only one end. He also spent time daily, training shoulder rotations. Later when I showed a video of Master Ma to my teacher Master Huang, his first comment was that Master Ma kept his arms too far out! Obviously from this it is clear that both methods can be made to work. Personally now, I believe that it is better to practise both short and long varying it according to the circumstances. Page 260

Intercepting-jin There was one important feature of both Master Huang's and Master Ma's Pushing-hands, that made these two Taiji experts stand out from all the others that I met. It was the ability to deliver their Taiji-jin along the arms of their partner wherever they were touched, even when their partner was attempting to be relaxed. I worked on this myself, recreating the method I observed these two using and after many false leads, found the path which slowly develops this ability. Initially, I naively believed it was just a matter of catching the partner's arms when they were contracted into a fixed structure, then delivering a sharp force from which the partner had no time to withdraw. But this is merely, once again, greater force and greater speed, the old trademark of the external arts. Page 262

Shanghai 1994 I returned to China at the end of 1994, 2 years after the death of Master Huang, to pay my respects to Master Ma Yueliang, taking up his latent offer to question him further on the deeper aspects of Taiji practice. I found him in good health, even though about to turn 95 years old. He was still living happily, with his 91 year old wife, in the family house of Wu Jianquan. Master Ma's mind was exceptionally alert and he divined the essence of my questions at once, thereafter spending many hours explaining and illustrating the ideas involved. Page 263

During our discussion on the involved subject of "Peng-jin" ("wardoff energy") Master Ma asked me to wait while he went to another room, returning with the "secret training manual" of Wu Jianquan - perhaps 2cm thick, containing tightly handwritten text with numerous diagrams. There was a whole section on "Peng-jin". The notion that analysis of the details of the art is a "Western" approach whereas non-thinking osmotic absorption is "Chinese" was proven at that moment to be completely false. The truth is that traditionally the details of the teaching were only given out to a few Inner School pupils, the rest pinning their hopes on osmosis. Both what you see in the parks of China or the typical class in the West are equally lacking the inner details for exactly the same obvious reason. During our discussion Master Ma confirmed this, "Knowing the small details gives the possibility of going deeply into Taijiquan" - echoing Master Huang Xingxian's comment, "There are no secrets in Taiji, just things too small to be seen." Page 264

Patrick Kelly's book 'Infinite Dao' can be obtained from 1) Patrick's Website 2) Mandala bookshop.