Master Ma Yueliang - the son-in-law of the credited founder of the Wu Style, Wu Jianquan - was born at the turn of the Century, and lived until recently in Shanghai. He had possibly the most complete knowledge of the Wu Taiji system apart from the founder himself. I first met him in 1991 when we looked after him for a few days before his return to China. He had been visiting family in various countries around the world. He offered a demonstration at our school in return for hospitality received. Most interesting was the Fast Form. He completed the first half and then sat down. This apparently was all he ever showed. After looking thoughtful for a minute he stood up and completed it, for the first time ever in public. He was obviously in a good mood.

Though normally talking little, Master Ma and I finally established a good conversation, when I realised he understood better English than the translator we were initially using. He explained that 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 some of the teaching was in English. Interestingly as well, I discovered, he was good friends with Grand Master Cheng Man-Ching, and that they met daily and 'practiced Chinese chess' together over a period of 3 years. That two of the greatest exponents of Taiji in the world managed to met daily and only play chess, I find a little hard to imagine. 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 or Deep Mind. Though I had made this aspect of Taiji my speciality, I had no chance to match this 93 year old man with almost 80 years experience. I asked him my weaknesses, and one that he mentioned was that I kept my arms too close to my body, giving the partner more chance to attack. Later when I showed a video of Master Ma to my teacher Master Huang, his first comment was that Master Ma kept his arms to far out! Obviously from this it is clear that both methods can be made to w