By Cheng Man-ching
​ "I have been practicing Tai-Chi Chuan for over fifty years. Only two years ago I started to understand the word "relax". I remember my Tai-Chi Chuan teacher Yang Cheng-Fu who did not like to talk much and he used to sit all day without saying a word if no one asked him questions. However, in our T'ai-chi class he would tell us to "relax" repeatedly. Sometimes it seemed like he would say the word hundreds of times during the practice so that the word could fill up my ears."...
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"To study Tai Chi Chuan means to learn to relax. Relax, let go of all tension, all hardness, be soft. Hardness is the discipline of death; softness if the discipline of life. So, wherever you identify tension or hardness let it go. Relax completely. This is what it means to study Tai Chi Chuan."
- Cheng Man-Ching