Round or square?

This happened just yesterday at my taiji class. Some background: the classes are taught in Mandarin by a very good and knowledgeable laoshi (teacher) who loves to share anecdotes on culture, taiji and from his own experience.

An angmo and his chinese wife joined our class not so long ago. Through the class, I can hear the wife whispering the translation of laoshi's words to her husband.

Yesterday, laoshi talked about 外圆内方 loosely translated as 'outside-round, inside square' at the beginning of the class. It means to the outside, one must have forebearance ie 圆滑, but internally，one must be demanding towards himself.

In the middle of the class, the angmo's wife told laoshi that her husband was feeling frustrated because he cannot understand what the laoshi was saying, and laoshi seemed to be saying so much every class, and he was worried that he might be doing it wrong.

Laoshi merely smiled and say 'just follow the movements (what everyone is doing)'.

I can understand both the angmo and laoshi's difficulties. Laoshi is not telling him the full answer but the answer is not to be found in words, but in comprehension and that requires a feel for the language. For the angmo, he is very keen to learn but the barrier of language is too high to cross.