Tim,

In the Lo De Xiu seminar at your school, Lo mentioned that it wasn't absolutely necessary to have good structure at all times--just when actually making contact or applying power. (However, he also said that only highly skilled practitioners could get away with not having good structure at all times). It puzzled me a little at the time, but I figured probably what he meant was that due to the exigencies of actual fighting, you might have to duck and bob and weave, and in the course of that, you might not have ideal structure at every moment. I passed a lot of Lo's comments on to an "Internal Strength" mailing list, and some silly purist basically said that Lo couldn't possibly have meant what he said. Could you explain a little more about this?

I think your interpretation of what Luo said about structure is basically correct. The idea is to train with strict and correct structure when learning a new movement skill or technique, and then, once the feeling of correct structure is internalized, you shold "forget" about it on a conscious level, and return to natural movement. Obviously, you cannot be focused on your structure while really fighting, it has to have been trained to the point of being automatically and "naturally" correct. The only way to internalize correct structure and movement is to pay close attention to it during training without too much pressure. Once internalized, you no longer need focus on your posture and movement and can focus on the opponent when actually fighting. At this level, structure will naturally "come out" as appropriate.
Think about learning to drive. At first, the novice driver will have to drive slowly and carefully, with complete attention to every movement (the exact "structure" of driving skills). After driving for a time, you can control the car, eat, listen to radio and hold a conversation at the same time, all without conscious effort. The structure of driving has become internalized, and is now natural.