Why is it that some couples who seem to have nothing in common get on brilliantly, while others who appear on paper to be perfectly-matched lack that vital spark? Chris Ormondroyd can chart a couple's compatibility using the oriental tradition of their energy patterns. Jan Winter reports.

Introductory agencies match people according to their outward characteristics, says Chris Ormondroyd, such as what type of music they like.

"But when you meet someone, there's a lot more about it than that. When you get a clash off somebody, if you worked out their energy profiles you would probably have conflicting energies," he says.

Chris uses the oriental philosophy of the universe's energy patterns to produce a powerful insight into people's strengths and weaknesses.

He has now set up business offering individuals and couples the chance to check for areas of possible conflict and compatibility.

Check Mates uses the principles of Feng Shui - now well-known for being applied to homes to bring beneficial energies into the house - for insights into relationships with partners, children, parents and business associates. And he believes his approach makes more sense than conventional systems, which take no account of the magnetism between couples. For Prince Charles and Princess Diana, for example, their combined energy profiles showed an intense physical attraction but no other point of contact. "They should have had a very powerful physical relationship for six months and then said goodbye to each other. Their communications profiles were in conflict," says Chris.

The profiles Chris produces are individually written by him after calculations based on a person's birth date.

"The universe is composed of energy. In the west we have got hung up, because of the scientific revolution, about things being fixed and static. In the east there was a spiritual belief about the composition of things as a form of energy.

"In language for example, western language is very much based on nouns. If you have a language like that it gives the idea that things are fixed. In traditional Chinese the language is verb-based. It's based on movement and there's more subtlety."

In Chinese, there is a concept of "no-change change", says Chris. "If you look at a mountain, for the time you are going to be about it will not have made a movement. Yet over many years it does change but it's so slow you can't perceive it. Even the most static thing has a dynamic to it, hence the emphasis on energy, known as chi or ki."

Eastern thought and philosophy does not see things in terms of opposites, of one thing or the other, but more as each thing containing the germ of its opposite.

"In the west we see everything in black and white. It's not really like that, but that's the language we have got," says Chris.

"You are not fixed or bound by your energies. Once you know what your energy profile is, you can see what energies you don't have and can work with those and compensate for not having them. It's being in command of your own existence."

There are nine energies: moving water; earth; wood and thunder; wood and wind; primal earth, a most powerful energy; metal and heaven; metal and still water; earth in its mountain; and fire.

For couples, Chris produces an individual energy profile for each person looking at their energies in the areas of identity, communication and lifestyle. Then he matches the two together looking for potential points of conflict as well as of harmony. Chris says working out the profiles of a couple embarking on a relationship is not saying it will or won't work, but points out areas of possible conflict which people can be aware of.

He has created profiles for people embarking on new relationships, as wedding presents for couples, and for those who want to get on in their careers.

Now 50, Chris has spent 20 years teaching in further and higher education, working at Wakefield College until a round of redundancies left him unemployed. His speciality was sociology and he has an interest in oriental thought and philosophy.

Chris Ormondroyd and Check Mates can be contacted at 11 Highfield Road, Frizinghall, Bradford BD9 4NY, telephone 01274 480408.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.