Incomplete tai chi
Tai chi is a
form of martial art and martial arts are functional.
You cannot separate the art of tai chi from its application.
(Cheng Man Ching)
Partial knowledge
Our
culture is saturated with health-only tai chi teachers.
Countless well-meaning amateurs perpetuate the widespread perception of
tai chi
being some pseudo-martial
art designed for the elderly and the infirm.
These teachers are teaching an imbalanced syllabus and
fail
to offer the complete art.
The art is slowly being ruined,
watered
down to a point where there is nothing
internal
left.
What's the big deal?
Teachers
who possess a limited grasp of tai chi run the risk of passing on bad habits,
misconceptions and errors.
This could prove quite dangerous for the student.
Many new starters have existing health problems, such as knee or back injuries.
It is crucial that the teacher has the wherewithal to cope with these people,
and can adjust their training accordingly.
Blind adherence/rote learning is unwise.
Students need to work on themselves, feel what is happening with their body,
mind and emotions.
Only a skilled and experienced teacher has the capacity to guide students
safely and considerately.
Driving a car
Imagine if you wanted to learn how to drive a car...
What would you think if the instructor took you into a room, set out two chairs
and asked you to mimic his movements precisely?
You never sit in an actual car, you just pretend.
Could you honestly claim to have any understanding of what it means to drive a
car?
Would you even be capable of driving a real car?
This is what health-only tai chi is like.
The height of cultivation runs to simplicity.
Half-way cultivation runs to ornamentation.
(Bruce Lee)
Tai chi is a martial art.
Therefore, if you lack
tai chi self defence skills, what can you
possibly know about tai chi?
Your knowledge has no context and consequently no meaning.
How we move the body in tai chi stems from the needs of self defence.
You also gain feedback from being in physical relationship with other people,
from trying it out for real.
Health-only practice is like learning how to drive a car without ever sitting in
a car. Your understanding of tai chi has to be flawed.
How can I become a teacher?
Many people expect to become a tai chi teacher overnight.
This is an unfortunate by-product of questionable tai chi schools who make
false promises and hand out teaching certificates to people who possess no skill
whatsoever.
You can only teach tai chi once you have gained an advanced-level
understanding of the art and know how to articulate it to a class of people such
that they can learn something too.
Trainee teachers know the art. They are long-term students with considerable
experience in tai chi.
If you do not know it yourself, what can you possibly teach?
Expect to be studying for a decade before you are taught how to teach somebody
else.
2 year courses &
weekend seminars
There are tai chi organisations that promise to make you an instructor within
2 years.
Others believe that you can learn tai chi from a weekend seminar.
How should we respond to such claims?
With laughter. It is the only appropriate response.
Please be honest with yourself: do you earnestly believe that you can learn a
sophisticated martial art within 2 years? Or in one weekend?
And if you did attend such a course, what would the quality be like?
Would you dare put the tai chi to the test? Against a real-life armed street
assailant?
Ready to teach?
No one should consider becoming a teacher until they have
something to teach.
Many tai chi classes are tutored by people who have seen a fraction and
believe it to be the whole.
Teaching people a fragmented view of tai chi is deceptive; it denies the
student the richness of the complete art.
No matter what the style, tai chi practice must always contain the tai chi
principles.
The qualities on the list are what make the art 'tai chi'.
If your teacher does not know them, they should not be teaching anybody.
Doing some good?
Many people know their skills are lacking but continue teaching because people
like their classes.
They argue that even a limited sense of tai chi is better than none.
If somebody is unfit, walking around the block will do them good. Moving around
will do them good.
But this does not make it tai chi.
Would you be satisfied if your employer chose to only pay you 5% of your
expected salary? No.
Yet, you spend years tooling around with poor quality tai chi-style keep fit
exercise in the belief that you are receiving the complete art.
Why are you so easily satisfied? Raise your standards.
Most people are on a path with a dead end. They train ten years and they end up with nothing.
(Paul Gale)
Great teachers
There are still a lot of great tai chi teachers in the world today.
They are not likely to be famous people. Most are anonymous and keep to
themselves.
Good teachers quietly work at their tai chi.
They do not care about making a name for themselves - they may not even publish
anything or make DVD's.
Such people have given themselves over to tai chi and tao.
You will know them by their softness and ease, by their ability to manifest the
martial without any nonsense.
They will not be macho. They will not be boastful. They will not enter
competitions. They do not require approval or praise.
A good teacher has a consummate grasp of their art.
They will not claim to know it through and through, or consider themselves to be
'a master of tai chi'.
But they will have a very extensive syllabus and the ability to successfully
pass on those skills.
Their role is a modest one: they perpetuate good tai chi. They serve the
student and the art..
Page created 25 August 1999