|
|
||
| Lineage student of taijiquan | ||
classes qigong tai chi kung fu about us reviews a-z
.JPG)
Inner teachings
Before asking about being a lineage student, you must become an
indoor student of tai chi first.
Should you be successful as an indoor student, your instructor will determine
whether or not to offer you to opportunity to become a lineage student.
Legacy
Tai chi experts are always on the lookout for the unique student
capable of being their successor.
Yang Lu-chan only found a handful.
Yang Cheng Fu even less.
Peter Southwood only found 1.
Successor?
Sifu
Waller invites his keenest students to become a lineage student.
He is looking for strong candidates eager to
steal his art, to learn his every tai chi secret.
For the serious martial artist, this is truly the opportunity of a
lifetime...
But, we warned: time wasting will not be tolerated.
Prove yourself sincere
The first task is to gain experience.
Quite literally: put your money where your mouth is. If your ambition is not grounded in the fact of your training, you are
merely a talker.
You want to be
a lineage student?
The student must meet certain criteria:
At least 5 years unbroken tai chi training with our school
An indoor student of tai chi
Weekly private lessons
Twice-weekly attendance
Commitment to daily home training
Sense of humour
Combat skills
Passing grades quickly
Family member or black belt standard
High level of competence with qigong
Burgeoning skill with neigong
High level of competence with form
Studying tai chi
No attitude problems/ego/arrogance
Attend all classes, workshops and training opportunities
Enthusiasm with shido-geiko (learning-by-helping) responsibilities
School spirit
Takes the initiative when it comes to promoting/supporting the class
Undertake study, research and assignments with enthusiasm
Suitable
candidates will be told what lineage student training entails.
Lineage student
A lineage student is not simply a
student or an indoor student.
By definition, a 'lineage student' follows and disseminates a teaching.
An exceptional degree of
skill is required.
The lineage student must be exemplary in every
regard.
No lies. No
excuses.
It is quite common for lineage students to mess
the instructor about.
They have good intentions that are not
reflected in their level of commitment.
Lineage tuition requires sincerity, the most
serious mind.
Taking
responsibility
Being a lineage student is about making a commitment to learn everything
that your instructor knows about the art.
Their total syllabus.
Lineage is about making a major sacrifice in terms of time,
effort and money.
It requires a rapid growth in skill.
There must be the long-term goal of teaching
the art to others.
Year of hell
A lineage candidate will be given one year to prove themselves serious.
They will be expected to train far harder
than anyone else in the school.
No latitude will be given.
The year will end with combat against all other tai chi members in the
school.
Unsuccessful candidates may resume practice as a regular student once
more.
Hard work
If accepted as a lineage student, the training will become harder still...
The journey is long and the climb is very steep.
Should the student's resolve/commitment weaken at any point, the
indoor tuition will be over.
Time scale
Lineage training usually involves an intense period of tuition lasting 10-20
years.
The lineage student will be expected to take hundreds of private lessons, attend weekly
lessons throughout, workshops and lineage sessions.
Demanding daily practice, study and research is a must.
Acknowledgement
A lineage student has to be formally acknowledged
as such by the expert.
To become a lineage student, you must undertake the bai shi ceremony and be
publicly accepted as a lineage student by the expert.
Their long-term lineage status is contingent upon their
on-going conduct and
progress.
My own thinking is that a
sensei is very much like another kind of person who is responsible for
important matters. A person who, like the sensei seems to be from another
age, a person of rare and unique gifts. The sensei, it seems to me, is very
much like a vintner.
A vintner is the person who produces wine. He is the one who is responsible
for it, from the planting of the grape vines, all the way until the raw wine
is poured into casks to age. The vintner is the talented individual who can
look at a particular hillside or a handful of soil and can tell you which
kinds of grapes will grow best there, what kind of yield you can expect. He
knows when the grapes need to be pruned. He makes vital decisions throughout
the growing season, to fertilize, to spray for bugs. He must decide when to
pick them in the fall, to wait for a few more days to let them fully ripen
or to pick now and beat out the rain that can adversely affect the whole
harvest.
The vintner is responsible for the blend of grapes that go into fermentation
tanks. He must add the sugars if they're needed, to begin the fermentation
process. In short, he is the guy responsible for the wine from the time the
grape vines are planted or bud out, until the moment the wine is on its own,
so to speak, when it has been put in casks and must now age and develop
according to the qualities inherent in it.
Doesn't this sound very much like the sensei's task? He is the person
responsible for a student, from the time that student enters the training
hall until the crucial period of the training process has been completed.
The sensei is a person, then, in my estimation, who can take a person of raw
and unknown potential and turn out a complete and worthwhile product. He can
oversee the process from beginning to end.
(Dave Lowry)
Transcendence
An instructor should aim to train every lineage
student up to their level and
foster
the skills necessary to go further.
A lineage student is not
defined/limited by their teacher.
They can exceed the instructor.
Consider people such as Einstein or Mozart.
Clearly Einstein exceeded the sum of his teacher's expertise; he is
considered to be one of the most powerful thinkers of all time...
What was his physics teacher called? Every good teacher wants the student to exceed their own limitations.
Page created 2 March 1995
Last updated
16 June 2023
▲