Teaching is much more difficult than just standing at the front and talking or demonstrating. To be really competent requires considerable experience, as well as the ability to convey information in an incremental fashion, appropriate to the target audience.
A teacher should have an effortless grasp of the material. They should move with softness, fluidity, grace and whole-body strength. The self defence applications should also seem easy. They should never become angry, stiff or tense.
Without awareness you have no tai chi. Awareness can only come about through feeling and sensitivity. Your teacher should create situations that require you to feel.
The greater your awareness, the better your tai chi.
The only real weapon in our approach to tai chi is you. It is essential to regard your own body and mind as the weapon.
You must regard your body as a structure that can be employed creatively against somebody else.
When you pick up a weapon, it must become an extension of your body: part of your body. If the weapon does not move as part of you, set it aside.
Do not think of your hands as the main self defence weapon. Your body is the weapon - in particular the weight of the torso. Hands and feet are just a means of gaining contact with somebody else. You must feed movement and energy through your limbs and into the other person.
The knife is a very popular and dangerous weapon. We learn how to defend against it.
Students are not taught how to use a knife in self defence.
The mind is more powerful than the body.
Without achieving the appropriate state of calm awareness, picking up a stick or throwing a punch is a waste of time.
Intent powers the weapon, so the mind must be trained far harder than the body.
Although we teach weaponry, unarmed self defence comes first. If you cannot defend yourself against a punch, kick, grapple or knife, why bother learning how to use a sword?
Weapons practice in the lower grades is quite limited. The weapons are seen as a means to develop other skills, rather than an end in themselves. They can help to train whole-body usage and improve fa jing.
· precision
· better peng
· increased strength
· increased striking power
· better muscle tone in the arms, back and torso
· agility and footwork (none of the weapons forms are slow forms)
Dr Michael Greger (author of How Not To Die) recommends 90 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise every day.
The three doctors who wrote The Okinawa Program maintain that tai chi - with its ancient origins and incredible health benefits - is the ideal workout for modern people.
If this sounds like a lot of exercise, why not chop it up into smaller increments spaced throughout the day?
When you are in class and something is being explored, do not be passive. Think it through, understand it. Find the strengths and weaknesses; figure it out for yourself.
Following another is pointless; it will simply lead to ignorance and dependency, neither of which is desirable.
Within every lesson surrounding the tai chi practice there is a Taoist insight that pertains to how we interact with the world around us. The insight may concern physics, biology, philosophy or human relationship. There is never just a surface meaning.
A skilful student intuits what is really being taught.
The word 'lesson' has two common definitions:
A structured period of time where learning occurs
A moral or message
Tai chi lessons should not be comparable to learning Spanish cookery at night school or line dancing. They should combine both meanings of the word 'lesson'.
Students should learn new physiological skills and also gain an increasing perception of the underlying significance involved. Learning movements is not enough; there must be a deeper level to the tuition.
