Beginners

A tai chi beginner is not adept with tai chi so they need to do a lot of qigong. It provides the necessary fitness benefits by serving as a stopgap pending higher level tai chi skill.

Transcendence

An instructor should aim to train every student up to their level and foster the skills necessary to go further. This approach benefits the teacher as well, because a skilled student offers better partner practice and a greater challenge.

It also reflects their ability to teach. A student is not defined by their teacher. They can exceed the teacher.

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.

Awareness

Tai chi involves the cultivation of moment-by-moment awareness, paying attention to what is taking place as it is taking place.

Unlike mainstream meditation, this does not involve sitting. It is an active process, involving your body as well as your mind.

The physicality of the art enables you to take the skills immediately and directly into everyday life.

Effortless

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.

Awareness

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.

Weaponry

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.

The body as the weapon

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.

Rubber knife

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 as a weapon

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.

Be realistic

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.

What is the point of doing weapons?

·  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)

 Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools.

He uses them only when he has no choice.

Peace and quiet are dear to his heart.

And victory no cause for rejoicing.

If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing;

If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfil yourself.

(Lao Tzu)

Daily exercise

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?

Do not follow

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.