If all you learn is a lot of forms, you just become a good dancer.
(James Wing Woo)
Workshops can be useful
It can be quite useful to attend workshops offered by renowned
teachers.
Yet, it is important to consider your motive in going.
If you are wanting some potential tips and pointers, new ideas to play with
- this is most likely what you will get from the experience.
If you are wanting the secret of tai chi, you may be looking in the wrong
place.
There is no
quick fix, ready
answer or moment of enlightenment.
Careful daily practice with awareness will yield the best results.
You can learn more from hours of solitary practice than at a workshop if you
are prepared to be patient and really pay attention.
Workshops can be pointless
What can you learn from one workshop or a weekend seminar?
Is a visiting
master really going to bare his secrets to a room of total strangers?
Will a fragment/taster of an unfamiliar form/sequence really improve your
overall tai chi skill?
Be
honest about this.
Training with a renowned teacher in no way translates to mean that you have
been given that person's skill.
The only proof of skill lies with the individual. What can you do?
Your
teacher may be brilliant at tai chi but you might be lousy. Similarly, your
teacher may be mediocre yet your skills are excellent.
Impatience
Tai chi is simply not for the
impatience
person.
If you are restless and desperate to possess
fa jing, you are
learning the wrong martial
art.
This is a scholars art.
You must be slow and patient, calm and methodical.
Forms
A good form is not necessarily style-specific.
Yang, Chen, Wu, Sun, Hao and Cheng Man Ching are all different
approaches to the same basic principles.
Providing your form is good for your body and contains the
tai chi
principles - it is probably worth learning.
Find one form that works for you and practice it thoroughly.
Page created 25 May 1998