He who is a teacher from the very heart
takes all things seriously only with reference to his students
- even himself.
(Nietzsche)
Teacher
Your tai chi
teacher is not a guru.
They serve simply to assist you in discovering tai chi for yourself.
If the teacher becomes the focus of attention, both you and they are missing
the point entirely.
The tai chi is the focus, not the
teacher.
A good teacher leads from behind.
The
syllabus should be
designed
in such a way that the student is provided with opportunities to explore tai
chi.
You must find it for yourself, feel it for yourself.
Copying
Copying your teacher is not the same as learning.
When copying, you are limited:
By your capacity to accurately see what is happening
By your perception of the material
By your ability to reproduce the appearance
Tai chi is about substance, not
copying - we are concerned with the internal, not the appearance.
You are not seeking to mimic the teachers tai chi - you need to
understand it
for yourself.
Learning is an organic process; you must grow and feel.
Putting the parts of tai chi together mechanically will never result in good
practice.
The
spirit of the discipline will be lacking.
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.
Fun
Learning tai chi may seem pretty intense; there is so much to study and
the practice never stops.
If the lessons feel like hard work, you are probably trying too hard.
Without fun and
humour, learning a martial art can become
unpleasant or unsafe.
The class needs to have a positive atmosphere.
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 tai chi 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.
Transcendence
A teacher 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.
Page created 8 October 2002