Finding My Teachers

It is natural to want the best teacher possible. I grew up at a time when is was still considered a good thing to be smart (well before Reagan started taking apart the schools and Bush made everyone feel good about being stupid: "hey, the prez is dumber than me, so it must be alright to be stupid!"). In high school we read about "oriental" thinking. On our own, of course. I had an English teacher that wanted to prove to me that Noah's Ark really existed. Of course I turned in a term paper on the Tao Te Ching to her. That was the only English course I ever took that I didn't ace. You see, it was the post-beatnik and pre-flower child era, so we read "On The Road" and Ginsberg's "Howl" and Alan Watts' "The Way of Zen." That of course led to the harder stuff: Taoism, The Tao Te Ching and ultimately, the I Ching. It seems strange to me that I waited another 40 years to discover Tai Chi.

My teacher #1, Michael DeMarco, has an interesting article called "Finding My Teachers" in which he describes studying Tai Chi in Taiwan with his teacher, Yang Qingyu. There was a language barrier so instruction was by observation and imitation, with an occasional correction (like a slap on the head!) Often, we will chose a teacher because the class meets at a convenient time or place. In a way, that's how I discovered Michael's class. I did actually have a teacher #0, a guy named Greg, who taught Wu style over the lunch hour at a health center in Santa Fe. Greg was a good teacher, but I only stayed with him about a month because I got a job and couldn't make the time work out. Then I heard about this guy from Pennsylvania who had started a class that met in the evening near my job. That was the main criteria that led me to Michael. I feel very very lucky to have found him. Maybe, as he says in his article, quoting an old Chinese proverb, "when the student is ready, the teacher appears."

I am not the only Tai Chi Snob out there when it comes to teachers. I have read enough in Facebook Groups and Blogs about choosing teachers to know that others have strong opinions, not only about their teachers, but about the style they practice. I'll write more later about the different styles, and styles of styles, but for now I want to address the notion of teacher knowledge, influence, inspiration and purpose. We Snobs might say, ask your teacher to show you the application for that particular movement (its martial art purpose) and if they can't, run screaming from the room! Some may decide to focus on the healthful aspects of Tai Chi and may even be a little skittish  about showing applications to a class where people have not actually attended in order to be thrown bodily around the room. That's a good way to lose students. But they should know and understand that Tai Chi IS a martial art and that the movements reflect an approach to physical combat. Tai Chi is not about the use of force but about the redirection of your opponent's force. It is about being "soft," like a needle enclosed in cotton--- strength inside softness.

All of this is hard to observe during that first (probably free) class you take. But listen, watch the other students, ask questions. You may have to work a little to find your teacher, or, they may appear when you're ready.