Thoughts On Teaching Taiji

This is in response to a post on Formosa Neijia, on "Separating what you know from what you teach".

One thing I realised is that not all students come to learn taiji with the same mentality as me. People learn taiji for their own reasons, and thus even though we are all gathered as a class, they all want to learn different things. Some are fine just learning the broad movements, some are fine just following what the rest are doing, some want to go on to win competitions, some prefer to learn more about applications, etc. As a teacher, one needs to be able to discern what it is that each student wants to learn, and then teach accordingly. Don't overwhelm the poor guy who just wants to move his limbs with how to apply each movement.

Also, another thing that my teacher does is that he lets the more senior students teach the newcomers. Not because they are good, but because the newcomers must first remember the broad movements. Once they are familiar with the movements, he then gets down to teaching them the details. The important thing when first starting out is for them to remember the steps.

Teach something new each session, but not so much that you overwhelm them. Usually 2 to 5 new movements each session, the important thing being that the students must remember them. It gives them a sense that things are moving, without seeming to be hurrying them along. Then, once you have finished teaching the whole routine, you should go back and fine tune their movements. That is the time to touch on some (not all) details. A few months later, go back and fine tune some more. And so on.