This is a guest post from my friend and fellow instructor, Paul Cavel. I asked Paul to talk a little bit about his experience teaching all over Europe and what he’s learned after nearly 20 years doing it. There are some great insights here about the internal energy arts that you can apply to your own practice, whether you teach or not. Take note when he talks about practice mindset!
Recently, on the Insight Taiji Facebook group, we got into a fascinating discussion about the challenges of teaching and the different kinds of student expectations that come across as teachers. As much as this was framed as a teacher’s dilemma, I felt that I came away with some lessons about how I set my own expectations as a student as well. Anthony Court has been studying systems of health, healing, meditation and self-defense for over 41 years.
In part 1 of this interview, we talked to Dr. Mark Cheng about how his background as an acupuncturist, martial artist, strength coach and PhD in Chinese Medicine has shaped his point of view about the broader subject of fitness and wellness. Now he’s going to explain his thinking behind developing a project, called Tai Cheng, which aims to introduce Tai Chi to a much larger fitness audience.
Here is Dr.
Dr. Mark Cheng compares learning Tai Chi to studying a well-cut diamond, and as you’ll see in the following conversation, his background as an acupuncturist, martial artist, strength coach and PhD in Chinese Medicine actually allows him to look at the broader subject of fitness and wellness in the same multi-faceted way. With the depth and range he brings to teaching movement, it’s no wonder that he’s leading the way to introducing Tai Chi to a much larger fitness audience and in the process, asking all Tai Chi people to step back and take a fresh look at their art.
Trained in Evolutionary Biology, Peter Wayne, Ph.D., has spent the last 12 years in medical research and more than 35 years studying and teaching Tai Chi. He now serves as Research Director for the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine jointly based at the Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where a primary focus of his research is studying the clinical and physiological impacts of Tai Chi on health.
I got an email the other day that was a little bit different than the usual requests for lessons. It read: “I learned the Short Form at Brookline Tai Chi under the tutelage of Bill Ryan back about 1996-1997. For seven years, I continued to do the short form three times every morning. Then for the past eight years or so, I have done the short form four times every morning.
As part of the State of the Art survey, I asked people to explain what drew them to Tai Chi initially and what keeps them interested. I was also curious to know more about what role, if any, Tai Chi plays in their physical health, mental/emotional wellbeing and spiritual development. Weighty stuff, I know. People came back with some surprising and great answers. Here are a few: My primary interest was in chi gung.
I sat down with Robert Tangora to talk about his upcoming book on Tai Chi Cloud Hands when he was in Boston in October. When he discusses Tai Chi Cloud Hands, almost reverently, Robert explains it as a paradigm for understanding the complete art of Tai Chi, and also as a way to bring each practitioner closer to integration. The basic problem is that you have a spectrum of practices, from sitting, to standing, to moving, to fighting, that all feel very different and all develop different attributes.
