What Makes Successful Tai Chi Students And Teachers?

Alan Ludmer at the World Tai Chi Day in 2001

As a former educator and a lifelong student and teacher, I have often reflected upon what makes successful teachers and students. Recently, my friend Nasser Butt, publisher of the award-winning UK Martial Arts publication, Lift Hands Internal Arts Magazine, recently sent me his excellent study, “Whose Line is It Anyway? Part of this study presented a scholarly in-depth analysis regarding Cheng Man Ching’s (CMC) Tai Chi Chuan training and his relationship with the legendary Tai Chi Chuan Master Yang Cheng Fu. Regardless of one’s position regarding this controversial topic, I applaud Nasser’s courage in tacking topics sure to ruffle some Tai Chi feathers. Kudos to him for providing more sorely needed academic investigation into important Tai Chi issues.

Nasser’s study triggered a reexamine of my own thoughts regarding what makes successful Tai Chi teachers and students. Who cares if teachers are extraordinary people or mendacious jerks? What if their ability is modest, or superlative, or if they were great fighters but couldn’t teach, or great teachers who couldn’t fight? Why are some students successful and so many are not successful? What makes a good teacher or a good student? As serious Tai Chi students, what do we need from our teachers? What are our responsibilities as students?  As serious Tai Chi teachers, how do we help our students achieve their goals?

In my over 50 years of internal arts study, I have been blessed with two amazing teachers, Professor Huo Chi Kwan and Master Tuey Staples. They taught that there are several essential components and communalities in successful Tai Chi students and teachers.

What makes successful students?

1. Students must have a destination and sufficient motivated to achieve it. If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there. There is no right or wrong road, but every student needs a direction and plenty of motivation.

2. Potential and beginning students should begin with developing specific goals and time frames. What do you want to learn? Do you want martial excellence, enhanced health, spiritual growth, etc.  Why do you want to learn it?  When a student understands why they want to learn a subject, they become much more motivated.

How quickly do you need to learn it? Tai Chi is a lifelong process. Much of the art is counter intuitive, martial mastery is a long and difficult process. Are you willing to commit the serious time and effort necessary to achieve your goal?

When a student can answer these questions, they are ready to find a teacher. 

What makes successful teachers?

Tai Chi teachers must have the knowledge and teaching ability to help students achieve their goals. Tai Chi Teachers are human beings with all the good and bad that being human entails. Teachers can come in all shapes, genders, ages and ethnicities. They don’t have to be legendary fighters. Angelo Dundee was Mohammad Ali’s lifelong boxing coach. I doubt that he could have beaten up Ali, but he had the ability to help Ali become a legend. Teachers do not necessarily have to be long term students of traditional masters. Knowledge can be acquired in numerous ways.

Tai Chi teachers do need to have a solid understanding of Tai Chi Chuan, its principles, applications, a commitment to teaching, and the ability to communicate effectively. They should be able to understand and execute energy-based movement. Professor Huo Chi Kwan often told me that Tai Chi is boxing for physical and mental health, the self defense is secondary.  However, teachers need to understand the self defense to be able to convey to their students the full benefits of the art. Master Tuey Staples’ great insight is that all application of principles is contextual. Good teachers must understand the principles and their contextual application to help students reach their full potential.

When teachers understand principles, application, and have sufficient communication skills and a commitment to teaching, they are ready to teach.

Caveats

Some additional thoughts for both students and teachers.

1. Good teachers encourage student questions. Students should never be afraid to respectfully question their teacher. They need to strive to understand the “what and why” of what they are doing. Tai Chi is not slow-motion arm waving. When students understand the why of Tai Chi, it will help them to create to own art. Good teachers should be able to answer student’s questions in ways that they can comprehend. Good teachers will not pretend that Tai Chi is not a martial art because they are uncomfortable or not knowledgeable about martial energetic movement. Tai Chi is boxing for physical and mental health, but the martial provides the key to understanding.

2. Students should avoid teachers who respond to questions with Master Somebody said that we do it this way. Tai Chi is an art of constant change. Avoid those who say it is always this, or it’s never that. Learning is liberating, not encapsulating. Good teachers will provide the tools to help students find their own answers.

3. Teachers and students should be skeptical of magical answers. With all due respect to the old Chinese Masters, they learned and taught within the parameters of their own culture. We can and should honor their culture and abilities, but we’re 21st century westerners, not better, not worse, just different. Like everyone else we learn best within the context of our own culture. Using obscure Chinese terms may sound cool and that you posses some secret knowledge, but if you can’t explain it is simple English, then you don’t understand it. Good teachers will explain things in language that students can understand.

4. Teachers and students need to practice slowly. The art is practiced slowly so that you can listen and feel what is happening. Use the move beats and constant centering to discover what is happening. I always seemed to move too quickly and Master Tuey Staples taught me to inhale on beats 1 and 3, exhale on beats 2 and 4. The purpose was to slow me down and force me to listen.  If you can’t do the moves slow, you can’t do them quickly. Good teachers will constantly try to slow students down.

5. Students should avoid teachers who are ego driven. They are damaged people and usually poor teachers. It is not about them being Master Somebody, good teachers are committed to growing their students.

6. Hopefully, by diligent study and arduous training students and teachers can learn to believe in their own abilities and ultimately find our own answers. We will then transcend from the need for a superhuman teacher and attain the ability to accept our teachers and ourselves for who we are.

Conclusion

Ultimately Tai Chi should be a vehicle for physical, mental, and emotion growth. In time, one should transcend from imitating some teacher to make their own art. Serious students are not puppets. They don’t need to be governed by a particular style, form, or teacher. Tai Chi Chuan study is like a scaffold used to construct a building. When the scaffolding comes down, the building has to stand on its own. Like the building, Tai Chi students must stand on their own regardless of who were their teachers. It is all about personal commitment. Confucius’ Doctrine of the Mean states that the superior person finds in themselves what lesser people seek in others. The answers we seek are within ourselves.

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