Tai Chi and Qigong Instruction by Tim Richard
A Kind of Blog Entry

I began studying taijiquan after a physical therapist who had been treating me for a pulled "groin muscle" said after six weeks, "I can't help you anymore. Do tai chi." Susan Matthews was teaching in town at the time. A co-worker who trained with her invited me to come to class one summer evening in 1999. So I went and have studied it regularly ever since. My own study began with one 90-minute class a week. Some nights, it was rather hard to get motivated and go to class, especially after working an 8-5 shift. I made myself go a number of times out of impending sense of guilt if I didn't go. Out of the finality of debilitating physical problems. I just couldn't go through life that way anymore. Within a few months, I was taking two classes a week, and over time, I found myself attending six hours a week and practicing at home a few times a week. I think I simply developed a habit of going to class. It also helped that Susan was very consistent at keeping up. Over the years my practice has grown to a nearly daily regimen of practicing something I've learned and trying out new stuff.

After training this way and attending several annual week-long summer camps and two intensive multi-week study trips to China (George Xu China Camp 2004 & 2007), I think I've cultivated a degree of expertise that allows me to teach fundamental aspects of tai chi. My motivation is to attract more beginners to doing tai chi and build up a community of practitioners with strong commitments to self healthcare through the practice of integrating mind, energy, and matter with natural movement. Whatever your intended application is, the basics must be learned to actually achieve your application goals. Whether you're interested in the martial aspects of taijiquan, or in the health and wellbeing benefits of tai chi, the basics are the same for both.

In my personal training, I work on cultivating energy to do the work while my physical is relaxed, yet stable and powerful. So that's what I try to show students in class. Tai chi and qigong are really made up of exercises done on two levels of activity: physical and energetic. There are more levels, of course, but these are the basic ones. When you learn the moves of the tai chi form, for example, you're learning to move your arms and legs, waist and shoulders and hips in certain shapes and patterns ... the physical or the external; what people see on the surface when they watch you move. The energetic level is the other. What is energy? How do you detect it? How can you direct it? How do you begin to understand it? Learn tai chi. Regain some natural movement by doing the internal training you get from tai chi and qigong. Do the moves, open your mind and your lower back, and it comes back to you, Plus, your body gets some exercise. It takes time.

People practice tai chi in a group setting and alone. Each has its benefits and both are essential for developing skill and achieving the most positive results, whether its for martial application or for better healthier body, mind, and spirit. Group class is a good motivational tool, challenging you to learn in positive ways. In solo training you try out and practice what you learn in class, improving it for testing in the next class.

Why I teach tai chi and qigong

The quality of internal training you get when you learn qigong and taijiquan really depends on the teacher's learning experience, who his teachers are, and on his skill at conveying the key principles and practices associated with qigong and tai chi. It takes a bit of patience to learn certain aspects of tai chi, such as the more so-called "internal" principles. You can get a lot out of simply learning the steps of the form--where to place your feet and arms, and so on. I drill basic moves and the form sequence to get the external training, then I intersperse that with discussion of how the moves are accomplished from internal, energetic perspectives; i.e., how the mind, qi, and body integrate to do a move.

It takes a lot of effort to teach tai chi, but teaching offers a new level of learning ... It's a way of proving to yourself what you know and that you can talk about it at all. I like doing tai chi with others because it offers a different dynamic than training alone. Both are essential for the person who teaches. One kind of learning takes place in solo training. At home, you practice what you learn in class in order to internalize it and build upon it over time. Everything you learn in tai chi is cumulative; like riding a bike. You might think you forgot, but get on one and your body remembers.

In group training you get a chance to test what you think you might have learned in solo practice. The group setting is the social aspect of learning tai chi and qigong in which we learn about sharing the experience of learning. You get new ideas to bring home and work on. Group class is essential for learning, but either way--alone or in a group--you need regular practice over time to keep building up your skills and maintain the health benefits.

Home Practice Notes

After some months of going to class, I realized I wasn't remembering what I was learning very well. So I gave myself the ultimatum of either developing a home practice or stop blowing my money on weekly classes that were little more than a pill that wore off long before the next class. Each class was almost like starting over from scratch. To get my home practice going when I began tai chi classes, I first decided on a specific time and day of the week. I chose Sunday mornings before other demands distracted me. It usually took most of Saturday to rest up and clutter the cluttered mind of the work week. At first, I didn't have an idea of how to start, but I asked myself; "What have I learned in class that appeals to me? What felt good to do?"

Once I picked and few single moves and had been practicing them only a little while, I realized that having a time scheduled and a place picked (also important to do) was overshadowed by the need to have a plan on how to train. A plan evolves into a practice in other words. I didn't get really started at a home practice until I just did things I was more likely to remember from class. I started with a single move and just repeated it over and over, trying to remember the details the teacher talked about.

In my classes, I teach moves and their sequences while describing the internal aspects, which inevitably becomes a question of integrating mind intention, qi, and physical movement (body). In effect, the exercise part of tai chi is training the mind to focus and the energy (qi) to flow. Ultimately, you're training your mind and your qi, and the body simply follows suit automatically. It's rather simple, but most of us have learned a different order to which we are habituated. Learning tai chi is partly about breaking old habits and learning new ways to move: softer on your body, less demanding, regenerative. Energy is generated by releasing energy that is bound up and making it available to do whatever task you have. Tight muscles are the most obvious example of stuck energy. You don't improve balance by muscling your way through moves, you learn it by refining an awareness of your dantien and your central equilibrium. All the muscle Mr. Universe ever wished for can't promise better balance without a greater grasp of your centerpoint and cultivating a greater sense of "whole-body movement." ...

Look for more posts in the future about this and other subjects of interest to me. I hope you find my essaying on them interesting as I find the subject matter.

Those with whom I have studied now and in past ...

Also: I've recently been introduced to Wang Ming Bo and Lu Zhi Liang, two Yang stylists in Shanghai who I might continue training with. They might come to the US this year or next if we can get them over. I also spent a little time with masters Liu Bao Yu (Chen and great push hands master), and Ji Ah Dong (Yang).