So you want to learn Tai Chi? It can be overwhelming to begin a Tai Chi practice. Perhaps you’ve heard about all of the health benefits of Tai Chi and want to add it to your daily routine for those reasons. Maybe you want to begin studying martial arts, or you want to enrich your existing martial arts practice and Tai Chi has piqued your interest for those reasons. Regardless of the reason you want to learn Tai Chi, it can be tough to know where to start. This article aims to help you find that starting point.
Tai Chi is an incredibly deep martial art and movement practice with a rich history that has given rise to multiple styles. Some of these styles are easier to access the martial arts side of Tai Chi with, and some are easier to access the health benefits with. With time, practice, and good instruction, every legitimate Tai Chi style can impart both to you. But for the sake of clarity, the first step in beginning a Tai Chi practice is knowing if you are primarily looking for the health benefits of Tai Chi, or the martial arts and self defense applications.
Once you’ve determined your primary goal, you can begin looking for instruction. In an ideal world you will be able to find a qualified instructor to train with in your neighborhood. We don’t live in an ideal world. Considering that, the rest of this article will be focused on helping you choose the best of what’s available to you for instruction, whether that’s in person teaching, online teaching, video instruction, or books.
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If you’re fortunate, a quick search online will turn up a few Tai Chi instructors near you who have classes that meet your scheduling needs. Once you know who’s teaching in your area, you’ll need to learn a little about them, their style, and if they can help you meet your primary goal. Some things to ask them about are their style, and their pedagogy.
Since Tai Chi has a long history, many legitimate styles have developed over the years. Many fraudulent instructors have found their way into communities and on the internet as well. Some instructors of fake Tai Chi may even be second or third generation teachers and be unaware their art is fraudulent or fake.
The primary legitimate styles of Tai Chi are Chen, Yang, Sun, Wu, and Wu (Hao). If the instructor you’ve found teaches one or more of these, you’re starting off on the right track. Scrutinize any style that has the name “shaolin” attached to it. That’s a yellow flag. Be wary of styles with bombastic names like “double dragon tiger claw spirt tai chi”. Yang style is the most commonly practiced style in the world, and the Yang 24 form is a very common entry point for people to learn Tai Chi. You can’t go wrong starting with that.
If you’ve found a legitimate teacher, the next thing to find out about is their pedagogy. A good teacher will have a very consistent teaching style. This teaching method is commonly passed down to them by their own teacher once they’ve been permitted to start teaching themselves.
A clear and standard method of teaching is a sign of a good teacher. There are many methods of instruction, and each has their pros and cons. A good teacher can explain their method, and its pros and cons. A good curriculum will be readily communicated to a student. If the teacher’s methods of instruction vary from class to class, and there is no clear roadmap to success for the student, that is a red flag.
If finding a teacher in person isn’t an option, then the next best alternative is to find a teacher online. This can be particularly useful if your primary goal is health focused vs. self defense focused. When looking for a teacher online, keep in mind the points above about finding someone teaching a legitimate style and having a clear method of instruction.
A good online instructor who is dedicated to the craft of teaching online will have a fair amount of content published and much of it should be accessible to the public. Teaching online is a skill in its own right and is arguably more challenging than teaching in person. (I have experience with both, and teaching online is a greater challenge) Having a fair mount of publicly available content will help you to determine whether a particular instructor focuses their teaching in a way that aligns with your goals before you pay them for instruction. It will also allow you to see how they deal with criticism and trolls online. A teacher who can meet criticism and trolls with confidence and rational discourse without getting defensive is a solid green flag.
In addition to volume of content publicly available, look to see that a teacher is publishing content regularly. Teaching online is uniquely challenging, and many people try it expecting it to be an easy revenue stream. These teachers come and go faster than they can possibly transmit any instruction. Look for longevity and consistency.
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Sometimes there are obstacles to training which keep someone from studying with a teacher in person or online. These can include financial obstacles or scheduling obstacles. If these cannot be overcome, then an instructional video may be an ideal starting point. Public libraries are a good place to start looking for video rentals if finances are your primary obstacle.
It’s not possible to get an in-depth education in Tai Chi from a video, but it can be a starting point. As pointed out above, style and pedagogy matter. In fact, style probably matters most from a video learning standpoint.
A good instructional video will at best teach you the choreography of a form. But for a beginner, that’s often the very first step. You can’t explore the depth of the movements if you’re struggling to remember them. So videos are useful for teaching the framework of a form and helping to commit it to memory.
If you’ve spent your valuable training time on a form that is legitimate and common, such as the Yang 24 form, then you’ll have that choreography down as you continue to seek out in person or online instruction to help you refine that practice. To this end, finding a good video teaching the Yang 24 form should be your focus. This will be the most solid foundation for you once you find a teacher, even if that teacher focuses on another style such as Chen or Sun. Your time spent learning Yang 24 will never be wasted.
Regarding teaching methodology and pedagogy, I personally recommend the instructional DVDs and videos published by the Tai Chi for Health Institute. The teaching method is clear and accessible. Many tai chi instructors use this method of teaching in person and online as well, so it will be familiar to you when you find an online or in person instructor. If have used the method with good results for both tai chi students and personal training clients in a strength training context.
Finally, we have to mention books. Many Tai Chi books will present a form and attempt to teach it with a series of pictures, diagrams, and descriptive text. Learning from a book has many of the same pros that a video has, but comes with a much larger set of cons for the beginner.
I’ve studied and practiced martial arts for some time, and since childhood I’ve read martial arts books. Even for forms I know by heart, I find most books to be inadequate at best. Most are flat out confusing when it comes to teaching a form.
Tai Chi, compared to other forms of martial arts, is very circular in its movements. The deeper your practice goes, the more you see circles within circles as you become more aware of what each joint in your well-aligned body is doing. Tai Chi exists as the movement between positions, and a photo in a book can only ever hope to share the beginning and end positions of any given movement. The movement from Yin to Yang energies cannot be represented at all, and can only be described in cryptic text that is inaccessible to a beginner.
The best use of books is as an adjunct to other forms of training. If you’ve forgotten a particular movement in a sequence, a quick look in a book can jog your memory. Sometimes an author will have a particular insight on a movement that becomes valuable to you once you’ve already learned the movement itself. But these benefits come AFTER learning the choreography from other means.
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Finding an in person teacher is best, especially if your goals are self defense focused.
Find instruction in a legitimate style: Chen, Yang, Sun, Wu, or Wu (Hao). Yang is the most common and you’ll have an easier time finding instructional material for the Yang 24 form specifically.
Find a teacher or a video with a clear teaching style. “Follow along” simply doesn’t cut it with a practice as deep as Tai Chi can be.
Save books for enhancing your learning after you’ve already learned the choreography for a beginner form that you can practice regularly.
And most importantly, especially for health focused goals, have fun!
