Why persevere with Tai Chi?

Why do people decide to learn Tai Chi? The usual response to this question is, they saw people doing Tai Chi in the park and it looked so nice, so attractive as an activity.

When I consider how many start and how few persevere, this means there are challenges involved so a better question would be why do some people keep going.

As a Tai Chi teacher, my role is to help students face the challenges and so I get to know and anticipate what their next hurdle is likely to be.

I was extremely fortunate to begin learning Tai Chi with a teacher who was very patient and persuasive. I was one of those students who was impatient to do one more move until suddenly it was a complete jumble in my mind and I would have to start again. It looked so easy. So frustrating. At each hurdle, my teacher was ready to listen to my litany of complaints about how hard it was, how slow to learn I was, how I may as well give up and on and on. My teacher would refocus me on what I had achieved and identify what he saw as an important development. My ego would be mollified and I would begin practice again. It wasn’t long before I started to get the hang of it. My love of Tai Chi had started.

It seems like a long time ago and yet, like every student of Tai Chi, I had things

I needed to learn about facing challenges head-on and realising that the hurdles are never as high as they appear. There might have been some ego issues. Over the years, it helped to have a brilliant teacher appear when I most needed one. I do believe the saying ‘when the student is ready the teacher will appear’. It’s important to recognise your new teacher so you can learn the lesson.

These days I find my students are older and often have serious health challenges involving their balance and posture. We work together using Qigong and Tai Chi but the emphasis is on how it can help balance and posture, not how quickly we can remember complicated sequences of moves.

The atmosphere is calm and relaxed and in a relatively short time, the outcomes are often satisfying and rewarding.

I am often asked why I teach. What I get is an opportunity to increase my understanding of Tai Chi by observing how the students learn. I am now reflecting on the Yin Yang concept of equal and opposite. This could be one of my longest lessons.

Why do people persevere with their Tai Chi? Maybe they also manage to overcome their challenges as I did and come to love the gentle art of Tai Chi.

Classes take place at Te Puna Memorial Hall Tuesdays 1pm and Thursdays 9.30am. Contact. David 027 222 2824 for more information.