About the School
The T'ai Chi School of Yi Chi Li teaches Yang Style Short Form or sometimes also known in the T'ai Chi circles as the Cheng Man-Ching Yang Short Form. It was started in the year 2000 out of necessity, I had started the T'ai Chi School of Gentle Exercise eighteen years earlier back in 1982 and have been running classes ever since. The School of Gentle Exercise caters for the general public who want to experience T'ai Chi. These students mainly join because they have heard of the health benefits of T'ai Chi from the media or friends and are keen to give it a try. They are interested in improving their general health through relaxation, balance, breathing and posture.
Everyone who begins T'ai Chi is searching or looking to obtain certain benefits and experiences from their training in T'ai Chi. It might be that they want to relax a little at the end or start of the day, or to improve their balance, or maybe they're hoping it will help with an old injury. Everyone has their own reasons for doing T'ai Chi. But I have found around 10 percent of students who start with the School of Gentle Exercise develop a real taste for T'ai Chi and want to really explore all aspect of this incredibly subtle art. They want to explore the Traditional Chinese Medicine, Taoist Philosophy and the Martial Art aspect.
The problem is what do you do with these people? As I discovered, If you start training the general class in these aspects you soon have students begin to drop out of class. Because the mental and physical effort that is required, is just to much for them and besides they weren't interested in taking their T'ai Chi in that direction. So after these students drop out I now have a T'ai Chi class with only one or two students which is not economically viable.
As much as I love T'ai Chi, I like eating even more.
So that's the dilemma. I need to be able to offer basic T'ai Chi for the general public who are only really interested in basic rudimentary T'ai Chi, which I think is fair enough. But at the same time I need to also cater for the few students who wants to explore their T'ai Chi to a deeper level. And to make both financially viable.
So I reached a conclusion, that I needed to have two T'ai Chi schools in one. The larger one, or the outer School is the T'ai Chi School of Gentle Exercise which caters for people who only want a basic level of T'ai Chi, open to the general public. The second school within the first, the T'ai Chi School of Yi Chi Li is for the 10 percent of students who want to go further with their T'ai Chi. This school is also open to the general public, however most people usually go through the School of Gentle Exercise first, then get a taste for it and move over to the School of Yi Chi Li.
The second reason why I created the School of Yi Chi Li is to separate the two standards of the Schools The School of Yi Chi Li standards are very high, where the student has to rise to meet these standards. There is no compromise. In the School of Yi Chi Li the aim is to constantly improve ones abilities through hard training and constant analyses. The culture of the School is to analyse, question and then apply it into their physical training.
I am very concerned for the next generation of T'ai Chi students coming through. If you don't at the very least hold the standard and hopefully try and raise them, then the art is going backwards. My definition of raising the standards is not about learning more forms or just perfecting a technique. It's taking the art deeper into the subtleties of the art, constant refinement. Today for me personally, rarely a week goes by where I don't understand or clarify the art a little better. This also goes for most other arts, If you were to talk to anyone that is seriously involved in their chosen art whether its dancing, painting music, etc they are always seeking to understand and refine their art to a deeper level.
It is for the above reasons why the Tai Chi School of Yi Chi Li was established.
Why call it the T'ai Chi School of Yi Chi Li?
The reason I decided to call the new school T'ai Chi School of Yi Chi Li is in reference to a T'ai Chi proverb.
"The Yi (intent, will) leads the Chi (energy) and the Chi leads the Li (strength or movement). I think it breaks T'ai Chi down into three clearly defined areas of T'ai Chi.
We are going to reverse engineer this proverb. The third and last part of the section is Li which can be translated into strength or movement. The first stage of your training should consist of the physical aspect of T'ai Chi, without correct technique (this is sometimes referred to learning the cun or inches) and postures, the chi can't move efficiently through the body. If technique or posture is incorrect then chi has trouble moving through these incorrect alignments.
The second part, you need to know how to create the chi by using yin & yang, substantial and insubstantial (the Tao) which is near to impossible to create without understanding opening and closing. If you can't create the Chi how can it follow the Yi or intent freely.
The third and last part consists of the Yi which is intent or will. This relates to the fact that intent only gives direction and doesn't become involved in creating movement. The second intent try to create movement you have effectively become double weighted. Intent only creates the conditions for movement and not the movement itself.
They say,
"You can't create the Tao, but you can create the conditions for the Tao".
'
The T'ai Chi School of Yi Chi Li teaches Yang Style Short Form or sometimes also known in the T'ai Chi circles as the Cheng Man-Ching Yang Short Form. It was started in the year 2000 out of necessity, I had started the T'ai Chi School of Gentle Exercise eighteen years earlier back in 1982 and have been running classes ever since. The School of Gentle Exercise caters for the general public who want to experience T'ai Chi. These students mainly join because they have heard of the health benefits of T'ai Chi from the media or friends and are keen to give it a try. They are interested in improving their general health through relaxation, balance, breathing and posture.
Everyone who begins T'ai Chi is searching or looking to obtain certain benefits and experiences from their training in T'ai Chi. It might be that they want to relax a little at the end or start of the day, or to improve their balance, or maybe they're hoping it will help with an old injury. Everyone has their own reasons for doing T'ai Chi. But I have found around 10 percent of students who start with the School of Gentle Exercise develop a real taste for T'ai Chi and want to really explore all aspect of this incredibly subtle art. They want to explore the Traditional Chinese Medicine, Taoist Philosophy and the Martial Art aspect.
The problem is what do you do with these people? As I discovered, If you start training the general class in these aspects you soon have students begin to drop out of class. Because the mental and physical effort that is required, is just to much for them and besides they weren't interested in taking their T'ai Chi in that direction. So after these students drop out I now have a T'ai Chi class with only one or two students which is not economically viable.
As much as I love T'ai Chi, I like eating even more.
So that's the dilemma. I need to be able to offer basic T'ai Chi for the general public who are only really interested in basic rudimentary T'ai Chi, which I think is fair enough. But at the same time I need to also cater for the few students who wants to explore their T'ai Chi to a deeper level. And to make both financially viable.
So I reached a conclusion, that I needed to have two T'ai Chi schools in one. The larger one, or the outer School is the T'ai Chi School of Gentle Exercise which caters for people who only want a basic level of T'ai Chi, open to the general public. The second school within the first, the T'ai Chi School of Yi Chi Li is for the 10 percent of students who want to go further with their T'ai Chi. This school is also open to the general public, however most people usually go through the School of Gentle Exercise first, then get a taste for it and move over to the School of Yi Chi Li.
The second reason why I created the School of Yi Chi Li is to separate the two standards of the Schools The School of Yi Chi Li standards are very high, where the student has to rise to meet these standards. There is no compromise. In the School of Yi Chi Li the aim is to constantly improve ones abilities through hard training and constant analyses. The culture of the School is to analyse, question and then apply it into their physical training.
I am very concerned for the next generation of T'ai Chi students coming through. If you don't at the very least hold the standard and hopefully try and raise them, then the art is going backwards. My definition of raising the standards is not about learning more forms or just perfecting a technique. It's taking the art deeper into the subtleties of the art, constant refinement. Today for me personally, rarely a week goes by where I don't understand or clarify the art a little better. This also goes for most other arts, If you were to talk to anyone that is seriously involved in their chosen art whether its dancing, painting music, etc they are always seeking to understand and refine their art to a deeper level.
It is for the above reasons why the Tai Chi School of Yi Chi Li was established.
Why call it the T'ai Chi School of Yi Chi Li?
The reason I decided to call the new school T'ai Chi School of Yi Chi Li is in reference to a T'ai Chi proverb.
"The Yi (intent, will) leads the Chi (energy) and the Chi leads the Li (strength or movement). I think it breaks T'ai Chi down into three clearly defined areas of T'ai Chi.
We are going to reverse engineer this proverb. The third and last part of the section is Li which can be translated into strength or movement. The first stage of your training should consist of the physical aspect of T'ai Chi, without correct technique (this is sometimes referred to learning the cun or inches) and postures, the chi can't move efficiently through the body. If technique or posture is incorrect then chi has trouble moving through these incorrect alignments.
The second part, you need to know how to create the chi by using yin & yang, substantial and insubstantial (the Tao) which is near to impossible to create without understanding opening and closing. If you can't create the Chi how can it follow the Yi or intent freely.
The third and last part consists of the Yi which is intent or will. This relates to the fact that intent only gives direction and doesn't become involved in creating movement. The second intent try to create movement you have effectively become double weighted. Intent only creates the conditions for movement and not the movement itself.
They say,
"You can't create the Tao, but you can create the conditions for the Tao".
'