Taiji Cults

[Taiji fan]

Has anyone been unfortunate enough to find themselves involved in one of these? I am talking about the kind of teacher who sells tai chi as a method of bringing in people to his qigong stuff. The kind of teacher that tells you that you should always explore other teachers and styles but actually really doesn't want you to incase you start asking questions? The kind of teacher who is more interested in your money and controlling you than your 'spiritual welfare'? Have you tried to leave and then been condemed by the teacher.......I would be interested to hear your comments.......

 

[theneuhauser]

where do you live? ive never allowed myself to become part of a cult. and by the way, im i correct in guessing that you think there is no such thing as qi?

 

[Taiji fan]

Hello theneuhauser, I'm in the UK.

by the way, im i correct in guessing that you think there is no such thing as qi?

no your guess is not correct.

ive never allowed myself to become part of a cult.

they are not always easy to spot, I am not talking about the Koresh/waco style majorly known organisations. Sometimes they appear very credible on the surface. I have been involved with one, there manilpulation techniques are very clever......

 

[7starmantis]

I think there are bad instructors of any system, I wouldn't call them all cults. If you run into a poor instructor, my advise would be to find another instructor that will take intrest in you and train you legitamently.

7sm

 

[Taiji fan]

there are poor instructors and there are those who treat their students in a cult like manner....the difficulty is that in the beginning when you start training you may have no concept of a poor instructor, even after some years of training, the 'other', stuff does not become apparent until you leave. I was just interested to hear if any one else had a similar experience....:asian:

 

[East Winds]

Taiji Fan,

Yes, in my early days I encountered an organisation which expressly forbit any mention of the martial aspect of Tai Chi and also forbid you to look at any other form of Tai Chi. You risked being expelled from the Society if you ignored these "requests" . Because I knew nothing about Tai Chi, for a number of years I paid my monthly dues and lived in blissful ignorance of the wonderful art of real taijiquan that existed. Quite by accident I saw a Chinese master performing Sun style taiji and it was only then I had the crashing realisation that I had been subject to the snake oil sellers.

And of course that is the problem when you fist come to Taiji. You don't know any better. (or are not allowed to know any better).

The new age hippies have a lot to answer for!!

 

[Matt Stone]

Unfortunately this phenomenon isn't confined to Taiji...

There are several groups teaching various alleged "martial" styles all over the place. Not sure how the mods feel about naming names, so I will avoid doing so.

There are the low end groups that just have very questionable instruction. Their "instructors" have precious little time in training to begin with, no to mention the quality of what they are claiming to teach.

There are the personality cults that set people up to donate their hard earned dubloons to the cause of whatever supernaturally empowered Super Sensei has managed to scam them.

Lucky me, I have two different schools/organizations in my area doing just that, along with several schools of the questionable type to boot.

Even more lucky, however, is the high quality of the good schools around here.

Gambarimasu.

 

[Taiji fan]

Even more lucky, however, is the high quality of the good schools around here.

unfortunately we are not so lucky...there is only one school for 100 miles teaching CMA....maybe how they have got away with it for so long......