Well another one may have just bit the dust

[terryl965]

Xue you see this in quite a few martial sciences now a day's. Top tier people with small classes and lower level practitioner's with giant schools. :erg:

Yes you do especially around the metroplex.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Xue you see this in quite a few martial sciences now a day's. Top tier people with small classes and lower level practitioner's with giant schools. :erg:

Yeah I know it is just very confusing and rather sad to me. My Yang Sifu has pretty much retired because he is tried of trying to teach people that only want to learn the long form sot they can go off and claim to be masters and teach. But then my Sifu never really wanted a big school he only wanted to teach taiji. The Wing Chun Sifu (what little I know of Wing Chun I learned from him) has resigned himself to the fact he will never have a big school. This is great for his students but if it were not for his other business that supports his school he would have closed a long time ago.

 

[Live True]

with all due respect, and this may have been answered elsewhere...how do you, as a beginner, KNOW if you are in a good school? What do you look for? so many of you say it took you aprox a decade to know it wasn't for you, and it's unclear if hte school changed or you did. ?????

 

[Xue Sheng]

with all due respect, and this may have been answered elsewhere...how do you, as a beginner, KNOW if you are in a good school? What do you look for? so many of you say it took you aprox a decade to know it wasn't for you, and it's unclear if hte school changed or you did. ?????

I wrote out a long response and at the end I realized the last part was all I needed so

I guess experience in the style and research of that style is the best way to know.

In the case of the school of this post I do believe they changed, they started out strong but appear to be faltering at this point. In the case of my first sifu, we both changed.

 

[dancingalone]

Now that one is funny! I only got as far as a phone conversation with their school in Denver. The few minutes that I spent on that conversation was enough to let me know that I did't want to train there.......

I know a guy who teaches for them with less than 3 years experience.

 

[mograph]

I know a guy who teaches for them with less than 3 years experience.

Yeah, they recruit beginner instructors as soon as they finish the 4-month beginner class. Three years is a long time.

It's a mistake to think they teach taijiquan. Their system is a mild calisthenic with some qigong-based exercises incorporated into a loose interpretation of a Yang long form. With a good teacher who has the flexibility to teach properly, it has a place in the wellness pantheon because students can get healthier, but it's not taijiquan. Too bad it's called "tai chi".

Maybe something good was going on while Moy was alive in the early years, but since then, it's pffft. In other words: nothing to see there, folks. Move along ...

 

[Xue Sheng]

There use to be a guy on MT that was one of thier teachers he was a pretty nice guy and for the most part knew what he was talking about in things taiji for health but a bit too much into the dogma of the organization. However he was looking outside of thier organization at other CMA schools and talking outside of thier organization and that is just not suppose to be done buy a teacher

 

[ebozzz]

I know a guy who teaches for them with less than 3 years experience.

I don't doubt it at all! I has been several years since I spoke with them on the phone so I can't really remember the gist of the conversation. I just know as soon as they told me that they had no knowledge of the martial aspects that it was not for me. Don't get me wrong. My health is extremely important to me. But, in my opinion when something is taught in an incomplete manner, it loses some of it's value. Since I am originally from the deep south, let me use this analogy. Teaching Taiji without teaching the martial aspects is like trying to cook a Cajun or Creole meal with out cayenne pepper. The martial side is a fundamental ingredient to Taji.

 

[prairiemantis]

It is sad when people with reputable backgrounds seem to go the way you say your instructor and now these other instructors go

all to common for someone who teaches traditional arts what ever it may be, to add or change things so they can get that extra few months tuition out of people. even worse when someone claims to be a traditional ma teacher, takes the money and then learns from a video 20 min before class starts.( an hour long video can take what six months to teach, frame by frame)_ even those who are truly good can fall prey to ego, when their martial arts become there retirement fund. thus doing things less than honorable. the one that says its all so secret its all so mysterious, blah blah blah. profit by deceit is the reason people laugh at traditional martial arts and is the reason for the eventual failure of the school. . yay for mma......*sarcasm*

its a perpetual wheel of self destruction. i was once told that traditional ma have been around for thousands of years, and it did not wait for me (figuratively) to change or correct it. now that person is a master of all the arts and the traditional school is now a jack of all trades school, its just sad.
you can blame the economy if you want, but know this, if you are one of those self proclaimed masters, who prey on the commercial integrity of the neighborhood... well you are being laughed at, talked about, and then forgotten.