In the old days, when money meant coins and precious metals, some "enterprising" souls, some of them kings, found ways to debase the coinage in such a way that it resembled the original, full-value coins of the realm, but which were not as valuable owing to their gold or silver being alloyed with base metals. This led a man of the day named Gresham to propound Gresham's Law, which states bad money drives out good. If you possess gold coins, why would you spend them in an economy that is full of debased or "bad" money. What one did, of course, was simply keep his "good" money while the circulating money became increasingly worthless.
We live in a time and place that permits people with very little in the way of skill, knowledge or experience to spend a little time learning "t'ai chi" and then setting themselves up as teachers, masters, sifus, whatever. pretty soon these people teach others who then go on to become "teachers." And so it goes.
The truth is there is a variant of Gresham's Law at work in the world of martial arts, and especially with respect to the so-called "internal arts." Good teaching is being driven out by the bad.
There are world- famous teachers, students of people like Cheng Man-Ching and other notables, who are teaching forms that bear no resemblance to the fighting forms of Yang Cheng-Fu or his brother or anyone of that ilk. Because the forms are meant to be performed slowly, the "players" adopt these silly, rubbery, "tofu" movements as legitimate and somehow potentially powerful techniques.
The truth is there are few, very few, teachers of T'ai Chi Ch'uan who could use their art and skill in a fight. And I believe after 30+ years of studying and practicing, this simple criterion is the only one you should apply when looking for a teacher. Ifr the person cannot show you simply and directly how he/she has evolved fighting technique out of the practice of the forms, then the person is a fraud. In my own personal experience -- which includes studying in Cheng Man-Ching's school in NYC and with a number of the so-called "masters" mentioned on this board, I have found exactly one person who fits the description of martial artist. the rest of them remind me of the log-rolling literary critics who give rave reviews to each other's books.
The T'ai Chi Ch'uan form is a rigorous, exacting, powerful exercise that cannot be done in just any old way. There is only one correct way. Period.