Formosa Neijia

My Chen taiji teacher uses a modular teaching system in the school. This system splits up the curriculum into very clear levels and the different levels practice separately from each other. This allows him to have a smaller space and provide lots of attention to students. For example, my class is 3-4 students and two-plus hours long. We do one move a week and get lots of detail and review. It’s the most detailed class I’ve ever been in and I love it.

Unfortunately, there are several problems with the system. One of those surfaced today. My teacher teaches “wai men” classes and “nei men” classes. Those terms roughly translate to inside and outside. The inside class isn’t secret, of course. It’s just that the class size is smaller, and more detail, and repetition are given to students that wish to go beyond the outside (health) level. Taiji for health here in Taipei is insane. Everyone does it and because of that, the market is flooded with mediocre teachers and students just looking for health. This arrangment allows my teacher to teach “the masses” while retaining serious students. I was one of the serious ones.

Problem is, my short form class is ending and with only 3-4 students, the teacher feels that it’s too tiring for him to open the next modular class for so few students. He “invited” us to join his next health class and everyone groaned. The health classes have 40-50 people on average. An added problem is that the next module is his 48 form, which takes six months to complete. What I’ve heard is that he teaches the “outside” class and then people who want to go deeper sign up for the “inside” class and take the same form all over again, this time with lots of afore mentioned details. So the soonest that the next serious class could be offered is six months.

Needless to say, I’m not too happy about this. This is the best taiji teacher I’ve ever had and possibly the best teacher, period. It took me a year to find him. Yes, Taipei is flooded by that many bad teachers. The thought of having to look all over again for a teacher or to take a health class with 40-50 less-than-serious people for a whole six months does not thrill me.

Just goes to show what wujimon and I have been chatting about. The IMA road is filled with teacher-less gaps and long periods of self-training. Even when high-quality instruction is available, that instruction may disappear or otherwise become unavailable.