Are you a Movement Collector?

When studying and practising Tai Chi and Qigong it can be easy to fall into the trap of becoming a movement collector.  This means when you have "completed" learning the movements of a Tai Chi form or Qigong routine, you are done and move onto learning the next thing.

A gentle reminder that learning a particular form or routine is never done. Choreography learning is only the base layer of practice.  In the initial stages of learning the movements, you need to become familiar with them before the different layers of learning can begin. Many students keep collecting forms and routines, based off choreography alone. This misses the point of traditional training and only satisfies our dopamine led, anticipatory left brain, the results driven mind that ticks things off a list as complete. To be fair a lot of schools offer this choreography machine mindset.

There is another way! This approach is my ethos as a teacher, and what I pass onto my students. Instead of digging many shallow holes, how about digging one deep hole. There are many years of training to progress through aside from learning the choreography, from structure and alignment principles, body method, applied principles, breath work to state shifting, all within the same movements. Which slowly over time brings us more into the right brain experience, into our felt sense, our playful and curious mind, to listen inwardly so you can explore awareness and sensations as you move.

From some of my teachers: "learning only really begins once you have learnt a form", "you could take one movement and study that for ten years and still have more to explore and play with", and one of my teachers has only studied the Chen Tai Chi long form across his whole life. As a life long student of Tai Chi and Qigong myself, of 19 years, I am still practising, learning and applying the principles to the forms I learnt 19 years ago. It's not about being done or box ticking, it's a continual exploration of mind and body through movement in that very moment.

The danger of being a movement collector is your quality of movements are likely to lack good structure and movement integrity. Learning choreography will only ever be choreography, like a dance routine, waving hands in the air, which is not traditional Tai Chi and Qigong. One of my teachers once said that Tai Chi or Qigong done badly without having learnt the principles or method, are probably the worst exercises you can do for health. You need substance behind the moves.

So consider finding a Tai Chi form or a Qigong routine that you love, and explore the many layers of principles within that same form, over and over again, through many hours, weeks, months and years of repetition of the same movements, with a different intention. You can then apply those same principles and body method to any Tai Chi or Qigong movement that you learn in the future, as you will have built a strong foundation. The core of your training is then flipped from choreography to method.

And lastly, for the students who only want to learn Tai Chi and Qigong as choreography, that is fine too. It's not one size fits all. We all have different desires and needs from our training. This article is to pass on the traditional approach to training, for those that want to delve into the movements, to be guided towards digging a deep hole. It's worth every moment.