If you're teaching Swing, you shouldn't call it Tango. If you're selling John Deeres, you shouldn't call them Oldsmobiles. If you're selling gin, you shouldn't call it rye. And if someone was teaching GoJu and advertising it as CLF, or vice-versa, I would call them on it.And I have never trained in either one.I don't think that matters. Truth in advertising.Think it's a good idea. "I've seen worse taught under that banner..." No doubt,but I hope the word "worse" doesn't imply anything negative about shuffleboard!
Ta guys My whole concern that was she has never even trained in tai chi,not one single lesson and was claiming to be doing it. It's not just mis-selling but as others have said,it could essentially be dangerous. I didn't do it for some sense of gratitude or anything like that, and I didn't really think what the people who were doing it thought. They have other things to do now,including pilates and body combat, as far as I am concerned it's job done. She was completely clueless and it was also the complete lack of respect for those people who do actually train hard and teach tai chi that also bothered me.
Hehe, body combat... Of they ever claim that to be a martial art, go and have some fun! My company asked me to train to teach it, I refused as I would have started correcting the trainer and telling them "now, that wouldn't work..."
I actually do body combat and no,it shouldn't ,and never is taught as a martial art.It's a good workout and a good laugh.My kung fu teacher takes the class and never claims it's an effective fighting system,he gets people to come to kung fu for that.
Well then isn't it just as unethical to call it "combat" ? I'm not sure how this supports the point - your teacher knew TaiJi just wasn't teaching it the way you thought he should? Then you knew it was bad TaiJi but you stayed long enough to permanently damage your knees? I know people who have done hard style karate for a dozen years or more and never damaged their knees, maybe your knees were weak to start with? but anyway, I'll butt out now, and just say this: A name is just a name, I wouldn't attach too much morality or ethics to protecting a name. It seems to me that protecting the name "Tai Chi" was treated with more importance than the well-being of the people who may have been benefitting from the class. -David
I was a newbie, knowing nothing about MA or TJQ. So I had no thoughts as to the correctness of his teaching. I trusted him when he pushed us into deeper stances. See above. So do I...now. My knees were fine before I started. Apparantly it is a well documented phenonima (sp?) especially in the USA where it it known as Tai Chi Knee. A name is just a name? Sometimes. When the public sign up to learn anything, be it language or accupuncture, it should surely be taught by someone qualified in the subject to hand? Carys.
Deeper stances aren't the culprit of 'tai chi knee'. It's down to turning the body without having alligned the knees over the feet correctly which puts stress on the joint.
Good point, however deep stances without proper guidance can lead to misalignment that can cause Taiji knee.
If we are talking about taichi here then the depth of posture or stances won't make that much difference - the damage is being done. It is the sideways movement that puts the stress on the joint. edit. deeper stances may well make the mistake more apparent. /edit If you want to talk about horse stance then yes.. If you hold a deep stance in bad allignment for long enough period it will cause problems. But again it is not the lowness or depth that is the problem - it is the incorrect allignment! In other words if your knees can take it there is no reason deep stances will create a problem for them going forward given that form is correct.
According to the original post, the teacher WAS teaching something she was qualified in, it just wasn't Tai Chi.
I know, and this is why Su was concerned. If someone is qualified to teach oriental potato dancing and advertises as such...no problems. To advertise Taiji classes when the teacher has never done any herself...absolutely out of order and has to be stopped. I have seen people incur injuries when learning from qualified MA instructors...I dread to think of the damage an imposter could inflict.
Well, if by "qualified in", you actually mean "explicitly forbidden to teach by the standards body" you're right. Otherwise you're wrong. Try rereading the first post where she says that its tai chi because they don't let her call it body balance anymore.
SHe didn't have the actual qualification,final certificate in Body Balance even as that cost money. One of my main gripes from the start was that they called it Tai CHi so they didn't have to pay the license fee to teach Body Balance.It was that fact ,the "Oh we don't want to pay the money to get a proper instructor or license so we will call it Tai Chi instead as we don't have to pay the money" that got me annoyed,as well as her NEVER taking even one Tai Chi lesson in her life.
I read in the first post where she didn't want to pay for the license to use the name, I didn't seea post where it says she was forbidden by the standards body or that there was any reason other than financial to not use the real name for what she was doing. So is that in a later post that I missed? "I have seen people incur injuries when learning from qualified MA instructors...I dread to think of the damage an imposter could inflict." I don't think this is an appropriate analysis. If she was teaching Tai Chi and had no experience with it, then you are spot-on. But that's not what she was doing. She was teaching this other thing that she DID have experience in and just calling it a different name because somebody was too cheap to pay the licesne fee. I don't see how using a different name increases any chance of injury.
She doesn't use the name because she didn't want to get a licences, and with out the licence she is not allowed to call it body-thing. No licence=not qualified to teach body-thing and prevented from doing so by who ever controls the trademark and sets the instructors standard.
Fakes Everywhere Hi, sorry if this is slightly off topic, but I think its relevant. Saying that what she teaches is not Tai Chi can go for a lot of so called Masters (you tube says it all) An Advert in my local paper said its particular flavor of Tai Chi Chuan was not a Martial Art, if that's the case it should not be called Tai Chi Chuan. :woo:
