About a month or so ago, the wife and I started taking some tai chi classes at a dojo in Richmond Hill. Ji Hong Tai Chi. They teach Chen, Yang, and Wu style tai chi at that location and it feels like the instructors there know what they are doing. The version I am taking right now is the Chen style tai chi, its the one that appeals to me the most, with it's energetic bursts of motion, as opposed the more stately Yang style.
The class is only for an hour a week, one morning class every Sunday. I think I can handle a bit faster a pace than we're going right now, maybe 2 classes a week would be nice. The school has divided the form into 3 parts and listed them as Chen 1, 2 and 3. I think it might be a good idea to take Chen 2 and 3 at the same time after I'm done with Chen 1. Plus the per-course cost is cheaper for 2 classes in one term, than 1 class per term. Right now we're probably about just under half way through Chen 1.
The instructor we have is a kind of a petite woman originally from Singapore. Master May or Sifu May, everyone calls her. In the class when she is doing the moves, you can see an aura of energy and concentration radiating from her, much bigger than her diminutive frame, and is quite impressive. She is teaching the course in a combination of English and Cantonese. English for the main part, and Cantonese to drive home some points if certain people are not getting things right. On the first day she asked us which language we'd prefer to have the course taught in, English, Mandarin, or Cantonese. We settled on English only, since some people didn't speak Mandarin and some people didn't speak Cantonese... but I guess some of the students need a bit more help in their own language.
Speaking of the students in the class, some of them seem fairly advanced. They nail down the motions beautifully without too much effort or correction from the instructor. I'll guess they've taken another tai chi form before. I feel like I'm learning a bit more by watching them interpret the instructor's moves. On the other hand, there are also students that are absolutely atrocious - stiff armed and stiff legged, doing half or less of each move as it is presented. You can call me elitist if you want, but if we spent any more time on them, we would be learning the form as 6 parts rather than 3 parts. I can appreciate their dedication to learning it though, if not their form.
I'd say I'm sort of in the middle of these two groups. A few problems here and there with width of stance and footing, but nothing glaringly wrong. My body is usually in the right posture and my hands are generally in the right positions. I have taken a Yang style course before a long time ago, and I've always had a passing interest in martial arts, so I think that helps somewhat.
Allen.
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