Rooting energy work in your own tangible experience is a way of validating it.
It’s important when you are learning that you make all of the Tai Chi training real. You have to directly experience every idea you hear. Otherwise, the information alone doesn’t necessarily help you. Knowing that you can relax, that you can flow, is nice. However, if you are not experiencing these states then it doesn’t do much for you. It’s like knowing there is some beautiful place you can visit but you never actually go there.
So you want to make sure as an instructor that you communicate everything in as directly experiential a way as possible. Try to avoid, for the most part, abstract philosophy. Whenever an instructor makes a correction of the student’s body position there should also be an explanation of why. Or a checking in and noting that the student has experienced a difference in their body. That change should feel good for them. The student should see the value of it and directly benefit from the change. This anchors everything in their own experience and none of their practice is just rote memorization or theory.
Tai chi training should start off with simple things that most people can do in the short term and work under pressure…
This approach of experiencing and testing all learning is vitally important with marital applications too. The applications of tai chi can tend to be fairly elaborate. Often these self defense moves are unlikely to be preformed successfully unless you are extremely advanced. That said, these difficult moves are what most martial tai chi practitioners focus on. The martial practice of tai chi should start off with simple things that most people can do in the short term and work under pressure. Students can figure out how to yield to a line of force. They learn how to trap limbs… big broad concepts like that. Then from there you’ll start to discover how to connect in the more elaborate finishing techniques like the Chin Na, or the throws or the strikes.
With the energetic and awareness focused Tai Chi training it becomes even more important to be able to experience every concept. Rooting energy work in your own tangible experience is a way of validating it.
Once the idea has become experience then your work is done.