Alexander Tai-Chi Foundation

THE OPENING POEM WAS WRITTEN BY Alexander Tai-Chi-Chuan Instructor
SIFU LINDSAY CUNNINGHAM in May 2005.
entitled
Come and Have Great Fun Studying Tai Chi Chuan.

Come and ease the stress
Tidy up the mental mess
Be your very best
Doing Tai Chi you achieve more not less
Our goal your perfect joy and happiness.

So come and have great fun
Studying Tai Chi Chuan
You’ll be spiritually refined
Better physically defined
The greatest exercise perfectly designed
Over a thousand years stood the test of time.

At the Alexander Tai Chi Foundation
The only limitation is your imagination
This is a sign of the times
Come and free your mind
We are the guides for the Spiritually Blind
The age of Aquarius is now yours and mine.

Jon formed the present Alexander Tai-Chi Foundation in 1985 and now teaches and grades Tai-Chi students from all over the world. The main style taught is 24 Step Peking Style Tai Chi-Chuan which is like an ABC of Tai-Chi and after learning 24 Step, students can go on to learn and practice many other styles of Tai-Chi. The Alexander Tai-Chi Foundation also teaches its own unique 42 Step Tai-Chi Form and recently has started teaching Shaolin Taiji Kung-Fu (Jade Mountain Style), which Jon has been formulating for over 25 years.

Many of Jon’s present students have been training in Tai-Chi for many years, but never thought of making the big step to becoming a professional Tai-Chi Coach and actually making a living at something they love doing. Read the following reply to an email received by Jon from a Tai-Chi student of some experience, who, when he asked his Sifu if he could do a teacher training course, was told, “you will have to train for many years yet to consider that position". That student is now a professional coach making a good living, enjoying life after training and qualifying after an intensive course.

Hi - - - - thanks for your email. Yes, I can (hopefully) teach you to become a Tai Chi Instructor, with a short intensive training course, providing that you have some experience and aptitude, as it appears that you do. There is no Chinese ruling about how long one should train before coming an instructor. I can tell you that there is no official governing body or set rules about Tai Chi training. To set rules and to enforce extended training periods is totally unreasonable. No one has the right to say how long it takes to become an Instructor. Who has the right to set these extended training periods? Extended training periods are in my humble opinion a get rich, money making system with extensive on-going costs. To set rules, conditions and extended training periods is against the whole principal of Tai Chi. Tai Chi is fundamentally a complete system of freedom of thought, action, mind and deed. The recently accepted symbol of Tai Chi i.e. the Yin/Yang symbol, proposed that all things interact equally and opposite with each other and that everything is possible, as long as everything is in balance. However, from the Zen point of view to make distinction between this and that/ black and white/ up and down/ forward and back, or any other word that you can think of that has an opposite, is to already sub-divide the senses. In Zen, we propose the centre path of no choice, i.e. the middle way, in Tai Chi all things are possible and it would be totally against the principals of Tai Chi to set rules. One has to realise the fundamental thinking behind the concept of Tai Chi and the concepts of Tao. Most instructors I have seen and the classes I have witnessed involve so much esoteric rubbish, avoiding totally the actual pure tuition of Tai Chi e.g. push hands, meditation, Gestalt reasoning, visualisation and touchy feely encounter groups etc. Some classes even ask you to bring a blanket or a cushion and basically instead of the simple teaching of pure Tai Chi, instructors never quite get to the teaching of Tai Chi in the class. We, at the Alexander Tai - Chi Foundation, are a direct transmission school. We teach nothing but Tai Chi, to music, totally avoiding all other distractions and diversities. In Tai Chi we are totally alone, there is no opposing force. There is in reality, no enemy except yourself. Tai Chi is the purest of martial arts and should not be clouded by the other issues that instructors pad out their classes with. I suggest that you find someone, who can “cut” (if you’ll pardon the words) “ the crap” that goes with some Tai Chi tuition. I can’t hope in an email to convince you of the validity of my reasoning, but in Tai Chi above all things, all things are possible in all possible worlds. Take no-ones word (not even mine) about the rules, regulations and constrictions of Tai Chi. There are none, otherwise it would not be Tai Chi, it would be an enforced, regimented system. You are a leaf floating in the stream of life, you have the right to follow the stream down any rivulet that the stream takes you. Tai Chi should impose no rules, Tai Chi just is. At the Alexander Tai - Chi Foundation we have one rule, Think big. In other words, "Break out of the classical mess", as Bruce Lee once said). Follow your heart, to that life long dream of actually making a living out of something that you love doing, be it Tai - Chi, Swordsmanship, Karate or Kung - Fu.

We must remember, whatever esoteric and magical properties that we assume exist in Tai-Chi, the only reality is in performance and performance is its only reality. The somewhat unfortunate reputation that Tai-Chi is only for older people is because most travel films show elderly people practicing in a local park. This is because only older people have the discipline to get up early (usually about 5am or 6am) to join harmoniously with others to practice Tai-Chi. This is usually while younger people are still asleep. However, the quicker that you learn to utilise the amazing properties of Tai-Chi, the longer and more contentedly you will live. The commonly accepted abbreviation of TAI-CHI-CHUAN (supreme, ultimate, fist way) is TAI- CHI. This is in essence, a non-sensical phrase, as TAI-CHI without the CHUAN has no meaning at all. In light of the above explanation, please excuse the commonly accepted, shortened usage of the title Tai Chi Chuan.

The Chinese character for CHI or intrinsic energy, does not actually appear in the Chinese characters for Tai-Chi-Chuan. In KANJI or Chinese character reading, there can be as many as 30+ different readings for any one word. So, it is essential not to judge the meaning of any Chinese or Japanese word without actually seeing the characters for that word. A good book to study regarding KANJI or Chinese characters is "Essential Kanji" by P.G. O'Neill published by Weatherhill. ISBN no. 0-8348-0082-9.

As an interesting note you must appreciate that although Japanese and Chinese peoples can write and understand the same characters, they cannot speak to or understand each other, as their spoken languages are totally different.

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