It's a rainy morning and I had to practice my Tai Chi in the living room instead of on the patio. As I went through the set, my mind (which usually stays in the moment throughout the moves) was, instead, mulling over my week so far; the putting together of the Highland bagpipe chanter and finding the low G, setting up a review of French in Action on the computer, reading the articles and the blog written by the French in Action cult followers.
Cult followers? It was a natural progression from the subject of cult followings to think of Master Moy.
I was a charter member of the Taoist Tai Chi Society in Jacksonville. M Moy was still alive and all movements were done as he instructed from Canada. Instructors traveled to Toronto every year to practice under his guidance.The method of learning was see and do. Almost no words were spoken. The instructor demonstrated the move three times while the students watched. The students then practiced what they had seen three times while the teacher looked on. Repetition was the rule. Over and over. In near silence.
There is a book (in French and English) in my collection explaining the whole set. I have video tapes showing M Moy demonstrating Taoist Tai Chi from two perspectives. I also have a CD of M Moy practicing the Tai Chi. The cameras, the angles, and the way the film is cut prevent anyone from using that one as a learning tool.
I had signed on to become a Taoist Tai Chi instructor when M Moy's death was announced. Unfortunately, I had also taken a new job which almost immediately precluded me from attending the instructors' classes and also the Tuesday/Thursday night practices. The only class that I could get to, during those six years, was one taught at the senior center at Neptune Beach. My instructor from town taught it on Wednesday afternoons but only offered the first twelve moves.
When I moved to Tallahassee, I was excited to be in the same city with the national headquarters. I joined right away. There were many instructors - all teaching the set with words, some teaching different stretching and foot placement, none using M Moy's technique. I quickly found that the physicians and leaders involved in the administration of the organization in Canada, where Taoist Tai Chi began, were editing the moves little by little, increasing the stretching for health reasons, and subtly changing
Master Moy's Tai Chi inch by inch.
They were extremely cliquish. I had many years of membership and leadership under my belt and expected to be accepted as an old-timer. There was no way to get inside. I was a "beginner" for as long as I went to classes. It ires me to remember the conversation that I overheard about beginners paying dues and ultimately dropping out. "Plenty more where they come from."
Gone, also, was the premise that one might have physical limitations leading to the realization that there is no "perfect" way to perform the moves. One instructor immediately grabbed my arthritic hip and attempted to "set me straight." My friend swears to this day that her Tai Chi classroom instructor "ruined" her knee. The only intensive weekend that I attended led to several comments about trying to align my (same arthritic) hip properly. If I could, I would.
I joined in on all the lovely activities during the time I attended classes but was never included in anything but the most casual of conversations. Once, at a Chinese New Year Celebration, I tried to help clean up after the remarkable meal. I was told that I had "paid for dinner" and that the "circle" would clean. I suppose she meant the inner circle. I never asked.
I was a member of the Tallahassee Branch of Taoist Tai Chi for several years. Finally, I got an "inner circle" instructor who was so inept that he could not demonstrate the moves or keep them in order in his head. That was the day I really paid attention and noticed how the whole process had changed since M Moy's death. Several students began to correct the instructor (which is never done) therefore taking away the respect that a leader is due. Then it was that I saw students who had learned a "different" Tai Chi from the one I practiced prodding and reminding an instructor about footwork and sequence. I had paid dues for a year, but I never attended another class.
This morning, I read everything there was to read on the internet about the International Taoist Tai Chi Society - some good, some bad, some absurd, some accusatory. Many writers were quick to criticize the movements as not really Tai Chi, the instructors, the non-profit designation, everything. Most called the organization a cult.
I remember the nuns who came for lessons in Tallahassee until their priest made them quit because of the temple atmosphere of the practice room. Taoism is a philosophy, but it is also a religion. The priest called it a cult. It seems to me, as I think back, that many of the "inner circle" were converted Taoists. Others certainly acted as if they belonged to a cult.
A non-profit organization, Taoist Tai Chi is not a poor man's activity. Everything from dues, to shirts, to booklets, to dinners, to intensive learning opportunities, to meditation classes, to snacks costs money or expects a donation.
I've been practicing what I like to call
Master Moy's Tai Chi for several years now - either in my living room or on the patio. Much mystery surrounds the man, Moy Lin Shin, himself. I don't care. On video, his movements are fluid and supple. He neither exaggerates his stretches nor pauses between movements for sustained extra stretching in order to "enhance" the health of the practitioner. Although the beginning of one demonstration CD shows him in a low, low "snake," the subsequent recording is one of moderation - moves for the average practitioner. The theory is that, with practice, Creeping Low Like a Snake will actually be done low, lower, lowest.
I believe that I am a
Master Moy Tai Chi cult follower. There must be others. I can't be the only person who still practices Tai Chi the way he taught it. If you watch the following YouTube demonstration, turn off the commentary so you can see the meditative beauty of the movements.
http://youtu.be/f9BFWJsrmSY
Once, when M Moy was planning a trip to Florida, someone asked me if I would go to the weekend intensive class that he was planning to lead.
I said, simply, "No."
"Why on earth not?" "
"Because I believe Master Moy to be clairvoyant. I know him and he knows me. If he sees me in the class, he will recognize me. 'Ah,' he will think. 'There is the one who does not give me her very best.'"
Well. I may not have tried as hard as I should have years ago; I was not as diligent or as attentive, then, as I could have been. But here at my house, at this more calm and meditative time in my life,
Master Moy style
Tai Chi is still alive and practiced each and every day.
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
