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Tai Chi Class
Oct. 12th, 2026 03:59 pmI'm enjoying the (free) Tai Chi class I attend Monday mornings, with the understanding that I've made a one-sided bargain with respect to certain things. Like: I will not roll my eyes when things are described in a woo-woo fashion, because I understand that's part of the cultural tradition of the practice, but neither will I pretend to take them seriously. (I'm here for the exercise, not for a religion.)
The relatively loose "come as you are" structure of the classes generally works well. New people are welcome at any time and teaching is incremental with students learning one new movement at a time until the entire routine has been learned. Advanced students who have learned the entire sequence practice separately, refining technique and (well, I don't much know what else because I'm not in that group).
But this creates a certain bottleneck. On any given day, approximately 2/3 of the students are in the "advanced" group. Of the rest, a wildly variable proportion are brand new (1st-3rd class) versus in a "middle group" of students who have learned around 1/3-1/2 of the full routine.
Setting aside the advanced group, which is led by several assistant teachers, the primary teacher starts with the non-advanced students. The first few movements are taught in detail for the brand new students, going over instructions multiple times. Then the class proceeds through the following movements, taking extra time at any point when a movement is new for at least one student. This proceeds until every non-advanced student has learned at least one new movement for the week.
Once a student has learned their new movement, they're supposed to step to the back of the class and practice the sequence they've learned for the rest of the class period. Assistant teachers may join them to answer questions and coach. So the group actively being taught by the primary instructor gradually gets smaller across the class period until everyone has a new movement.
Now, depending on the number of brand new students (and thus the time spent on basic-basic coaching) and the distribution of progress among the "middle group" it's possible for nearly the entire hour to elapse before the more advanced non-advanced students get to learn their new movement. In the mean time, they can either follow along with the intermediate teaching (which can be useful to reinforce technique) or practice the parts of the routine they've learned, among themselves, sometimes doing peer-coaching. More rarely getting some coaching from the assistant teachers.
The attrition rate hits hardest on the brand new students. I'd say that maybe one in ten is still coming after the first couple lessons. There's also significant attrition among the 5-15 lessons group, leaving a fairly small number who are in the "middle group"--fairly committed but still adding movements. At a very rough estimate (and not necessarily representative) I'd say that today there were maybe 20 advanced students, 8 "middle group" students, 10 with a couple lessons under their belt, and maybe 6 first-timers. (Other weeks there have been up to a dozen first-timers.)
At this point I've ended up one of the more advanced "middle group students, with 1 or 2 regulars who are a couple moves ahead of me. I'm on movement #26 out of 37. That means there's a significant gap where there ought to be more "advanced middle group" students who are almost done learning the whole sequence. I haven't quite figured out the dynamics of this, though there are multiple possible explanations.
Today, the middle group was pretty much left to our own devices and I got some compliments from the others on being able to lead and demonstrate for the others. (With some cautions like "I still have no idea what my hands are supposed to do on this one.") Chatter has determined that mostly what I have going for me is actually practicing every day. LOL. That and having bought a copy of the lesson book, so I can check and correct my own form during practice. But what can I say? Nature abhors a vacuum and Heather abhors a power vacuum.
The relatively loose "come as you are" structure of the classes generally works well. New people are welcome at any time and teaching is incremental with students learning one new movement at a time until the entire routine has been learned. Advanced students who have learned the entire sequence practice separately, refining technique and (well, I don't much know what else because I'm not in that group).
But this creates a certain bottleneck. On any given day, approximately 2/3 of the students are in the "advanced" group. Of the rest, a wildly variable proportion are brand new (1st-3rd class) versus in a "middle group" of students who have learned around 1/3-1/2 of the full routine.
Setting aside the advanced group, which is led by several assistant teachers, the primary teacher starts with the non-advanced students. The first few movements are taught in detail for the brand new students, going over instructions multiple times. Then the class proceeds through the following movements, taking extra time at any point when a movement is new for at least one student. This proceeds until every non-advanced student has learned at least one new movement for the week.
Once a student has learned their new movement, they're supposed to step to the back of the class and practice the sequence they've learned for the rest of the class period. Assistant teachers may join them to answer questions and coach. So the group actively being taught by the primary instructor gradually gets smaller across the class period until everyone has a new movement.
Now, depending on the number of brand new students (and thus the time spent on basic-basic coaching) and the distribution of progress among the "middle group" it's possible for nearly the entire hour to elapse before the more advanced non-advanced students get to learn their new movement. In the mean time, they can either follow along with the intermediate teaching (which can be useful to reinforce technique) or practice the parts of the routine they've learned, among themselves, sometimes doing peer-coaching. More rarely getting some coaching from the assistant teachers.
The attrition rate hits hardest on the brand new students. I'd say that maybe one in ten is still coming after the first couple lessons. There's also significant attrition among the 5-15 lessons group, leaving a fairly small number who are in the "middle group"--fairly committed but still adding movements. At a very rough estimate (and not necessarily representative) I'd say that today there were maybe 20 advanced students, 8 "middle group" students, 10 with a couple lessons under their belt, and maybe 6 first-timers. (Other weeks there have been up to a dozen first-timers.)
At this point I've ended up one of the more advanced "middle group students, with 1 or 2 regulars who are a couple moves ahead of me. I'm on movement #26 out of 37. That means there's a significant gap where there ought to be more "advanced middle group" students who are almost done learning the whole sequence. I haven't quite figured out the dynamics of this, though there are multiple possible explanations.
Today, the middle group was pretty much left to our own devices and I got some compliments from the others on being able to lead and demonstrate for the others. (With some cautions like "I still have no idea what my hands are supposed to do on this one.") Chatter has determined that mostly what I have going for me is actually practicing every day. LOL. That and having bought a copy of the lesson book, so I can check and correct my own form during practice. But what can I say? Nature abhors a vacuum and Heather abhors a power vacuum.
