The reason for creating this course

A common piece of advice that tai chi teachers receive from business experts is that we should find our marketing niche. This means finding a specific target audience that you want to teach, and design a marketing plan that emphasizes the benefits that those people would find appealing.

Tai chi is a holistic art, which means it could appeal to any of a number of target audiences. Each school could have dozens of different programs, each for a specific niche. The potential benefits of tai chi are so wide ranging and profound that there is hardly any limit.

Tai chi can be practiced as an exercise, an art form, a sport, a therapy, a martial art, a meditation, a healing exercise, a relaxation method, a philosophy, a tactical system, a strategic doctrine.

It can be used to improve strength, endurance, flexibility, balance, agility, power, efficiency, pain management, breath control, proprioception, and more.

Tai chi programs are extremely adaptable. As such, niche markets could be found or created for nearly any group.

Tai chi for seniors
Tai Chi for teens
Tai Chi for kids
Tai Chi for women
Tai Chi for men
Tai Chi for arthritis
Tai Chi for heart disease and hypertension
Tai Chi fo balance
Tai Chi for athletes
Tai Chi for actors
Tai Chi for mental health
Tai chi for police
Tai chi for soldiers
Tai chi for linebackers
Tai chi for marathon runners
Tai chi for sprinters
Tai chi for weight lifters.

There is a big problem, however, with treating a holistic system and treating it like a purpose-built tool for a single purpose. In some cases, it is like removing a drill bit from a carefully engineered and tested multi-tool. The drill bit cannot function very well when separated from the complete machine.

One of the key powers of tai chi is the ability to make the whole body and mind function together in a way that is much greater than the sum of its parts. Any joint by itself is an inefficient class 3 lever. But tai chi teaches one to coordinate all the class 3 levers in fascia trains to form mechanically efficient class 1 or 2 levers, springs, wedges, scales, Galilean cannons, tensile geodesics, and adaptive reference frames. For any one part of the body to move without such coordination is inefficient at best, and self-defeating at worst.

Likewise, teaching tai chi as a holistic art means that understanding the biomechanics related to martial arts can greatly improve the health benefits achieved by non-martial artists. This doesn’t mean that grandma needs to learn how to fight. It just means that she will have better balance if she knows something about how the art could be used.

On the other hand a martial artist does need to understand what it is like to be grandma. When I was a 25-year-old martial art champion, I got my butt kicked by a 75-year old woman half my size. This resulted in me spending years learning how to move like an old lady.

A successful martial artist has the same approach to violence that a medical doctor has toward illness and injury. So, whether you practice it as a martial art or a healing exercise, the goal of tai chi, as with any comprehensive traditional martial art, is lasting health and tranquility.

So, teaching tai chi to a niche market might make good business sense. But doing so risks doing a disservice to the art, and to the students. It can also be disheartening to the teachers, who feel like they are selling an inferior product, demeaning themselves and cheating the students.

It doesn’t have to be that way. And teachers with adequate resources can teach several niche classes as a way of supporting their business, and use those classes as a recruiting tool for students to join their holistic classes.

But I have come upon a different approach. This was born out of trial and error, and necessity.

Before Covid, most of my business was from out of town and overseas. Half of my students were teachers of other martial arts, professional and amateur athletes, hardcore tai chi students and teachers, and musical or performing artists. The rest were rank beginners from every demographic. I taught mostly private classes, with programs designed for each individual. I would often say that I don’t teach a style of tai chi, I teach an art. Then I began saying more specifically, I don’t teach an art, I teach people.

But when I started moving my business online, and began making instructional videos, I realized that I needed a way to teach the art, in its entirety, in a way that would be accessible to people of every demographic. I needed a way to teach to every niche, simultaneously. I then realized that this was not possible in the normal formats.

I want to present the art in all its breadth and depth, with room for individual creativity and exploration. I want to allow for students to take as deep or as cursory an approach to the information. Students should be able to skim the information with a simplified approach, or delve deeply into every lesson.

Some students are happy to draw with 4 crayons. Others want the box of 64. Likewise, some students are always wanting to learn the next move, while others want to learn everything there is to know about the move they are on.

That is what brings me to this point. Beginning September 1, 2024, I will be producing a comprehensive program, including several lessons every week. Whatever your tai chi goals are, I hope you will find it here.

Perhaps you are:

a professional or amateur athlete looking for an extra edge
a senior citizen wanting to preserve your health, balance and mobility.
a martial artist looking to expand your skill set.
intrigued by the philosophical or scientific perspective that tai chi can offer.
recovering from an injury or ill health and need a progressive exercise system
seeking tranquility and peace of mind
stressed and needing a tool for proactively taking control of your wellbeing
police or military wanting to refine use of force.
a health care worker seeking relaxation and non-lethal self-defence tools.

When teaching in person, I would designed a separate pedagogy for each person. With this new online curriculum, I can create something for everyone.