Perhaps it's time to share what you love...
If you have been practising Tai Chi for some time, there may come a point when you begin to wonder what it would be like to teach it.
You may already find yourself helping someone with a movement, explaining something you've discovered in your own practice, or noticing things in class that you wouldn't have noticed a few years ago. And somewhere in there, the thought appears: Perhaps I could teach this.
Usually followed fairly quickly by another thought: But am I really ready?
It's a reasonable question. Tai Chi is one of those wonderful things where the more you learn, the more you realise there is to learn. You can practise for years and still discover something new in a movement you thought you knew very well.
But perhaps being ready to teach doesn't mean having reached the end of your own learning.
Perhaps teaching becomes part of it.
Teaching changes your practice
There is something very different about knowing a movement yourself and helping another person to discover it.
Suddenly you have to look more closely. Why does the weight move that way? Where does the movement actually begin? Why can one person find it easily while another struggles? When is a correction helpful, and when does it simply take someone further into their head?
And then there are all the things that have very little to do with demonstrating a form.
How do you stand in front of a group without becoming self-conscious? How much do you explain? How do you work with people who learn at completely different speeds? How do you remain aware of yourself while also being aware of everyone else in the room?
These are skills in their own right, and they are rarely learned simply by practising more Tai Chi.
That is what this training is about.
You don't need to know everything
One of the things that can stop good practitioners from beginning to teach is the idea that they should somehow know everything first. So they practise a little longer. Take another class. Learn another form. Wait until they feel more confident.
There is nothing wrong with continuing to learn, you should. But there is a difference between continuing to deepen your Tai Chi and waiting for some imaginary moment when you finally feel that you have "arrived”. You teach from the place you have genuinely reached.
If you have a good foundation, you can help someone develop a good foundation. As your own understanding deepens, what you are able to offer your students deepens too.
This training won't turn eight weeks of teaching into decades of Tai Chi experience, and it doesn't pretend to. What it will do is help you begin your teaching journey on good foundations, so that the way you teach can grow alongside the way you practise.
The eight-week journey
Week 1 — The Invisible Teacher: Presence Before Technique
Before looking at what you say or teach, we begin with the person doing the teaching. We'll explore what happens to your own body, breathing and awareness when you stand in front of other people, and how your internal state affects the atmosphere of a class. You'll begin developing the ability to remain centred while your attention expands to include the people around you.
Week 2 — Tai Chi as Meditation
Tai Chi can easily become a sequence of movements that somebody is trying very hard to get right. We'll explore how to teach the form without losing the meditation within it — helping students remain connected to their bodies, breathing and experience rather than becoming preoccupied with remembering the next movement.
Week 3 — The Art of Energy and Sensitivity
As your Tai Chi develops, you begin to experience movement differently. There is less emphasis on moving individual parts of the body and greater sensitivity to connection, direction, weight and energy. This week explores how you communicate something that ultimately has to be felt. You'll also begin looking at the energetic quality you bring into a class and how your own state influences the people practising with you.
Week 4 — Teaching Form Without Fixation
Form matters. But correcting every hand, foot and angle can very quickly produce a student who is tense, self-conscious and frightened of getting things wrong. We'll look at how and when to correct, what matters at different stages of learning, and how to help someone develop their form without taking away the natural curiosity and enjoyment that allows Tai Chi to deepen.
Week 5 — The Tao of Group Dynamics
Some people learn quickly, some need repetition. Someone may ask endless questions while somebody else never asks one. One student may need encouragement and another may need you to stop helping them for five minutes so they can discover it themselves. You'll explore how to feel what is happening in a group and respond without losing the direction of the class — learning when to lead, when to adapt and when to allow.
Week 6 — Inner Alignment, Outer Expression
Teaching has an interesting habit of showing you yourself. You may discover that you rush when you're nervous, over-explain when you're uncertain, become too serious when you want to do well, or concentrate so much on your students that you lose your own centre. Rather than seeing these things as mistakes, we'll use them as part of the practice. The more aware you become of yourself while teaching, the more freedom you have in how you respond.
Week 7 — Beyond the Physical
At some point Tai Chi becomes more than choreography. This week moves further into Chi, energetic awareness and the subtler aspects of practice. We'll explore ways of helping students become sensitive to their own experience without telling them what they should be feeling or turning something subtle into another thing to achieve.
Week 8 — Embodying the Tao: Finding Your Own Way to Teach
Your way of teaching will inevitably grow from your personality, your experience and your own relationship with Tai Chi. In the final week we'll bring the different elements together and look at how you can begin teaching from where you genuinely are — with enough structure to support you, enough awareness to keep learning, and enough freedom for your own way of teaching to emerge.
INCLUDES
Morning Tao
Your own practice remains part of the training
Your membership of Morning Tao is included throughout the training.
This is important because learning to teach should never replace being a student. You'll continue practising Tai Chi and Qi Gong with Raj while you are learning how to facilitate, and you'll probably begin noticing his classes rather differently once you start looking through the eyes of a teacher.
You may notice how he introduces something, when he corrects, when he doesn't, how he changes pace, or how he responds when someone isn't quite getting it.
The class itself becomes part of the learning.
What you'll receive
8 x 3-hour live online teaching sessions with Raj
Membership of Morning Tao classes for 8 weeks
Access to missed recordings
The Tao of Presence training workbook and supporting materials
A private Facebook community where you can ask questions and share your experiences with the group
A Certificate of Completion in Tai Chi Facilitation.
Sessions are live online, so you can join from wherever you are.
Is this training for you?
If you've practised Tai Chi long enough to know that you love it, know a form and have begun wondering whether you might enjoy sharing it with other people, then yes — this may be your next step.
You don't need to arrive pretending to be a master. In fact, we'd rather you didn't.
Bring what you know. Bring what you don't know. Bring your questions, your experience and your curiosity.
Raj will meet you there.
An 8-week live online training for Tai Chi practitioners who know a form and feel ready to explore sharing their practice with others. With Raj, you’ll learn the practical foundations of leading a Tai Chi class while exploring what lies beneath the technique - presence, awareness, energy, connection and the art of guiding others without losing your own centre.
You don’t need to be a master to begin teaching. You begin from the level you have reached, sharing what you genuinely know while continuing to deepen your own practice along the way.
Frequently Asked Questions
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The Tai Chi Facilitator Training is an 8-week live online program with Raj Anand for people who already practise Tai Chi and want to learn how to begin teaching it to others. The training combines practical teaching skills with meditation, awareness, energy sensitivity and the principles of Tao.
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You don't need to be a master, but you should already have experience practising Tai Chi and know a Tai Chi form. The training teaches you how to facilitate from the level you have reached; the level to which you can teach or advance your own students will naturally depend on the depth of your existing practice and experience.
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The training is designed to give existing Tai Chi practitioners the foundations needed to begin facilitating Tai Chi classes. You will learn how to structure and lead a class, guide students, work with different abilities, create a supportive learning environment and teach with greater presence and awareness.
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No. This training does not teach you a Tai Chi form from the beginning. It focuses on how to take the Tai Chi you already practise and learn to share it effectively with others.
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Raj's approach goes beyond learning how to demonstrate movements or correct technique. The training explores the inner qualities of teaching — presence, awareness, sensitivity, energy, meditation and the ability to remain centred while responding to the people in front of you.
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The main training consists of eight live online sessions with Raj, each lasting approximately three hours. Recordings are also provided so you can revisit the teachings or catch up if you miss a session.
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Yes. Membership of Raj's Morning Tao classes is included as part of the training. These live online Tai Chi and Qi Gong classes give you an opportunity to deepen your own practice while also experiencing Raj's teaching approach from the perspective of a student.
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The journey moves from presence and meditation into the practical and subtle aspects of teaching. Topics include teaching Tai Chi as meditation, working with energy, teaching form without becoming rigid, understanding group dynamics, inner alignment, guiding energetic awareness and developing your own authentic expression as a teacher.
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The training is taught by Raj Anand, who brings around 50 years of experience in meditation, awareness work and Tai Chi to his teaching. His approach is influenced by both Taoist principles and Osho's understanding of meditation and awareness.
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Yes. Participants who complete the training receive a Certificate of Completion in Tai Chi Facilitation.
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The entire training takes place live online via Zoom, so you can participate from anywhere with a suitable internet connection and enough space to practise.
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Yes. The training includes The Tao of Presence workbook together with supporting exercises, reflections and materials to help you integrate what you are learning between sessions.