Excerpts From: Setting the Record Straight

Source: NM TCC News, May 1997

At last year’s Teachers Conference, the question was asked about the “two T’ai Chi Chihs” in effect at that time. Any thinking person would know that, if there could be two T’ai Chi Chihs, there could be ten or twenty ways to do it, which would spell the end of this wonderful discipline. The question was a logical one as it was on almost everybody’s mind.

As soon as we returned home from the Conference, I called Steve Ridley a number of times and suggested that we get together to solve the problem. His answer was that there was no problem, and he refused to meet with me. Then I wrote a letter suggesting an agenda we could consider to do away with the problem (which he had created), and this was derided. Only then, for the first time, did I reluctantly come to believe that he did not want to do away with the problem!

Some time later Steve called me to ask what he should do about the upcoming Teachers’ Courses in New Jersey and San Diego. I replied, “You are the Spiritual Head of T’ai Chi Chih. Go ahead and teach them!” I did not say a word about how they should be taught or what should be taught.

After returning from these Courses, Steve wrote a card demanding that I write a letter to The Vital Force saying that his was the proper way to do T’ai Chi Chih – in other words, renouncing what I had brought to the world in 1974. I replied that I could not do so, and that the new way of doing some of the movements was incorrect. I also wondered what right he had to deliver such an ultimatum to the originator of T’ai Chi Chih.

A few weeks later, on a Monday morning, Steve called me and said he was stepping down as Spiritual Head of T’ai Chi Chih – NOW! I was greatly surprised as I had repeatedly assured Steve, and his wife, Lia, that he was the head of T’ai Chi Chih as long as he wanted to be.

This announcement called for quick action. We both faxed announcements to The Vital Force, and I first had to ask Ed Altman if he would take on such a responsibility on such short notice (with the financial sacrifice it would mean to him for taking time off from his job in the technology field in order to teach Courses). Fortunately he said, “Yes.”

I had twice before talked Steve out of resigning, telling him I thought he would be making a big mistake. He explained that he would go back to being an ordinary teacher in Denver and would give up submitting articles to The Vital Force and conducting Teachers’ Courses and accrediting teachers (as he stated in the resignation letter he later submitted to The Vital Force).

If Steve had been willing to sit down with me and work out the problem of “two T’ai Chi Chihs,” I believe he would still be the head of T’ai Chi Chih. I think, from his standpoint, he made a great mistake in voluntarily stepping down. Those who say, or write, that he was “forced out” are misinformed.

My thanks to Ed Altman for taking on such a difficult task, under troublesome circumstances, on such short notice. …

It is now up to all who are interested in TCC to band together to bring back the peaceful, joyous situation that was interrupted. If you are getting benefits from T’ai Chi Chih, then give something back to it.