10 Codes To Being An Effective TCC Instructor

1. Understand your purpose.

Recall the importance to you of your very first T’ai Chi Chih instructor.

Know what moves you, what inspires you, what motivates you as a TCC instructor. It will rub off onto your students. Think about the famous quotation “Know thyself.”

2. Understand you are number one.

Self-care precedes authentic nurturing and caring of your students.

Taking care of #1 (you) is key to taking care of your students. You need to be full to fill others (e.g., in the instruction of using a mask on airlines, you put your mask on before you put a mask on your children).

3. Live your truth uncompromisingly.

Be uncompromising with your heart and soul toward practice and your students.

Compromising your truth and commitment as an instructor is a form of a slow death for you and your students.

4. Be present.

Being present is a present to you and your students.

The past is past and the future is not here. All you have is now, so be present in the now when teaching your students.

5. Participate with those who respect your position as an instructor.

Do not tolerate debilitating relationships.

Work and play with those who fill your cup and avoid those who do not contribute to your wholeness, or the wholeness of others.

6. Assume nothing, be ready for anything in the class.

Know the tint of your perceptions.

Be cautious of your preconceptions. There are always two sides to every story.

7. Act…do not overreact.

Be proactive and response-able.

Reactive behaviour creates victim behaviour, regardless of the setting.

8. Live a life, not a lifestyle.

Make the priority becoming more, not having more.

Be a human being, not a human doing.

9. Remember, the journey matters most.

Stop and smell the roses; the journey is life.

The going there is as important as the getting there.

10. Give the gift of you.

Because of you, they are more.