Honoring Justin’s Wishes For TCC Teacher Candidate Preparation

Before I left for the 2002 T’ai Chi Chih Teacher Conference in San Antonio, Texas, Justin gave me a typed letter he had written, asking me to read it aloud to the assembled teachers. It concerned his reflections on how to best solve the on-going problem of TCC teacher candidates arriving at trainings poorly prepared. Forum discussions centered around whether we should initiate a system whereby teacher prep students would be encouraged to attend an “intensive,” a class wherein their movements would be assessed by one of the TCC teacher accreditors. After lengthy debate, the intensive was born and with it, a requirement that a second impartial TCC teacher evaluate the teacher prep student before she was admitted into the training. The second signature teacher was to be someone who could evaluate the student without the encumbrance of emotional attachment to the student.

Justin’s words on the second teacher signature were as follows: “In the last issue of The Vital Force, someone suggested a teacher’s training candidate being recommended by two teachers, his or her original teacher and one who is a relative stranger to the candidate, but the second one would be completely impartial. This might be the best way to check on a candidate to see if he or she is good enough to be accepted for the course. This method is used in Japan to approve the enlightenment of a monk preparatory to his becoming a Zen Master.”