A Tai chi practice of your own
Autumn Leaves Tai Chi is focused on well-being and enlivening our life by practising Tai chi daily.
Personalised, one-to-one lessons on Zoom for women in their fifties, in Australia. Based in Perth
Tai chi’s famous benefits – steadier balance, quieter sleep, joints that stop complaining – arrive in time, as side effects. What the practice actually creates for you over time is hard to describe. To me it is something like joie de vivre: it gladdens our spirit.
You might be in the right place if…
..if you’re in your fifties and aim to live the next thirty years with as much zing as possible.
…Tai chi has been on your list for years but ‘a class’ has been an obstacle – the drive to the class, the class itself with it’s the mixed levels, the instructors divided attention and so on.
…you would like to be taught properly, one real form, learned thoroughly. You aren’t making time and allocating energy to a sampler of gentle moves offered for the elderly.
…You would rather practice in your living room or outside than drive across town at night.
Why I teach one person at a time.
I’ve been in Tai chi classes over twenty years. I’ve observed what they’ve done well and what they lack. What they can’t give you is more attention and more feedback. And what I kept noticing was who went without. So often it was the capable woman in her fifties: generally the best learner with a quality of motivation you just knew was going to finish the form given half a chance.
Although you will be hard pressed to find a martial artist teaching Tai chi outside of a martial arts academy, that culture does spill over into some of the classes that never mention the martial side of the art. While my very first instructor was a martial artist, I am grateful that the organisation I spent 15 years with made me sign a declaration that I would not pursue martial arts in my practice of Tai chi.
So my classes hold one person. You get the whole lesson, the whole attention, and a form chosen for your body where it’s at today: not for one of the two norms of the art – young men in their teens and twenties training in hard core martial arts; or the increasing emphasis on modifications by people who have started to think anyone over forty is potentially frail or vulnerable. Which to be fair, they might be in classes where they aren’t seen and don’t receive feedback.
And, Yes, it’s Zoom
Sure I was heartily sick of Zoom meetings by 2022. However, that never blunted my appetite for the lessons that moved online from great teachers during 2020. During that golden age I took classes with Faye and Tary Yip in Sun style; Yang Jun leader of the Yang family; and Helen Liang a master who fought her way back from terminal cancer with Qigong, Tai chi and Liu He Ba Fa. These classes revolutionised my understanding of how Tai chi can be learned and taught.
One form, learned for keeps
As this century has progressed there has been an increasing curriculum approach to Tai chi based on the systems used in China. Those systems are designed for student ages. Short forms for short attention spans. The logic is that learning the principles on small forms is a faster way of learning longer forms. I’m yet to be convinced it’s an optimal approach for mature adults. Instead I think they are generally boring. The learning of the form is fine like learning so often is. However, when it comes to the actual practice it can become absurdly repetitive. If the effective minimum dose of Tai chi is 5 – 12 minutes a day, repeating something you can do in a minute, or when going really slow 90 seconds, seems like a poor way to meet that minimum long term. And long term is the raison d’être of Tai chi.
My first form was the only one I knew for 15 years. I only went looking for something else because my scoliosis changed and parts of the set became deleterious for my spine. However, there was a silver lining to that. I learned there are short or simplified forms that you can do for years. Possibly without ever needing to find another one to maintain your Tai chi practise. Not everyone is trying to become some sort of magical Tai chi artist, most of us a way more grounded than that by our fifties.
In brief
Consistently practising Yang style since 1999. Sun style has been my home style since 2021. In a former life I was a life coach, counsellor and then career counsellor – so I’m more of a listener in my coaching style than most Tai chi instructors. In 2026 I certified as a meditation teacher and mindfulness coach.
