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The Rising Sun School of
General Information General InformationThe Rising Sun School The Art of T'ai Chi Ch'uan History of T'ai Chi Ch'uan Influential Philosphers Taoist Principles (BBC) Health Benefits Master Lee's Handout Finding a good instructor Practitioners CornerExpand Your Approach Biographical InformationOur School Lineage General InterestBooks and Reviews Toronto T'ai Chi Classes at The We have no more than 8 students per instructor and you progress at your own rate. If you miss a class, you pick up where you left off the last time. We specialize in personal coaching!
The Rising Sun School Weekly Schedule (Toronto, Canada) ~~~~~~~~ "Inside the happy, the not happy. Inside the not happy, the happy" Master Lee Shiu-pak ********
Commentary In some ways this is the Taoistic equivalent of the Buddhist teaching on Impermanence. Taoism is an inclusive philosophy which seeks to recreate balance as one proceeds through life and the process of attachment and loss. It does not see attachment as the root of all suffering, as Buddhism does, rather it sees pain as a natural by product of living a full life. So there are no absolute states of conciousness in Taoism as the possibility of change always exists.To love fully one must love courageously in spite of the knowledge that surely the loss of the object of our love will be painful. In our times of loss we may also draw strength from the knowledge that the seed that will end a personal wintering process lies waiting a spring thaw to germinate life once again. So there is always a drop of sad in the happy times and a drop of happy in the sad times, just as the Yin Yang symbol portrays. ~~~~~~~~ You will find many T'ai Chi books and reviews at
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The Qualification of Instructors Master Lee Shiu Pak's Certification Process
The Rising Sun School Instructor Certification At the Rising Sun School of T'ai Chi Ch'uan we have taken Master Lee's example and tried to bring the same kind of quality control to the training of our Instructors. What precipitated out of our own process was the establishment of two levels of Instructors, one Junior and the other Senior. The Junior or Form Instructor (Chuan Shr) is responsible for being able to teach the Exercise aspect or Form. A Form Instructor must understand applications as well, so that the martial context can be used to give corrections and help with clarification of intent. A Senior Instructor or Lineage Instructor (Lao Shr), is recognized as one who can teach our complete curriculum of all Four Aspects, and generally takes on a greater leadership role within our School. Each of our Instructors has at least 3 years T'ai Chi experience when they begin their training and it usually takes a miniumum of three years to complete their apprenticeship. A Lineage Leader (Jiao Shr) is an honorary rank awarded to a Senior graduate who takes on a significant leadership responsibility such as School directorship, either at our mother School or at an affiliate. Jan Ohm qualified for this when she became Co-director with Senior Rank at the Rising Sun School. Wayne Wilson qualified for this five years after he founded his Jin Shin Do School. These ranks have been organized to preserve the quality of our Instruction and to recognize various levels of leadership so that our system might grow with clarity and stability. Our work has always been meticulous and any student of any Instructor may call upon our Master Teacher at any time for clarification of any part of our work, as he is ultimately responsible for all permutaions of our curriculum. He cannot take responsibility for idiosyncratic divergences. All graduate Instructors take an oath to strike a balance between the preservation of our system (the root of our lineage tree), the developmental necessities of the Instructor (the trunk) and the learning needs of the students (the fruit). We hope that this Web page can serve as a bridge into the 21st century for all of our Alumni and their students, so that as the years pass we continue to develop into a stronger clearer association of Rising Sun Practitioners.
Rising Sun School of T'ai Chi Ch'uan Graduate Instructors
Lineage Leader (Jiao Shr) Jan Ohm 1990
Senior or Lineage Instructors (Lao Shr) Wayne Wilson 1988
Wayne Wilson 1988
Co-Director and Master Teacher Paul E. McCaughey1975 Co-Director,Trainer and Examiner Jan Ohm 1986 ~~~~~~~~ Listening "Why are you listening to me? Khrisnamurti ******** Commentary In T'ai Chi we also say it is important to listen. If you can wait |
Master Lee Shiu Pak was the master teacher of the Montreal T'ai Chi Ch'uan Society teaching T'ai Chi in Montreal from the 1960's through 1982. Over that period of time he graduated at least three generations of instructors. Master Lee's criteria for a candidate instructor was that they had to have a minimum of 3 years of T'ai Chi experience. He would then begin training them to teach. At first he worked along side an apprentice instructor teaching beginners the walking exercise and first stage of the Long Form. Once this level was accomplished an apprentice moved into teaching the long line up of intermediate and advanced students who were working on the rest of the Long Form. Throughout one's time as a student and then later as an instructor, one was drilled in the narrative of the Long Form. The description of placement and timing became second nature for any regular student. Also in the T'ai Chi family system of teaching, a student who was elder in experience might be called upon at any time to help out a student who was junior. In this way the Yin and Yang of learning was present for many students long before apprenticing as an Instructor. A thorough knowledge of the narrative coupled with leadership skills enculcated through the T'ai Chi Family experience led to a natural pool of talent from which Master Lee's instructors emerged. An instructor also had to be able to give corrections and demonstrate the intent of the form through demonstration of martial applications. Master Lee emphasized the importance of Boxing and all instructors had to learn the foundation teachings of his system, which involved Push Hands, Applications, 5 Directions Walking, 5 Hands 2 Feet, and the principles of boxing competancy: displacement, joining, listening, neutralization and return. An Instructor did not have to be an expert, or be by nature a Boxer, but had to demonstrate understanding and be able to teach the basics.
When this apprenticeship was done, Master Lee tested each instructor for their teaching and practice of T'ai Chi, where upon he gave them an Instructors Certificate in Yang Family T'ai Chi Ch'uan, or what he called simply, "the paper". So there was a system by which Master Lee taught and a process by which instructors were chosen, trained, examined and certified. Some present day teachers who studied with Master Lee may not have had the opportunity to go through this process. Whether a person has an official paper or not, is not so important. I think that if Instructors have what Master Lee called the 'heart to learn' and maintain the attention to detail and principle that characterized Master Lee's work, then the meaning of his certification process has been met. 
