DON'T TEACH OTHERS UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN CERTIFIED BY THE GRANDMASTER
Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit
Question
I am very interested in the Intensive Chi Kung course. After one has completed the course will he be able to teach such techniques to others?
— Rodrigo, India
Answer
While you can attend very high levels in chi kung by practicing what you have learnt from me in my Intensive Chi Kung Course, the course is not meant to train you to become an instructor.
You are also strongly advised not to teach to others what you have learnt from my courses the way I teach you. Some people may think that I try to keep the teaching to myself. This is not so. The main reason is that you, and even the Shaolin Wahnam instructors I have trained, will not be able to teach competently the way I teach. Trying to teach the way I teach when you are not ready to do so, may result in serious, though insidious, harmful side effects.
Many people would not appreciate, or may not even understand, what I have just said. This is because they equate chi kung with gentle physical exercise. They think that once they know a chi kung technique they can teach it to others with similar results. They do not realize that in chi kung (and probably in any other arts), skills are more important than techniques.
A good analogy is surgery. After attending a lecture on surgical techniques, would you be competent to operate on a patient? Indeed, in many aspects successful chi kung teaching is more difficult than successful surgery. Surgery involves the physical, which can be seen, whereas chi kung involves energy and mind, which are not normally visible.
Many people think that in teaching chi kung the teacher merely teaches physical postures and movements. If this were the case, you could easily learn chi kung from books or videos. In my chi kung courses, amongst other skills, I teach students how to attain a one-pointed mind, tap energy from the cosmos, and generate an internal energy flow.
If even trained Shaolin Wahnam instructors cannot teach the way I teach, will our arts be lost? No, our arts will be preserved. Now the trained instructors may not be as skilful as I am, but in future they may be better. It took me more than 20 years to evolve my teaching methods, which now consist much of heart to heart transmission, but it takes me a much shorter time to pass on the methods to my instructors. Now, after just a year or two of teaching many Shaolin Wahnam instructors are producing results that in the past I would need 10 years of teaching experience to produce.
Question
And, if not, what would it take to be able to do so?
Answer
In our school, before one can become an instructor he has to become a good student. One of our Shaolin Wahnam instructors, Jeffrey, sums up well what it takes to become a good student in three simple (but not necessarily easy) steps. Do what the master asks you to. Don't do what the master does not ask you to. Show proper respect to the master.
For example, if the master asks you to breath out gently but you blow out instead, or if he asks you not to worry about anything while performing an exercise but you start intellectualizing what type of chi is entering you and what it is doing inside your body, you are not a good student — you do not do what he asks you to, and you do what he does not ask you to. You also show him disrespect, implying that you are smarter than him.
After attaining a reasonably high standard in chi kung, as well as exhibiting high moral values, a good student may be invited to become a trainee-instructor. Usually he assists a trained instructor in teaching some classes. He also receives lessons and advice on teaching methodology from me. If he passes his probation, which may vary from a year to many years, he becomes a certified Shaolin Wahnam instructor.
The above is taken from Questions 1 and 2 of December 2004 Part 2 of the Selection of Questions and Answers.
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