Great River T'ai Chi
Is now on Substack!
Welcome to Great River T'ai Chi
Founded in 2002, GRTC has taught 'Classical Yang Style T’ai Chi around the UK, EU and elsewhere, as well as online during lockdown and more recently on Substack at Uncivil Savant. We teach the full syllabus of the BTCCA and are committed to in-depth, high quality tuition, whether in person or in live or recorded online classes. Our website is here featuring our archives, lineage, instructors and articles about the art. There are in person classes available with people who have studied with me and my teacher, or whom I know and recommend listed here.
I have been writing at Substack for two and a half years as Uncivil Savant and love using the platform for its ad-free interface, the sense of community and its ease of use, which is important for those of us who value saving time for our offline lives! It is finally time to bring my love of T’ai Chi into the contemporary context and provide a little respite from the physical stasis of modern life by getting people off their chairs and into beneficial movement.
History
I began teaching in 2002 at the suggestion of my teacher, Master Mark Raudva, and continued doing so until 2020 when Covid intervened. I then taught classes online for two years so that my students could keep studying and practising. During lockdown, I also created an online beginners course which is still free to all and available here on Instagram.
After 18 years non-stop teaching, I took 5 years off in-person teaching, other than the occasional online movement class, free and available to all here. Now I feel ready and excited about teaching T’ai Chi again both in person when I move to the north of England this autumn, and online. I have decided Substack is the simplest and most user-friendly portal for me to host the classes and grow and store the video archive of sessions. I had considered making a special section of my website, or trying a specialist instructional portal, but the expense and admin time this would cost was not appealing.
Classes coming in the autumn
I’ve set this up early so that I have time to tell people about the classes and to avoid doing it while I am mid-move. From October, I’ll be offering either weekly or fortnightly live classes at a time slot that suits the majority of respondents, after a poll. If it needs to be two slots, due to, say, US and UK time zones needing it, then I am happy to do that. Classes will be kept lower-price, to make them accessible to all and I will provide a ‘Founder member’ tier for those who feel they can contribute a little more to help fund the reduced price slots for those in need.
This Substack will be kept for hosting the sessions, for archiving the classes so that subscribers can go back and repeat any they have missed, and for sending out and changes or notices that are important for students. All my writings touching on T’ai Chi and related topics are already at home in the more philosophical and writerly home of Uncivil Savant and I feel it’s best kept that way.
Paid subscribers will receive a Zoom link to the classes at least a day before the class. Classes will be billed simply by monthly or annual Substack subscriptions. I propose a cost of approximately £6 per 1 hour taught session, which if there are 4-5 classes a calendar month would make the monthly fee about £25. This will also give subscribers constant access to the recorded classes. Substack takes 10% of the fees, and Stripe something like 3% on top, but I won’t pass these costs on.1 After I stop recording each weekly session, I’ll be happy to hang out for a while informally with any attendees who don’t need to rush off.
If you’ve been enjoying the recorded sessions on Instagram or Uncivil Savant, please feel free to…
I never actually drink coffee before teaching. I tried it once many years ago, never again! I’ll stick to jasmine tea on class days.
What we’ll be covering
It will be my great pleasure to share warm ups, chi kung, Heartwork, Cheng Man-Ching’s Short Form (Dr Chi Chiang Tao variation) and more with you in these easily accessible 1 hour sessions. People will be able to join any time, and have their friends join in and catch up, as the entire archive of sessions will be available of every session we do, leading to a complete course over time always available here on Substack. If you have a guest in your home when you come to the lesson, feel free to invite them to join in and have a go with you.
There will be time during and straight after the session for questions and clarifications. Questions are encouraged and you will often find someone else in the session has exactly the same query as you, and appreciates you asking.
Although I will always recommend people go to a real life class where you live, I realise that time, responsibility and mobility constraints affect many people, and with this in mind, I offer these sessions as a good second-best to in-person study. I will be happy to help people find a local class or to evaluate what might be best for them if there’s a choice.
Sadly, one cannot teach partnerwork online, as you need both a partner to work with, and the direct sensations that transmit learning in the pushing hands context. But who knows, maybe one day we can arrange meet ups, and complete the circle!
Get in touch
If you have any questions, just get in touch at the webform here. In the meantime, feel free to subscribe and share this post. There’s no charge yet, and I’ll be sending out a poll or two soon to gauge frequency and day and time preferences. I imagine early October to be the soonest classes will start and late November 2025 the latest.
Most online classes are about £10 per session, and although some are free, I do not believe these are of a comparable standard. I have been studying T’ai Chi since 1986 and teaching since 2002. So I feel £6 a session is a fair and inexpensive price.