Let’s talk a little bit about ‘lineage’.

What we’re really talking about is what’s passed down from a teacher or teachers, what the quality of that teaching is and whether the student learned or understood what they’re taught and then what they can add to that.

The hours spent arguing about lineage in Tai Chi is crazy and most people arguing about it have the worst Tai Chi I’ve ever seen. The only way you ever know the quality of a person’s Tai Chi is understanding the depth of their character and by crossing hands with them. Everything else is superfluous.

Generally we can see the influence that teachers, style and lineage have on a person’s movements but it only has 10% if that on the quality. This is not undermining the quality of direct transmission from a good teacher whatever their lineage.

In a family, the children rarely have the personality, quality and dedication of the founder of an art, and we read or hear the stories in Tai Chi of how corrupted they become because of the ‘burden’ they carry, sometimes committing suicide, running away, or becoming heavy drinkers or gamblers due to being pressured in their obligated training.

Others ‘buy’ discipleships for huge sums of money which the ‘family’ linage holders accept to solve their own problems.

So basically lineage will influence a style of movement but the real quality can only come from the dedicated heart and soul of the practitioner themselves and for most good practitioners these days that comes from daily study, crossing hands with a variety of talented teachers whatever their lineage and studying, validating and cross checking information from a wide variety of modern resources.