Private tuition/individual tuition/mini-group tuition
with Master Instructor Volker Jung

Private tuition with Master Instructor Volker Jung is ideal for people in search of something special or for those of you with particular needs. I am always being asked who can benefit from individual tuition and so I would like to offer you a few case studies from my long practical experience in this field to give you some idea of what individual tuition means. There can be a multitude of reasons for taking one or more private lessons. Here are the most important and the most common reasons for contemplating this highly intensive learning method:

• When people are not able to attend regular, weekly classes – people working shifts for example, then individual tuition can be a way of getting to know the movements of Tai Chi or Qi Gong. Individual tuition is a much more individual way of starting one’s training than the rigid course framework. For some people, this is the only means possible of receiving any kind of tuition.
• When people suffer from a slightly weak memory, for whatever reasons, be it due to illness or their age, they often feel as if they are holding back their course-mates and after a few weeks they often stop attending classes, even though they enjoyed them and the exercises did them good. It may be that these people are simply a little inhibited as far as learning is concerned. Perhaps a few private lessons could resolve these inhibitions permanently because then one can really take time to respond to individual learning behaviour. Some people claim that they will never learn without ever having even tried. Such negative learning patterns make it very difficult for some people to ever learn anything new.
• When regular students have missed several weeks of an ongoing course, perhaps due to illness or holidays, but would like to remain in their class because they get on well with their fellow students, intensive repetitions during an individual lesson can be an ideal way of catching up.
• There again, there are those who find the pace of the weekly classes far too slow. They are eager to progress far more quickly. Individual tuition is well suited to these more ambitions types, too. Here they can dictate their own rate of learning, completely independent of other people with different learning speeds, thus progressing as quickly as possible. For those wishing to study certain aspects of Tai Chi, meditation or Qi Gong in more depth, individual tuition can offer the ideal learning environment. Above all in the areas of meditation or self-defence and martial arts, it is often the case that many beginners are not really interested at first. But when it is these aspects which really interest you, right from the beginning, individual tuition can put you into a position to satisfy these individual demands more quickly than in a normal, beginners’ course.
• It can sometimes happen that people with a particular medical condition which they feel unable or unwilling to discuss in front of a group, would still like to experience the well-known positive effects of these internal Tai Chi exercises or health-giving Qi Gongs or the spiritual growth-promoting exercises of Taoist meditation. Individual tuition is essential for all those wishing to experience individual learning in a calm and highly concentrated atmosphere.
• During traditional training, for the ordinary student as well as later on for trainee teachers, trainers and masters, “one-by-one” teaching has always been an essential element which each adept must experience. Strictly speaking, this was the only way in which traditional knowledge was transferred from teacher to student. Even when several people are in the same room together, the traditional teaching method still practiced today in many Chinese schools is still this one-by-one teaching – a direct transfer of knowledge and experience from one person to another. Today there are several experienced teachers continuing their studies with master instructor Jung, following this tradition.
• Finally, there are sometimes special topics which are of interest to only one student. He has no alternative other than private tuition if he ever wants to gain a closer insight into this special area. This has been the case on several occasions.

Then there are times when a couple or a small group of 2 to 4 people want to study a certain subject in great depth over a longer period of time. Mini-group tuition is the ideal solution. The tuition fee is agreed beforehand. It is lower than the fee for individual tuition, but still appreciably higher than for normal groups of 10 people or more.

Possible themes and course content for mini-group tuition:

• Learn a particular, rarely taught form in record time, e.g. a partner form, one of the weapons forms or the fast form. Another possibility is to learn and develop one’s knowledge of a specific high principle of Tai Chi in which only a small group of people is interested.
• Intensive learning in very small groups whose members all have similar aims, such as learning new facts and skills quickly and efficiently in a minimum of time.
• Long term learning with higher individual demands than are possible in a group of 10 or more people, with all their different needs and aspirations. Perhaps for an intensive course covering the martial aspects of Tai Chi, but where 90 per cent of the students are not interested in one particular aspect. Similarly, the more meditative aspects of a course would make an ideal subject for mini-group tuition, as most ordinary students don’t consider them very important initially.
• Or simply for additional practice and teaching of content above and beyond what can be taught in weekly classes to consolidate and supplement the regular course timetable.
• Master Jung considers that a personal, individual relationship between a teacher and his closer students has always been and still is a vital part of a thorough training. There are so many individual corrections and things which can only be addressed individually with the person concerned, that it would take years to specify and practice all of them during ordinary course teaching. In order to achieve their goal, those wishing to become teachers, trainers or even masters in these arts require many hours of private tuition. It is very noticeable that all those who have had a lot of private tuition progress much more rapidly than those who have had only a few private lessons. It was always the so-called ‘close door’ student who progressed the quickest and most intensively in any one style and who finally reached the highest level of mastery within a family, style or school. It would be bordering on a miracle if someone were to attain this high goal without individual tuition. In the Chinese tradition, no one can become a master without absolving years of private tuition with his direct master. A personal relationship and highly individual ‘fine-correction’ over many years are absolutely vital if real, individual progress is to be made right up to the highest levels of such complex arts as Tai Chi, Qi Gong or meditation.