Edward Ware, Guest Instructor

"The two things necessary with tai chi,” says Edward Ware, “are that you have to apply yourself to it, and you have to apply it to your life.”

“The whole thing of being in the body and playing with the energy” has been with him forever, he says, from tap dancing as a child to drumming as an adult. A musician—percussionist and composer—by profession, he takes naturally to the practice part. Born in New Zealand and currently based in Barcelona, he teaches tai chi in New York, working primarily with cultural creatives —conductors, directors . . . . People such as musicians, already given to practicing, automatically value the process as its own reward, he says. The more you do, the easier it gets. “You’re using this as a tool to feel more.”

He didn’t set out to teach tai chi but felt the imperative to share “these practices that work in a tangible way to bring people to a point of balance.” It’s the never ending potential for exploration—the same as in music—that holds him. “There’s no end to the depth of it. Very few things in life reward you that way.”

Since 1997, with Bruce Frantzis, he has taken Level II certificates in tai chi Long and Short Form and in Heaven & Earth and Energy Gates chi gung. From 1989 to 1994 he studied in China with family members of the founder of Wu style tai chi, including the tai chi Sword he will teach at BTC. “It’s another flavor,” he says, within the same context. “Throw a bit of this in and keep things sparky.”