here’s a few useful guidelines for choosing a school… whether it be meditation, t’ai ch’i, filmmaking, or flower-arrangement. 
…usually most of us choose a school based on testimony of a friend (“hey, this place is great!”), or checking-out a top practitioner, & asking them “where’d you learn how to do that?”
To the raw beginner, most any school is better than no school… simply b/c the “getting off your a** & starting to practice” is a pretty big hurdle for most ppl. But if you have any desire to get good at what you’re practicing, it’s a good idea to scrutinize a bit:
1) did the Founder know anything => “is there any good info there”
*check historic records
*take disciples’ [gushing] accolades w/ a grain of salt
*take hand-me-down testimony, esp. from ppl who never met the guy/gal, w/ a bucket of salt
2) does the [current] Teacher know anything => “is the good info still there”
*meet them, check them out
*find others whose opinions you respect, & have them check them out
3) are the current students any good => “is the good info [still] being taught”
*there are tons of top practitioners who can’t teach worth a sh*t… eg:
-they’re “forgotten more than they know”,
-they’ve been practicing at an advanced level for so long they can’t remember how to ‘explain’ the basics to beginners…
-they’re bored and/or unenthusiastic w/ beginners
*also, sometimes some teachers don’t want ‘competition’, so subtly ‘hold-back’ their top students
-this happens a lot w/ esoteric Eastern arts [esp. if you're not a native of that culture]… they DON’T WANT to really teach you
-they’ll take your $$, & won’t mind obfuscating or letting you be stuck… for years
…& finally– notice if the ppl at the school are Happy.
…it’s like interviewing at a job– that first impression speaks volumes, & you’ll always come-back to it, years later after you’re hired:
“yeah, i remember everybody seeming stressed-out, & saying ‘oh you don’t want to work here’, but i thought they were just kidding”.
Um, no. They weren’t.
And whereas there’s some expected amount of gnarly class-experience to [overcome] (esp. w/ Martial Arts, for example)…
…that’s probably not the [environment] you want to be in, if you’re learning meditation, for example.
Happy Learning!
Tags: learning+teaching