Malcolm Tobias and I (Tom Krapu) met through the St. Louis T'ai Chi Ch'uan Association and quickly discovered that in addition to our mutual interest in t'ai chi, we both have some background with computers. When Malcolm made me aware of an email LISTSERV software that was available, we both got excited about starting an email group that was unique in the sense that it could be available to our specific t'ai chi "family" AND it might be different from what we had experienced with other Internet offerings in this area. Malcolm had access to an Internet server at Washington University here in Saint Louis and we were in business.

We started tai-chi-talk on 7/23/97. T'ai-chi-talk grew purely from word-of-mouth since we do not have our list on any search engines and it is a private and closed list. The list began growing and levels of membership are outlined below. Our membership has included practitioners from at least four continents and numerous countries, as well as all across the USA. There are or have been several members who have studied directly with Professor Cheng (and whose support we cannot be appreciated enough). In July of 1999 we changed T'ai-chi-talk to a moderated format and changed the name to tai_chi_chuan_forum.

To give you a estimation of membership the following timeline of membership is provided (1):

 

July 1997	tai-chi-talk begins
March 1998	50 members
May 1998	100 members
July 1998	150 members
July 1999	200 members had subscribed (1).
(1) did not include about 20% of people who eventually unsubscribed because list was unmoderated. Note: After becoming a moderated list, unsubscribing dropped to nearly zero and most members who had unsubscribed accepted an invitation to rejoin and have remained members since. The people who do unsubscribe usually give a reason like they don't have time for it or something like that.

July 1999 tai_chi_chuan_forum begins, Dr. Tom Krapu is Moderator	about 160 members
Dec 2000	Membership equals 230
January 2002	Membership equals 258
January 2003	Membership equals 270
January 2004	Membership equals 282
January 2005	Membership equals 310
December 2005 - Intro page for the list has 2,278 hits.	Membership equals 309
December 2005 - Forum moves to taichispot.com/phpbb/, Dr. Don Schurman takes over as moderator. Waldo Kuipers becomes Technical Administrator, Advisory Panel established including Dr. Don Davis.	Membership equals 315
August 2006 - Forum moves back to Mailman email software.	Membership equals 359
August 2007	Membership equals 314
April 2008	Membership equals 310
June 2008	Dr. Don Schurman concludes his tenure as moderator of the Forum. Move to Yahoo Group..
August 2008	Yahoo Discussion Group begins. Membership equals 313
July 2011	Danny Emerick starts moderating the group
November 2014	Mike David starts moderating the group Membership equals 147
June 2018	Russ Mason starts moderating the group Membership equals 158
November 2019	Yahoo groups end. Transition to Google group Membership equals 200

This list is maintained by the developers and is not associated with any particular group of Cheng Man-chíng practitioners.

Any non-subscriber who posts a message will get an error message stating that they need to register and be a Yang short form practitioner. These requests should be directed to this webpage (http://www.krapu4.com/taichi/taitlkin.htm) where they can provide information about themselves, what school they learned the form from, and who their Yang Short Form teacher is and their lineage to Professor Cheng. This will substantiate that they are within our "school" and is based primarly on the honor system. Then they will be added to the subscriber list.

The group will be guarded to avoid SPAMS from any source.

Any subscriber (and ONLY subscribers) can distribute information to the list. It is imperative that subscribers keep this in mind when submitting materials.

The main reason that Tom wanted to create this list is because he encounters information that he believes would be valuable to share with individuals who practice our form (e.g. web addresses related to T'ai chi, information from web pages and news feeds, workshop announcements, etc.).

This email list simplifies this process and allows others to easily share similar information with the group.

This email list is also developing into a place to discuss aspects of our practice and to help each participant to fulfill as much of the potential of t'ai chi ch'uan as possible in our lives. The archives are a permanent record of this discussion.

Let's try to find what is going to be most useful to each other. We would hate for this list to "degrade" into controversy. Let's maintain the spirit of T'ai Chi as taught by Professor Cheng.

The email distributed will have the person's email that submits so you can respond to them directly ("back channel") if you don't want to "broadcast" your response to everyone on the list. But if you want to post a response to the list you can simply Reply to the email of the post. If you login to the group you can respond to posts there as well. The archive of previous postings will be made available to you as a member after you are subscribed.

Now for the legal stuff. Mr. Malcolm Tobias and Dr. Tom Krapu reserve the right to determine membership of the T'ai Chi Ch'uan Forum. The statements made by list members do not necessarily reflect the thoughts of either of the list co-founders, or the list moderator. Every attempt will be made to unfluence the list in a manner which respects the beliefs of others and honors Professor Cheng and the other list members.

To review the more detailed rules for posting that you are agreeing to by joining, see:

http://www.krapu4.com/taichi/talkguid.htm

The postings from the list can be viewed in a daily digest form if preferred. Members can turn receipt off when on vacation. There are also archives of past postings available to members to view.

Subscribing Yourself

Subscribing yourself requires the following information:

1. Full name.
   
2. Phone Number (preferred, but optional).
   
3. City, State, Postalcode, and Country of residence.
   
4. email address
   
5. Your teacher's name and their lineage to Professor Cheng
   
   NOTE: Please provide a brief description of the lineage of your teacher, and where appropriate, your teacher's teacher. Describe the lineage to Professor Cheng. Ask your teacher if you do know this information.
   
   (all of this information can be kept private as a member of the list)

To be subscribed just email the above information to the following email address:

rmason37@yahoo.com

After your information has been reviewed if approved, you will get a confirmation message from Google that you have been subscribed OR an email regarding your status as a member.

Feel free to distribute this web address:

http://www.krapu4.com/taichi/taitlkin.htm

to others who qualify for membership.

Sincerely,

Tom Krapu, PhD, PCC
List co-founder

 last revision: 3/6/2021

© 2002, Thomas M. Krapu, Ph.D., All rights reserved.