Weird 'ownership' and lineage claims over RoTai™

When you put yourself out there professionally, it is an unfortunate phenomenon that odd-bods then come out of the woodwork with "agendas". To wit, in recent years I have received several emails from people in Australia, sent under the deceitful ruse of seeking RoTai™ therapy sessions, people who apparently aren't RoTai™ practitioners, yet who claim various versions of "ownership" over RoTai. These non-practitioners' claims are all under a plethora of "ownership" guises such as e.g. "trademark", "antecedence", "authority", "stewardship", "formal interests", "custodial" roles and plenty more such euphemisms. Quite the cohort, indeed! These claims are  f********empty (I said "foolishly"; you could substitute "fatuously" if you like).

They are also just bizarre. These people can't all be the penultimate "owners" of RoTai™ !!!  I suggest they slug that out among themselves. 

As for myself, someone busy with a practice and a company to run, rather than waste valuable time replying individually to these people, the following FACTS are To Whom It May Concern and anyone else who might be interested. 
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1. The above mentioned correspondents who self-proclaim as "owners" of RoTai™ are unknown amongst the RoTai™ community of which I am a part.  I checked. They also have no presence online as practitioners or trainers, so plainly seem to be non-practitioner/ non-trainers. 
2. These non-practitioners/ non-teachers make unprovable claims that they have been given some sort of ownership over RoTai™ either by one of the developers  in the RoTai™ history of evolution, or by some other mechanism. There is no current or known tangible evidence for these claims.
3. I have never met any of these people and do not know them. They are not and were not part of my decades long history in therapeutic methods and martial arts (Black Belt WTBA), or in my RoTai™ training and evolution.
4. None of these people are part of the lineage branch of RoTai™ under which I trained.
5. These people clearly do not grasp how lineages evolve and are documented. Some of these people trained under Jimmy Bronson. If any of them have since taught students of their own, those students are part of a sub-lineage which is separate from mine. I trained under Mr Rex Polly (who at the time of my training, and after, remained in constant communication with Jimmy) so my students and I are part of a different sub-lineage. No single sub-branch has dominion over another. They are just parallel sub-branches. That's how lineages in martial arts evolve. The same is true here. Claims to ownership of RoTai™ are as audacious as someone saying they own Karate or Kung Fu because they trained with someone up a different sub-lineage. They'd be barred from, or laughed out of, the Dojo or Guan.
6. These people are located in Australia, which has no bearing on normal practice in the U.S. Further, people in Australia have no jurisdiction over American intellectual property operating in the USA.
7. Worst of all is that one of the self-proclaimed "owners" wrote ghastly and libelous allegations about two of my RoTai™ teachers, one of whom is deceased and in no position to defend against such allegations. To write so disgustingly and disparagingly of a deceased teacher is a truly dingo act, one which completely dishonours the high principles of RoTai™ and the martial arts from which it originally derived. In vivid contrast to that writer's despicable conduct, my RoTai™ teachers always spoke highly of their own teachers with sincere respect and, indeed, reverence.
8. Any form of "ownership" claim is specious for a major overarching reason: No-one owns the human body's mechanisms and systems. It follows that any form of therapy that is a descendant of several known therapeutic methods (like RoTai™ is), cannot be "owned". It can be promulgated and is best used to serve humanity. How claiming ownership or vilifying and impugning a deceased teacher serves humanity is beyond me.
9. As noted, RoTai™ has strong links back to the healing aspects of a branch of Kung Fu, the Shaolin martial arts. Accordingly, as a black belt Kung Fu practitioner and trainer over many decades, I would emphatically urge these non-practitioners/ non-trainers, who are making specious claims and cankerous allegations, to measure their words and conduct against the noble tenets of Kung Fu practice. If they cannot see that their words and conduct betray those principles, below, then their unfitness to be involved in RoTai™ is arguably proved.

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10.    In conclusion, I'll leave the last word to one of my RoTai™ colleagues who has never heard of some of these people making claims, "...nobody has ever made anything of it as a practice, and now these ****ts [people] who might have learnt it ages ago have seen what is possible, [so] they are claiming ownership". 

​I have provided the above details as an Australian-American practitioner and trainer in the USA, not in Australia, with multiple decades as a practitioner and Black Belt trainer in Tai Chi and Wing Chun (both of which are forms of Kung Fu) and as a Certified practitioner and trainer in the therapeutic arts (RoTai, Polarity Therapy, Cranio-Sacral Therapy, Polarity Yoga, Aumgenic™ Therapeutic Movement).

​Signed: Dr R. Lachlan (PhD, BCPP, RPRP, RPP, RPE, Grad D Mat Anth, DFA, Black Belt WTBA, Credential Ministry).

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➤ ROTAI™ SESSIONS & TRAINING IN AUSTRALIA:  Please contact me for my next dates in Australia or contact Jade Healing Centre in Penrith, NSW.

➤ Learn more about Tai Chi, Qi Gong, and other energy based movement arts at FeelGoodSpace.com (opens a new page).

​​Dr Lachlan is a registered RoTai™ practitioner with IICT and is a Board Certified Polarity Practitioner registered with both IICT and APTA (USA).
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