I couldn't have said it better... Tips for students

 from Nicola J's article:
Using the Body to Learn
Will Westerners please leave their brains in the box provided at the door into the studio. Thank you!  Our intellect gets in the way and this is a hindrance to learning Tai Chi and Qi Gong.  We want to attach our brains to each new movement, rather than learn through the body.  Our brain gets confused as it cannot find a way to attach a past experience or association of the movements to our memory, and so our mind fights us all the way to try and intellectualise what is being learnt…… our subconscious says “I must find something to relate this to….. there is no way I am going into that body down there, I am the brains here….. oh I haven’t a clue so I’ll give up”.  We are stuck in our heads…… and it’s hard to change how we do things.  Our aim is to dampen down our critical thinking, our logical and rational mind and halt the left brain. For most of us this is unknown territory, “what do you mean you want us to stop thinking & analyzing, that’s what we always do”.
Tai Chi and Qi Gong are a whole mind and body experience.
Tai Chi and Qi Gong are experiential arts.
Your body has to live them to learn them.

Read more of this great article by Nicola here