The Vital Force Archive

Sharon Sirkis collects two classroom moments: a college student's evaluation calling T'ai Chi Chih "very peaceful and weirdly healing," and a rainy day spent flipping fluorescent switches like an eye doctor.

Sharon Sirkis answers the 2018 conference theme by describing the worry that comes from analyzing instead of trusting, then retells the Zen "empty your cup" story she used when teaching karate.

Amy Tyksinski cautions against turning the hands forward before the backward weight shift completes in Rocking Motion and Push Pull, locating continuity instead in the t'an t'ien's expansion and contraction.

Marie Dotts treats alignment as the key to downward chi flow, recounting her own breakthrough with a resistant right hip and leading conference participants through an alignment exercise and weight shift checks.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst calls Joyous Breath the Grandmother/Grandfather of Seijaku, reviews its audible breath and cupped palms, explains why Justin kept Seijaku an oral tradition, and adds pyramid poems from her April 2017 retreat.

Bobbie Anderson returned to her first teacher conference since her husband Andy's death, where a dragonfly, old friends' condolences and seated TCC sessions led her back to teaching.

Holly Trenary's poem traces a life of fourteen moves, exhaustion and anger carried alone, then the grounded, Seijaku-relaxed confidence and gratitude she found through T'ai Chi Chih.

Donna Deffenbaugh recounts the olive green drawstring pants and velveteen shoes that once got her into the zone, and her teacher's blunt verdict on their too-big black replacements.

Dora Wiemann breaks the forward and back weight shift into three repeated words for new students, bend, shift the weight, set the foot out, with hands resting on the t'an t'ien.

A conference presentation on lifting the palms slightly from neutral, hinging at the wrist, to open the meridian channels in Around the Platter and Push Pull and strengthen the flow of Chi.

Dorene Krause traces a T'ai Chi Ch'uan Classics quotation she copied down as a new student in 2001 to her 2017 conference breakout session on letting the t'an t'ien lift the body in vertical movements.

JoEtta Heck prints the lyrics of the conference parody of John Denver's Rocky Mountain High, telling how Marie Dotts brought the Chi to Colorado, complete with cues for welcome signs.

Meg Scinto's flight home from the 2017 conference seated her beside a man whose nephew took his life after Afghanistan, strengthening her plan to start a class for veterans.

Nancy Jo Bleier recounts the 2017 Boulder teacher conference through the hunt for a usable hotel bathroom at altitude, drinking water all day, swollen ankles, and gratitude for chi and laughter.

Judy Hendricks noticed the 2017 conference community practice was unusually grounded, crediting Sandy's announcing of each movement and "last one," the format Justin used at Albuquerque teacher practices.

Diana Bahn recounts hiking to Bear Lake after the Boulder conference, meeting KG and Lisa Otero, and sitting by the Big Thompson River imagining her stress carried off to the sea.

An announcement that the 2018 conference will take place near Philadelphia in the summer, hosted by April Leffler and Kathleen McAllister, with the place and date still to come.

Ev Hanson-Florin and Nancy Werner-Azarski gather comments from attendees of Sandy's May 2017 intensive, who describe breaking each movement apart and rebuilding it, including a weight shift insight for Bird Flaps Its Wings.

Dora Wiemann's conference talk asks where we actually are while practicing, urging presence in the feet and t'an t'ien, gratitude to the teachers who came before, and attention to what Around the Platter Variation reveals.

Marie Dotts guides teachers through a rededication ceremony at the 2017 conference, quoting Justin Stone on teh, inviting Sky Young-Wick to read on sharing, and having each teacher pour yin and yang sand into a large Tao symbol.

Lisa Otero names the Core Planning Committee and Northern Colorado volunteers behind the 2017 Boulder Teacher Conference, from the raffle and vocal auction for the scholarship fund to the rededication ceremony and video recordings.

Caroline Guillot's conference presentation on feeling the chi through Rocking Motion, Daughter in the Valley and Pulling Taffy, letting go before and after each movement and noticing polarity between the palms.

Jessica Lewis, once the only accredited teacher in Delaware, lays out practical promotion tactics: a logo and business cards, a website, free newspaper coverage, short free presentations, doctor contacts, and a local TV interview.

Dr. David Parrish draws on Richard Davidson's neuroplasticity research to argue that T'ai Chi Chih, as an evidence based moving meditation practicing attention and letting go, trains the brain for well-being.

The 2017 planning committee lays out the Boulder program day by day, from Dr. David Parrish on brain science and a four-teacher panel on grounding to Jessica Lewis on teaching alone in Delaware, Sandy McAlister's movement refinement, and the Saturday auction.

Marie Dotts previews two discussion topics for the 2017 conference: giving and receiving correction as an expression of teh, and whether teachers came to T'ai Chi Chih for physical or spiritual reasons.

Ten reasons to come to the June 2017 teacher conference in Boulder, from the theme "Feel the Chi ~ Share the Chi" to first-hand accounts of practicing with Justin Stone and Seijaku accreditation afterward.

Lisa M. Otero previews the 2017 teacher conference program for the Conference Program Committee, with a first day devoted to deepening personal practice and a second to teaching, service and the rededication ceremony.

The 2017 Teacher Conference Committee announce the June 15-18 gathering at Boulder's Millennium Harvest House Hotel, with coordinator Marie Dotts describing community as a tapestry of interdependent threads.

April Leffler, who has taught at Widener University since 2008, reports what her PE Director said would persuade a college to hire a TCC teacher, plus class formats and credit arrangements elsewhere.