The Vital Force Archive
Forty years of The Vital Force (1985-2025), the journal of the T’ai Chi Chih community. Search for a word, a teacher, a movement or a place, or browse by category and topic.
August 2011
The August 2011 issue carries voices from Hawaii’s Big Island, including Hannah Hedrick’s Hilo classes grown from a diabetes support group and Pearl Kadota’s Mondays at the Sumo Pavilion. Anita Vestal closes out the 2007 to 2010 Student Reaction Questionnaire with results from 610 surveys, and Pam Towne imagines T’ai Chi Chih in 2111.
Hannah Hedrick describes her Hilo class grown from the Warriors Against Diabetes support group, an adaptive session co-taught with Marty Mimmack, who was born without arms, and a proposal to host low-cost 2012 accreditation.
Hannah Hedrick
Mountain View, Big Island
Angela Dilegame took a beginner's class to slow down and stay active, and found that slow-moving animals now look like dancers, with concentration in the soles of her feet making every movement significant.
Angela Dilegame
Prescott AZ
Pearl Kadota recounts two years of Monday classes at the Sumo Pavilion above Hilo Bay, from meeting T'ai Chi Chih through a diabetes support group to leading peer practice when Hannah is away.
Pearl Kadota
Hilo, Big Island
Anita Vestal closes out the 2007 to 2010 Student Reaction Questionnaire, reporting that 610 surveys from eleven teachers showed significant gains in energy, sleep, focus, balance and stress response, with creativity the sole exception.
Anita Vestal
Poinciana, FL
Ruth Dittmar traces her T'ai Chi Chih path from Theda Gillespie at Rancho Rio Caliente in Mexico to Hannah's classes in Hilo, discovering the two women shared the same first teacher.
Ruth Dittmar
Hilo, Big Island
In a talk from a 1990 teacher conference, Justin Stone links the circulation of chi to Zen's wordless transmission, quoting Huang-Po, D. T. Suzuki and Gopi Krishna on evolving consciousness.
Justin Stone [TRANSCRIBED FROM A 1990 TCC TEACHER CONFERENCE AND © GOOD KARMA PUBLISHING 2009]