The Vital Force Archive

Tina Wells traces her path from a first class with Wendy Helms in California to teaching T'ai Chi Chih at Oxford's Restore charity and the Oxfordshire Recovery College, where students use grounding to interrupt panic attacks.

Kate Polk credits her T'ai Chi Chih practice with two reductions in her blood pressure medication, calmer recurring visions of a traumatic experience, and comfort during radiation for a skin cancer on her scalp.

Adam Lacey describes a year of bringing T'ai Chi Chih into Banbury primary schools, with five-minute videos for teachers and shorter films for families, and asks North American teachers for guidance.

Walter Charley, who learned T'ai Chi Chih in Sedona around 1976, recounts teaching groups of children in psychiatric hospitals, where depressed children lifted and anxious ones calmed; with pyramid poems by Beverly Miles and Johnnie Lee Marquez.

Sandy McAlister rereads an account she wrote 35 years earlier of teaching her first T'ai Chi Chih class, when 21 students arrived, nervousness became excitement, and fear turned to curiosity.

Daniel Pienciak recounts the panic episodes and hypervigilance he faced during COVID-19 quarantine, and how Justin Stone's Maximum Chi Program, Seijaku and forty minutes of daily meditation restored him.

Margery Erickson's poem asks when the strong women, imprisoned in their homes and paralyzed by fear of invisible attackers, will march forward again, acknowledging that some never will return.

Writing under stay-at-home orders, Carmen Brocklehurst retells the parable of the Plague and its companions Fear and Doubt, then quotes Justin Stone on chi and on voicing the Six Healing Sounds from the t'an t'ien.

Elizabeth Ebrahimzadeh, a self-described born worrier who met T'ai Chi Chih in a park 18 years ago, describes how daily practice grounds her through pandemic fears about loved ones, postmen and plumbers.

Pam Towne cites research on bi-lateral rhythmic movement calming the amygdala and a UCLA study showing raised T cell activity, explaining why TCC practice steadies people during COVID-19.

Nancy Hebert describes practicing TCC in a hospital family lounge while her mother-in-law was institutionalized for depression, her mother-in-law's suicide, and her 2019 accreditation to bring TCC to mental health facilities.

Diane "Di" Lund froze midway across a swaying wire cable on a forty-foot ropes course, and used her breathing, alignment and t'an t'ien to move again.

Robert Delano, diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson's Disease, tracked down his late mother's teacher Sheryl Adair and found that daily practice left him yinning and yanging while vacuuming.

Psychologist Bruce Eisenmenger draws on Robert Scaer's trauma research to argue that the rhythmic bilateral weight shift and attention to the Bubbling Spring quiet the amygdala and sympathetic nervous system.

Charlotte Garrett describes the accreditation week when words Daniel posted on the wall released a habit energy of fear before her presentation, and names the teachers who prepared her.

Julie Heryet recounts how her Folsom State Prison students, backed by a TCC Foundation grant, entered the Annual Relay for Life and overcame deep fear to demonstrate before the general population.

Linda Worlton recounts the November accreditation course in Albuquerque, where an auditor's question about where she disappeared to during the movements exposed the self-criticism and 'survivor armor' behind her tension.

Judy Chancey, a lifelong breath-holder, describes how exhaling into the soles of the feet and Rocking Motion brought her a conscious relationship with breath, and calmed her fear during divisive times.

Andrea Skillman's biweekly class for in-patient PTSD veterans in North Chicago pairs tapping and guided meditation with TCC; 67 participants reported drops in pain, racing thoughts, anger, anxiety and agitation.

Five tenth graders at Albuquerque Academy describe what a year of T'ai Chi Chih gave them, from skepticism to grounding during a student walkout against gun violence, followed by Pyramid Poems on silence.

Judy Hendricks describes waking at 3 am in terror over a career change, and how remembering an earlier time of fearless certainty, along with her practice, restored her grounding and connection.

Journal entries from April Leffler's PhysEd class at Widener University, where students describe feeling the t'an t'ien, easing seven years of anxiety and depression, and closing with Paige M.'s poem.

Pam Towne likens modern life's accelerating pace to a childhood merry-go-round, recalling how crawling to its still center steadied her, and describing how regular TCC practice does the same today.

Kent Jarratt used the Six Healing Sounds while waiting in a car during a police sting to recover his stolen laptop, then visualized the whole practice after heart ablation surgery.

Holly Trenary recounts the sleepless 2:30 a.m. fears of accreditation week, her teacher Marie's advice to hold the frightened part of herself, and the chi she felt in her heart area while playing with Push Pull.

Tom and Julie Schuster recount climbing Half Dome in Yosemite, where a fear of heights was met by visualizing the grounding and opening of Cosmic Consciousness pose, culminating in Daughter on the Mountaintop at the summit.

Christine Weber, 66, found that completing the weight shift in Around the Platter surfaced the fear from a childhood fall down an earthen dam, and her teacher Lisa Otero told her to keep going.

Holly Ueda recounts her November accreditation in Albuquerque as a series of mountains, from applying at the last minute through the worry of whether she was ready to the next climb of forming classes.

Julie Heryet describes returning to her Folsom State Prison class after a month's closure for construction, and the students who used practice to handle schoolwork anxiety and a cell search.

H.B. recounts being raped at sixteen, the back pain and involuntary muscle spasms that followed, and the class with instructor Sharon Sirkis where the Six Healing Sounds gave her back herself.