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.
Anxiety
This topic brings together accounts of anxiety, panic and fear, and how T’ai Chi Chih practice meets them with softness and steadiness. Articles include students’ stories of relief found in the movements, teachers’ observations from class, and personal reflections on finding peace during hard stretches of life.
Rosalind Braga describes being robbed at gunpoint in her own driveway at 10:30 at night, handing over her purse with a slow taffy-like calm she credits to T'ai Chi Chih.
Shari Growden lost her riding confidence after her mare's injuries and a break from the saddle, and rebuilt it by applying TCC principles of straight back, sinking chi, relaxed breathing and soft wrists.
Hope Burla practiced T'ai Chi Chih for an hour on the morning of her abdominal surgery, let her fears fall away, and went home from the hospital two days later.
Hope Burla
San Leandro, CA
Marylin Ollivier, accredited in May 1989, describes how teaching T'ai Chi Chih turned someone who panicked speaking to three people into a regular spokesperson with demonstrations, two weekly fitness centre classes and private clients.
Marylin Ollivier
In an April 1976 letter to Justin Stone, John Burchard reports a 65-pound weight loss, blood pressure falling from 140/95 to 120/75, and informal readings he took on three hypertensive students.
John Burchard