The Vital Force Archive

Aida Wilks outlines plans for the first Day of Joy Thru Movement on November 20, 2000, suggesting campus, mall, bookstore and workplace demonstrations, posters and flyers to honor Justin Stone.

Christeen McLain offers to share curriculum guidelines and procedures with anyone wanting to teach TCC for college credit, drawing on her classes at Minnesota State University Moorhead since 1996.

Donna McElhose thanks student John Nemeth, who canvassed local newspaper offices, cable stations and built a web page to publicize her free monthly T'ai Chi Chih practice sessions.

Cheryl Hall credits her teacher Elizabeth Tyler, her mother Shirley Hall, and trainers Hal and Annelle Henson for the motivation that carried her through accreditation, after which her morning class grew from six seniors to 26.

Nancy Jo Bleier describes teaching one-credit beginning and intermediate TCC courses at University of Alaska Southeast, plus monthly T'ai Chi Chih by the Sea gatherings behind the Sitka library.

Noel Altman describes choosing a small, quirky conference room with windows and wooden floors over larger HMO spaces, and how teaching in a circle improved group cohesion.

In a letter to the editor, Deanne Hodgson reports leaving her part-time nursing job to teach at twelve locations, joining Arizona Integrated Medicine and becoming T'ai Chi Chih consultant at Scottsdale's Healing Oasis.

In a letter to Noel, Jackie Williamson describes teaching her third eight-week class in Moose Jaw, letting go of self doubt, and promoting T'ai Chi Chih through a newspaper editorial and local cable TV.

Carmen Brocklehurst describes presenting T'ai Chi Chih to 150 state employees at the New Mexico Governor's Conference and then to her granddaughter's junior high honors literature class, where students felt the chi immediately.

Viktoria Vercelletto writes to thank the teachers who answered her questions at her first conference, and credits Carmen with a yinning and yanging correction that ended her knee pain.

Margery Erickson signed up 70 support staff at her intermediate unit before administrators shut the class down, so she folded T'ai Chi Chih into the health curriculum for her life skills students instead.

Janet M. Oussaty describes winning approval for a one-credit T'ai Chi Chih course at Kean University, from curriculum committees to flyers, plus the class format, grading by journals and presentations, and a parallel non-credit offering.

Richard Brier reprints the promotional letter he sends to people in the healing professions, citing his 1980 certification by Justin Stone, 2,000 students aged 7 to 93, and benefits from blood pressure control to shared group harmony.

Lyn Welch reports growing classes at a hospital and with survivor and MS groups, then describes running her whole TCC practice mentally during an hour-long EEG and puzzling the doctor with unusually even brain waves.

Letters from readers, including Theda Gillespie's call for a teacher at a Napier high school, Tonya Setzke's request for menopause research, and Sr. Marie-Ann Main's schoolchildren asking for their morning tape.

Donna Mc Elhose describes practising Rocking Motion beside the moving sidewalk at MSP airport with Sr. Viola Bens and Sharon Sirkis, and the shy passenger who recognized moving meditation from television.

News briefs report planning for the July 2000 Conference at Xavier Center, the Arthritis Foundation's formal statement naming T'ai Chi Chih, a Texas osteoporosis ad, and Dr. John Moth's cellular research on vashanas.

Noel Altman describes filling three waitlisted TCC classes at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco, teaching the form over two eight-week courses, adapting for disabilities, and sending students home with Justin Stone's video.

RuthAnne Plourde's fax interview with Justin Stone, reprinted from Twin Cities Wellness to promote the 1999 International Teachers' Conference, covers his 1962 departure from Wall Street, Professor Huang's three hand movements, and the circulation of chi.

Mark Moloney describes how an open, drop-in health club class in St. Louis led to workplace sessions for county health nurses, a school grant proposal, and a living-room lesson for a woman with breast cancer and her family.

Noel Altman reports Ed Altman's upcoming live interview on the "David Essel Alive!" radio show, new board members at the New Mexico association, Shepherd's Centers adopting TCC, and class enrollments rising after a "Good Morning America" segment.

Bobbie Ruocco recounts how Edie Budney's Montclair students kept meeting in Brookdale Park after she moved to Brazil, growing into a five-day-a-week group that drew passersby and a TV news crew.

Judy Mirczak recounts how warmth moving down her chest during her accreditation course ended years of uncontrollable belching from a hiatal hernia, then calls for readers' own healing stories.

In a letter to Ed Altman, Sr. Viola Bens describes how a local newspaper story drew over 30 calls, filling classes from a retreat to a resort, with students aged 11 to their 80s.

Dale Buchanan recounts opening the for-profit T'ai Chi Chih Studio in Great Falls, Virginia in 1997, with his class formats, seasonal scheduling, course prices, and advice on charging what the market will bear.

Susan Patterson recounts how Dr. Tahir Bhatti's grant-funded study on T'ai Chi Chih and chronic lower back pain led to a three-minute CBS Morning News clip and 650 calls.

Carmen Brocklehurst surveys T'ai Chi Chih's reach in 1998: teachers in 42 states and abroad, HMO prescriptions, corporate classes, nursing CEUs, Folsom Prison teacher training and the PBS series.

Ed Altman's presentation at Shepherd's Centers of America headquarters in Kansas City led the cross-denominational aging-services network to plan T'ai Chi Chih at nearly 100 centers, starting with Justin Stone's videotape.

News from two teachers: Florence Germain-Robin opened a Vitality Center in France with three classes and about twenty students, none of them men, and Gail Collins described assisting Sr. Phyllis Ann Reis at a Franciscan Spiritual Center in Minnesota.

Justin Stone lists the four methods he used to fill classes when T'ai Chi Chih was unknown: a two-line newspaper classified ad, free presentations, talk radio appearances, and uncluttered posters in health food and book stores.