The Vital Force Archive

Pat Flynn joined a class on a whim, blurted out to teacher Marge Erickson that she wanted to teach, and recovered shoulder movement and energy lost to Lyme disease.

Hope Spangler gives thanks for the practice that carried her through the darkest period of her life, eased her fibromyalgia discomfort, and led her to accreditation and teaching.

Jane Piepmeier, a first grade teacher living with migraines, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, describes how a brochure at a York mind/body clinic led her to Hope Spangler's class and daily morning practice.

Sr. Marie-Ann Main passes along letters from her Pietermaritzburg group, which she drives more than 70 miles from Durban to teach monthly, reporting looser joints, relief from 21 years of back pain, and lifted depression.

Susan Roth, a student of Sharon Sirkis, recounts a year of chronic pain flareups, surgery, bereavement, menopause and suicidal thoughts, and how a newspaper ad for class changed her outlook.

Carol Murphy asks about openings in the Fullerton course and whether she is ready, describing how TCC eased her Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; editor Noel Altman urges her to practice first with two recently accredited Washington teachers.

Donna McElhose reports CBS filming her class at the Cancer Wellness Center and a college orientation video, and forwards student Bobbie Weichman's thank-you letter about practising with fibromyalgia after three months.

Catherine McNair, a student of Neena Mitchell, started T'ai Chi Chih in October 2000 and cancelled the breast reduction surgery she had been saving for after her chronic upper back pain disappeared.

Dene Bourne, a student of Wendy Helms, describes buying a restaurant, the consuming neck and shoulder pain that followed, and the two days of burning heat in her back that ended it.

VirginiaLee Cepeda describes how Ann Vidmar, who has multiple sclerosis, came to class with a walker, then a cane, and eventually walked in with no aid; Vidmar adds her own thanks.

Susan Patterson recounts how Dr. Tahir Bhatti's back pain study at UCSD led Dr. Michael Irwin to test TCC's effect on shingles vaccine response and immunity in people over 60.

Deborah Cole, an at-home mother of two young boys, writes that daily practice brought her patience, calm amid chaos, an end to depression, and relief from psoriasis and carpal tunnel while she waits for teacher training to fit her life.

Mary Duffy's Rapid City Journal profile of Jan Marshall-Thoreen, who lost her speech therapy career to chronic fatigue syndrome in 1992 and first watched T'ai Chi Chih from the floor, too weak to stand.

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.

Tara Stiles reports that three Kaiser facilities contracted her, Judy Tretheway and Nancy Reed through Health Education and Behavioral Medicine, including her demanding class for the "Health Challenged."

Jan Marshall-Thoreen describes teaching at a university health center and a bank's noon hour, and a year of remission since committing to twice-daily practice; Sr. Antonia Cooper likens mu shin to Centering Prayer.

Phil Darghty, a long-term inmate at Folsom State Prison, recounts how a year of twice-daily T'ai Chi Chih with the Contemplative Fellowship eased old shoulder and knee injuries until he stopped needing pain pills.

Mark Moloney reports on three students in his St. Louis adult education classes whose knee swelling after surgery, Lupus pain and chronic arthritic neck and shoulder pain eased within weeks.

Three students write in: Anne Alley Smith on her teacher's assignment to be kind to herself, Donnamarie Biddle on staying well while nursing her flu-stricken family, and Frances Miller on easing fibromyalgia pain.

Letters from Justin Stone, Eugene Box and Ann Federspeil praising the June issue, including Federspeil's rainy afternoon spent hunting back issues for articles on teaching fibromyalgia sufferers.

Henry Mattos, skeptical that a gentle discipline could do much, recounts childhood polio, back surgery at thirty-two, and finding T'ai Chi Chih a low-impact workout and stress reducer.

Susan Evans describes her first year of teaching: twenty signups split into back-to-back classes, nights awake until 3am from the chi, a Good Karma book of students' comments, and sticky circles marking who wants correcting.

Dr. Tahir Bhatti describes his UCSD School of Medicine fellowship grant to test T'ai Chi Chih against routine care for chronic low back pain, teaching 11 movements in six-week sessions.

Five readers write in, from Jackie Kingsbury spiral-binding her back issues to Mike Wavra asking what seated practice means for a man with MS: what do you do with the feet?

Janet Clarkson recounts the balance loss, blurred vision and tingling hands that led to her multiple sclerosis diagnosis at 42, and how Roberta Taggart's class at Kaiser Permanente eased her spasms and pain.

John Rogers describes thirty years of migraines with visual "aura" blindness, and how twenty minutes of slow, deliberate Seijaku after a review session with Justin stopped an episode cold.

Pat Huseby gives five guidelines for teaching seated Seijaku at a Danville retirement community, from sitting to the chair's edge to placing thought in the t'an t'ien, plus advice for fibromyalgia flare-ups.

Sandy McAlister relays student Joanne Ramirez's account of postponing surgery for a torn cartilage in her left knee, and after eighteen months of practice walking, climbing stairs and dancing again without pain.

Alberta E. Osborne describes waking with tingling in her right leg and numbness in both feet, and how improvement began after her second T'ai Chi Chih class, leaving her 85 percent better.

Timothy Stuetz introduces a letter from Dr. Donna M. Cone, who attended three morning T'ai Chi Chih sessions at a Conference on Aging, and recounts a man whose locked ankle moved painlessly for the first time in ten years.