The Vital Force Archive

Terry Jennings passes along Elizabeth Tyler's teaching image of the pelvic area as a fruit bowl that spills if you rock too far forward or back, plus her own Rocking Motion one-liners.

Terry Jennings answers questions on feeling grounded in resting pose, moving on without disrupting Chi flow, and her favorite Cosmic Consciousness Pose saying: embrace everything, all 10,000 things.

Hannah Hedrick expands on the constellation idea born during Linda Prosche's stay in the Hawaii rainforest, inviting comments on a Prime Mover graphic with Justin as North Star for the 2024 conference.

Hannah Hedrick works through the principles she took from the four teacher trainers' presentations at the international conference, from pressing dimes into the floor to using wrists rather than arms in Working the Pulley.

Hannah Hedrick, managing nearly four decades of chronic back pain and recovering from a third hip surgery, found that seated TCC sharpened her feel for grounding, alignment and the tan t'ien.

Hannah Hedrick recounts a long neighbor dispute over invasive Himalayan raspberries that reached court twice and even interrupted her class, and the intention of beneficence that came out of her practice.

Hannah Hedrick describes how Paula Weiner kept T'ai Chi Chih alive through declining health, practising in bed on supplemental oxygen and showing a nurse the movements, supported by friends and cheerleader Howie Mogil.

Terry Jennings guides readers through a short experiential exercise: sensing the space outside and inside the body, around thoughts and sounds, then moving free form for five minutes, closing with a poem about air.

Hannah Hedrick describes practising three times a week in her yoga shed during the pandemic, private sessions for students with cancer, energy work for a dying fellow organizer, and a Down Syndrome class cut short by lockdown.

Hannah Hedrick, at 81, argues that TCC benefits are relative rather than absolute, describing her wheelchair class at Life Care Center and doing Rocking Motion in a bank line while stressed about a deadline.

Charles Sasa, a black belt in Okinawan weapons who could describe chi but never feel it, recounts finally sensing energy during Passing Clouds and his teacher Hannah Hendrick's reply.

Terry Jennings recounts stopping at Carmen's Seijaku retreat in New Mexico on the annual drive to a family farm, then teaching four classes to beloved friends in Des Moines, where one student joked about getting only half the benefits.

Hannah Hedrick takes a line from Sandy's newsletter as a starting point and poses the question she plans to raise at the August conference: does T'ai Chi Chih share us with others, or do we share it?

Prompted by Julie Heryet's Folsom update, Hannah Hedrick describes her weekly class for recently released offenders, where students broke up a fight and welcomed the aggressor back, and argues against nit-picky correction.

Hannah Hedrick, after 30 years of teaching, sets aside movement corrections in her two nursing home classes, watching stroke and Alzheimer's residents brighten as they move any limb they can.

Hannah Hedrick treats impatience as an attack thought and gratitude for "therapeutic irritations" as practice, recalling Justin's corrections to her Joyous Breath and Working the Pulley and explaining why she rarely corrects nursing home or newly released students.

Hannah Hedrick describes the slippage in her 20-year-old artificial hip, and the physical therapist who evaluated T'ai Chi Chih's weight shifting, approved both directions and asked to refer patients to her classes.

Hannah Hedrick traces how cancer prevention authority Sam Epstein moved from scientist's skepticism to nightly practice on an Italian terrace at nearly 90, after 25 years of exposure to TCC.

Hannah Hedrick, accredited in 1986, describes teaching at a nursing home, a senior residence, a homeless transition program and a reentry program, and a student who showed her the movements she could do lying down after fracturing her foot.

Terry Jennings passes along an exchange in which a student with MS and vertigo practices lying down or on the couch, with Sandy McAlister and April Leffler advising effortless movements and both feet.

Hannah Hedrick searched more than a decade of Vital Force issues and found no support from Justin Stone for the pronounced pressing down and rising up between movements discussed at the 2012 and 2013 conferences.

Hannah Hedrick, prompted by conference discussion, began organizing "T'ai Chi Chih Connections" with contact people and home-based centers in Chicago, Vigo County, Matsu Valley and Big Island, followed by reader-submitted jokes.

Terry Jennings answers the question in reverse, asking how T'ai Chi Chih has not changed her life, followed by Pyramid Poems from Jeff Hoepner, Larry Bloom and others on chi and words.

Hannah Hedrick urges teachers and students to send their stories to The Vital Force, describing the Hawaiian habit of "talk story" and how fellow Seijaku teachers' confessions finally moved her own practice.

Hannah Hedrick asks fellow teachers for written guidance on three refinements raised at the 2012 Portland conference: trembling hands, sinking into pause position, and natural pelvic movement when yinning and yanging.

Hannah Hedrick recounts how it took four Seijaku accreditation courses, and a new emphasis on moving through resistance with about a third less effort, before the advanced form finally called to her.

Hannah Hedrick gathers testimonials from two conference breakout sessions on "T'ai Chi Chih: Part of All You Do," from animals drawn to practitioners' chi to skeptical spouses coming around and teachers steadied by grief and volatile situations.

Nory Esquivel compares T'ai Chi Chih with T'ai Chi Ch'uan, Rosen Method Movement, Erick Hawkins dance technique and Bartenieff Fundamentals, finding TCC simpler to learn yet equally effective and free of extraneous effort.

Jody and her husband tried yoga and a T'ai Chi class before finding Hannah's T'ai Chi Chih class at the community center, where he gained relief from chronic pain and better sleep.

Taking up Justin Stone's question about whether TCC will have enough teachers, Hannah Hedrick describes organizing an accreditation course on the Big Island and credits Donna McElhose's six hours of vacation instruction.