The Vital Force Archive

Dina Ajlenberg, accredited in 2005 and the only T'ai Chi Chih teacher in Israel since moving from Toronto in 2009, describes three years teaching about ten movements at a dementia day center.

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.

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.

Eliza Fulton describes her twice-monthly seated classes, called "Move Free," with Alzheimer's residents at a Colorado veterans nursing home, using paper towel rolls and nerf footballs as props.

Kent Jarratt describes two years of weekly practice in a long-term care facility with Jerry, 99, and two blind residents, adapting movements for wheelchairs, painful shoulders, stroke paralysis and oxygen masks.

Daniel Pienciak lists practical lessons from years leading two senior memory loss groups: speak loudly, repeat movements six or eight times, walk to each person, and return to favorites like Six Healing Sounds and the Joy Song.

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.

Bobbie Anderson returned to her first teacher conference since her husband Andy's death, where a dragonfly, old friends' condolences and seated TCC sessions led her back to teaching.

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.

Linda Braga recounts a year of teaching James, a student with dementia, and Angel his caretaker, including how she asked the class to welcome him and how he returned after a failed residential placement.

Paula Weiner recounts her 1995 accreditation and volunteer teaching at Sunrise Assisted Living, where prima ballerina Maria Tallchief became a devoted student who practiced Six Healing Sounds daily until her death at 88.

Diana Bahn describes, in the third person, her long-running free class at an assisted living facility, where canes, faded memories and old injuries wore down her early hopes until she found commonality with her elderly students.

Sandra Freda visited Jerry Bumbalough's twice-weekly class at a Salinas adult day health center, where he teaches seated TCC to Spanish-speaking students with Alzheimer's beginning with "Copy me."

Justin Stone's words on renunciation and the joy of the Now are joined by memorial notes from Pete Gregory, Jerry Granok's Pyramid Poem, Jerry Bumbalough's call to teach Alzheimer's and homebound students, Neal Roy and David White.

Jerry Bumbalough describes teaching seniors with Alzheimer's and dementia at an adult day health care facility, where early frustration turned around after Antonia advised him to simply say, "Copy me."

Kathleen Bente describes practicing T'ai Chi Chih with her sister on Tuesdays at their father's house while he rested on a bench with a cookie, watching them, after dementia and their mother's death left him needing constant care.

May Swanson recalls Justin Stone's joy song and finds joy in her Cancer Wellness Community class in Phoenix, where a student named Grace, living with Alzheimer's, remembers every movement.

Carmen Brocklehurst arrives at the Albuquerque T'ai Chi Chih Center after weeks of whirlwind activity, finds peace accumulated by many practice sessions, then carries that slowed-down moment into a busy nursing home.

Terry Jennings describes the 11-session pilot seated T'ai Chi Chih class she led at her mother's Honolulu memory care facility, using circle seating and chair rocking to prime the chi.

Two pieces on abandoning hope: Bill Moore likens the practitioner to a cork on the sea, and Susan Weber describes connecting with her son's medical struggles and her father's Alzheimer's.

Linda Braga names inertia as the two-fold pitfall of teaching in assisted living residences, poses the hard questions teachers face about lowering standards, and offers six posted guidelines for resident participation.

Linda Braga's first class at an assisted living residence, where a walker ran over her foot, a leak from upstairs brought in a noisy HAZ-MAT crew, and ten seated beginners stayed anyway.

Lorraine Levine asks teachers to return the 2005 TCC Teacher Survey by December 31 and publishes teaching tips from the first 55 responses, covering seniors, Parkinson's, dementia care, hospice bereavement groups and deaf children, plus a new Special Requests section.

Sister Carol DeAngelo describes the seated, breath-and-hands practice she leads at St. Cabrini Nursing Home, where residents, day health registrants and nurse assistants find a noisy room gradually quieting.

Sandy McAlister describes her shy Mormon childhood, her ski-bum years, the gentle exercise and seated T'ai Chi Chih she teaches in convalescent homes and senior centers for two school districts, her Nepal and Africa trips, and her fifth year of Sierra Club hiking-and-practice weeks.

Nancy Vermond, grieving the hurried clearing of her sister's condo after Alzheimer's moved her into a nursing home, found in the Around the Platter Variation a reminder to hold on lightly.

Sharon Sirkis, teaching seated TCC at an adult day care center, mistook a silent member for cognitively impaired, then stayed through lunch as he wept about his fear of a psychiatric institution.

Barbara Sommers describes a year-long seated class at a Senior Day Care Center, where foot stamping built awareness of the soles, chairs in a circle curbed wandering, and the first ten movements were adapted left foot then right.

Teacher updates including Donna Shaffer's retreat classes at the Marianist Center, Pat Huseby's staff workshops ahead of an Alzheimer's class, Christina Minelli's new post in Mantova, and a farewell gift for Liz Salada.