The Vital Force Archive

Paula Haraldson set four intentions for her accreditation course and found grounding the hardest, especially when fatigue from a brain injury left her unable to teach a movement she knew well.

Sue Bitney recounts auditing the final days of a teacher accreditation course, describing the candidates' vulnerability and courage and the welcome she offered them in their last conversation together.

Patty Stupca's short poem urges practitioners to stop standing and fighting to make things right, and instead relinquish control so the T'ai Chi Chih energy can flow up, down and all around.

Mary Strom gathers teachers' takeaways from the March 2021 online retreat on transitions, including Judy Kistler-Robinson's discovery that the palms turn before the weight shift completes in Rocking Motion and Push Pull.

Verla J. Klassen's poem traces earth's energy entering through the soles of her feet: Rocking Motion on a Pacific beach, bare feet on ancient Minnesota gneiss, swans on a stream.

Ivonne Begue de Benzo, a Masters student in Positive Psychology, describes planning a qualitative study interviewing TCC teachers to build an awareness intervention for mindful eating and satiety.

Laura Star practices at dawn in a stone-ringed circle of desert sand near Tucson, joined by doves and coyotes, then trades cacti for birch trees and loons up north.

After ten years of T'ai Chi Chih, Mary H. Schultz took up Seijaku with Jungmin Lee and found that grounding her feet released the back tension and let the t'an t'ien lead.

Laurie Jacobi, listening to Taoist master Waysun Liao during the pandemic, treats TCC as a moving art and traces the axle of stillness in the Anchor variation of Pulling Taffy and Six Healing Sounds.

Nancy Werner-Azarski recounts a Tuesday Zoom practice in which Sandy paused at Light at the Top of the Head to have everyone notice and relax their tense feet.

Sue Bitney led a 50-person introductory class outdoors in frost and 30-degree temperatures at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum's Serenity Garden, offering a buffet of movements to let students feel different weight shifts.

Denise Emanuel Clemen lists the 2020 trips she canceled, from Oaxaca to Athens, each month returning to practice in her condo on Dakota land taken by the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux.

Sue Bitney, practicing 18 years and teaching 15, describes the pandemic quiet that deepened her practice, learning Zoom for her classes, and a masked Saturday group at Lake Harriet with pinwheels marking six feet.

Nan Nelson recalls the evening her community education teacher described meeting a raging driver with compassion, the moment that turned a casual TCC class into a serious commitment, and cites Shantideva on repaying teachers.

Nancy Hebert describes practicing TCC in a hospital family lounge while her mother-in-law was institutionalized for depression, her mother-in-law's suicide, and her 2019 accreditation to bring TCC to mental health facilities.

Nancy Werner-Azarski works through her dismay at the cancelled 2020 conference and proposes declaring May a month of giving, with donations redirected to the Foundation, the Albuquerque Center and The Vital Force.

Nancy Werner-Azarski reports on nineteen Minnesota teachers gathering in November 2019 to practice, read from Spiritual Odyssey, watch Mary Strom's conference video, and thank outgoing leaders Mary Weddle and Susan Sobelson.

Denise Emanuel Clemen counts TCC as the most portable practice she owns, recalling sessions on the Grand Canyon rim, the Badwater Basin salt flats, and her brother's Maryland double-wide, followed by pyramid poems on silence.

Diane "Di" Lund froze midway across a swaying wire cable on a forty-foot ropes course, and used her breathing, alignment and t'an t'ien to move again.

Linda Zelig, writing for the 2019 conference committee, recounts the 452-day climb to mount the Return to the Circle conference in Minnesota, from April 2018 planning to June 27 arrival.

Nancy Hebert, accredited in June 2019, describes her first Tai Chi Chih teacher conference: meeting veteran and new instructors, evidence-based presentations, twice-daily group practice, and the sadness of leaving.

Nancy Werner-Azarski traces her encounters with Justin Stone through teachers Ron Barker and Ed Altman, conferences, retreats and postcards, likening him to the elephant described by blind men.

Psychologist Bruce Eisenmenger draws on Robert Scaer's trauma research to argue that the rhythmic bilateral weight shift and attention to the Bubbling Spring quiet the amygdala and sympathetic nervous system.

Anna Vaith honors her student Karen, who cared for her husband through cancer, and recounts how grief over her grandmother's sudden death led her to accreditation in 2005 and to teaching.

Laurie Jacobi gathered four written responses from her students, who describe returning to the circle each week, practicing in a chapel, feeling the flow of chi, and leaving calmer.

Bonnie Sokolov, host of the 2019 post-conference Seijaku courses, explains who the Basics Course is for, from accredited teachers seeking Seijaku accreditation to students with a year of practice.

Co-coordinators Laurie Jacobi and Linda Zelig announce the 2019 International T'ai Chi Chih Teacher Conference, "Return to the Circle," set for June 27-30 at the Marriott Southwest near Minneapolis.

Sue Bitney thanks Laurie Jacobi and Bonnie Sokolov, who stood directly behind her during accreditation week in 2005 until her body finally understood Working the Pulley.

Sue Bitney marks five years since her husband Jim's death, crediting T'ai Chi Chih and the people it drew to her with steadying her, rebuilding purpose and forging resilience.

Sue Bitney buys a "Year of Thankfulness" calendar and recalls Justin's encouragement to live in gratitude, tracing her husband Jim's cancer surgery, his death three months later, and her new direction.