The Vital Force Archive

Ev Hanson-Florin and Nancy Werner-Azarski gather comments from attendees of Sandy's May 2017 intensive, who describe breaking each movement apart and rebuilding it, including a weight shift insight for Bird Flaps Its Wings.

Mary Wichmann finds golf pros teaching circular motion, a soft grip and effortless swing, then turns her New Year resolve into written apologies and thanks to her parents, great uncle and family.

Sue Bitney recounts the five months between her husband's cancer diagnosis and his death, the four years of surviving since, and her decision to retire in March as a deliberate act of letting go.

Mary Wichmann collects three student comments from her summer practices in a church memorial garden, including thanks for teaching a woman in a wheelchair and Lorraine's dawn practice with waking birds.

Carol Mockovak describes the free summer practice she and Vanjie Bratt have led since 2005 on the Mississippi riverbank at St. Paul's Hidden Falls Regional Park, which inspired a participant's poem.

Joy DeHarpporte's poetic account of an August practice beside the Mississippi, led by Vanjie and Carol, where a soaring eagle, breeze and silence turn shared movement into communion.

Susan Sobelson describes thirty-two teachers, students and passersby circling on Raspberry Island in the Mississippi for World T'ai Chi and Qigong Day, a singing bowl marking each movement as barges and trains passed.

Tom and Julie Schuster recount climbing Half Dome in Yosemite, where a fear of heights was met by visualizing the grounding and opening of Cosmic Consciousness pose, culminating in Daughter on the Mountaintop at the summit.

Sue Bitney credits T'ai Chi Chih with keeping her grounded through the death of her husband Jim in 2013 and the many losses since, including her dying mother-in-law.

David Fryd came to T'ai Chi Chih at the Shoreview YMCA for his balance, stumbled through his first classes under Judy George, and kept returning until she began telling new students to follow him.

Christine Moore traces her path from childhood theology reading through a dark night of the soul in her forties to Ron Barker's community education class and Justin Stone's Spiritual Odyssey.

Panelists Deb Bertelsen, Deanna Rasch and Sheila Leonard describe growing TCC communities in Minnesota, Richmond, Virginia and Newfoundland, from quarterly potluck gatherings and mentoring frameworks to Dan Pienciak's nine island visits.

Mary Wichmann describes the morning after the 2015 conference in Asheville, eating heirloom tomato eggs Benedict on the Inn on Biltmore Estate terrace and finding herself moved to tears by strangers.

Laurie Jacobi credits a Robert Graves line about Celtic poets treating their fingertips as oracle agents with transforming her feeling for Pulling In the Energy, especially outdoors among birds and trees.

Carol Mockovak recounts the July 25 gathering at Hannah's Bend Park in Cannon Falls, where 28 Minnesota-area teachers and students practiced beside the Cannon River, then shared a potluck.

Anna Vaith describes a Cannon Falls group practice and vegetarian potluck, quarterly Twin Cities teacher meetings and four national conferences, and how each widened her teaching and personal practice.

Mary Wichmann's new hiking boots sat unused in the closet after a dermatology procedure on her foot, until an email about a community hiking group led her to the Sonoran Desert and Superstition Mountains as another moving meditation.

Margaret Lang Nelson found a 1987 receipt from Carmen Brocklehurst tucked inside Justin Stone's photo text, revealing that her mother had taken an eight-week T'ai Chi Chih class in Albuquerque.

Judy George marks twenty years as an accredited teacher, describing the worldwide friendships TCC has brought her and how teaching abbreviated movements keeps students who cannot stand nine repetitions coming back weekly.

Linda M. Barrows recounts a few years of practice: tiring legs before Cosmic Consciousness Pose, her teacher Monica's shift from "most distant star" to "healing energy," and Six Healing Sounds under a backyard oak.

Maggie Breimhurst describes avoiding the four Pulling Taffy movements, then connecting them to Justin Stone's writing on vashanas and samskaras, and cutting two to six repetitions to befriend them.

Monica Campbell recounts a colleague's remark in a T'ai Ji practice group at The Marsh, "The aliveness is in the intention of the opposites," and how it reshaped her sense of grounding and flying in Light at the Top of the Head.

Deb Bertelsen recounts the weeklong accreditation course at Kings House Retreat Center led by Sandy McAlister, where seven Minnesota candidates formed a sisterhood, with their own words and pyramid poems.

Deb Bertelsen answers questions about why she teaches, describing Minnesota's "Accreditation Journey Framework" for guiding candidates, her reliance on email and phone to stay connected, and the divorce and rheumatoid arthritis that first brought her to T'ai Chi Chih.

Jayne Kennelly recounts how her body collapsed under grief after her father's death in 2009, and how years of classes with Joe Apt and Monica Campbell brought softness, balance and freedom from pain.

Jackson Rains credits his 35-pound weight loss not to T'ai Chi Chih directly but to the walking, calorie tracking and body awareness he took up after a hospital stay left him too weak to teach eight classes.

Jackson Rains points to the retiring Baby Boomers, once drawn to Transcendental Meditation and the Age of Aquarius, as a ready audience, citing his YMCA class growing from 20 students to over 30.

Deb Bertelsen recounts how Marie Dotts' conference talk on habit energies and April Leffler's presentation on Prajna, followed by her father's sudden death, led her to leave a 17-year job.

Judy George recounts how softness in T'ai Chi Chih let her feel stored painful memories, and how Marie Dotts' conference talk on habit energies led her class to stand in new spots and enter in silence.

Monica Campbell answers her students' questions about "the pause," describing how Resting Pose after nine repetitions balances yin and yang, gathers chi into the t'an t'ien, and opens a moment of stillness.