The Vital Force Archive

Mary Cerullo recounts a visit by twenty special needs adults aged 21 to 35 to Jim and Fran Kaib's class, where one young woman clapped and demanded Joyous Breath again.

Fran and Jim Kaib recount the day ten intellectually disabled adults and their aides joined their small public library class unannounced, and how wordless modeling and Joyous Breath brought laughter and calm.

Margery Erickson walks teachers through the TaijiFit veterans application at taijifit.net/vets, from the 150-hour training requirement and new acronyms like Vairkko and CANVAS to networking locally and teaching free, volunteer classes.

Kathleen McAllister describes the frustrating sign-up process for David Dorian Ross's Free T'ai Chi for Veterans program, and decides patience and softness are the way to meet it.

April Leffler gathers comments from participants at the August 2019 Teacher Symposium in Pennsylvania, where Sandy McAlister led work on movement refinements, wholeness, class formats and ways to describe movements to students.

Asked at a Pennsylvania teacher accreditation how T'ai Chi Chih brings her joy, Kathleen McAllister recalls the angel card reading JOY that she wrote on her hand during her own accreditation week.

Dr. David Parrish summarizes Richard Davidson's brain plasticity research on attention, positive outlook, resilience and generosity, and the Dalai Lama's answer about subtle energy, followed by Lorraine Lepine on adapting TCC to aging.

April Leffler taught T'ai Chi Chih to 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders at a Catholic school in Chester, and the boisterous third grade class did Six Healing Sounds for her dying dog.

April Leffler describes organizing T'ai Chi Chih flash mobs at two Pennsylvania malls, one circling a two-story lighted reindeer, with participants' accounts of finding calm amid holiday shoppers.

Margery Erickson gathers four teaching moments that made her chi smile, including a beginner who nearly walked out, a mother sharing energy with her handicapped son, and a student off her antidepressant.

David Parrish shifts attention from grounding below the waist to the hands, asking students to keep them alive and soft with open wrists so chi can flow and flutter visibly.

John Miller, who came to T'ai Chi Chih two years earlier after years in a high stress job, describes teacher training as challenging and fulfilling and credits Dan and April as lasting influences.

April Leffler introduces the theme of the 2018 Philadelphia teacher conference, Flowing From Emptiness, quoting the Lotus Sutra and relaying what teachers said about being emptied out by life.

Nancy Daniel falls asleep on the train home from the Philadelphia Flower Show, wakes heading the wrong way, and does two full practices on an icy, unsheltered platform.

Nancy Daniel practised T'ai Chi Chih behind a screen during a layover in Charlotte, and a gate attendant who had just absorbed a passenger's tirade credited the calm she felt to that energy.

April Leffler recounts how she consulted the t'an t'ien before agreeing to host the 2018 conference, how Kathleen McAllister became co-host, and how a Zen painter's DVD supplied the theme.

Kathleen McAllister previews Philadelphia ahead of the 2018 Teacher Conference, pointing visitors toward Independence Hall, Valley Forge, the Mutter Museum, Longwood Gardens, cheese steaks and the hop-on Big Bus tour.

Journal entries from April Leffler's PhysEd class at Widener University, where students describe feeling the t'an t'ien, easing seven years of anxiety and depression, and closing with Paige M.'s poem.

Weekly journal entries from April Leffler's college students Nav, Rebecca and Samantha, who describe getting out of their heads, grounding during finals stress, and feeling energy intensely in their hands.

Margery Erickson marks nineteen years of teaching since her accreditation course, held in her family's home weaving studio, and traces her sense of being grounded and centered back to that week after a Seijaku-Meditation retreat.

April Leffler, who has taught at Widener University since 2008, reports what her PE Director said would persuade a college to hire a TCC teacher, plus class formats and credit arrangements elsewhere.

Margery Erickson's poem, echoing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," pictures teachers caring for parents and grandchildren, teaching when they can, and saving coins in a jar for next year's conference.

Dr. David Parrish traces his move from years of sitting meditation to TCC as moving meditation, settling and grounding in the rest pose, dropping attention to the soles of the feet, and teaching students to let go between movements.

Mary Donaldson-Evans recounts how she and her husband, after Movin' to Motown and Chair Yoga failed to stick, were hooked by April Leffler's class, where movement names conjure New Jersey beach vacations.

April Leffler recounts saying yes to two assignments beyond her usual classes, a 20-hour weekend for 17 meditators and a day program on heightened awareness, and the ego-versus-prajna argument that followed.

April Leffler recounts the three black and white images that came during morning practice before her 2015 conference talk on harmony, plus the palm-to-palm partner exercise in leading and following she led.

Sister Christa Thompson arrived at the April accreditation course sick but determined, planning to teach the elderly, poor students and women in prison, and found her goal shift from the credential to the energy itself.

Marjorie Erickson keeps a diary through her first two weeks of retirement, counting practice days alongside a broken air conditioner, an unhappy customer who ends up leaving five stars, and plans to teach in the park.

April Leffler collects weekly journals from her college students and quotes their entries, from a freshman slowing her walk across campus to a resident assistant who practised alone for two hours.

April Leffler answers questions about why she teaches, recalling the woman in a wheelchair with an amputated leg who asked at a high-rise apartment presentation whether she could join a class.