The Vital Force Archive

Pia Knighton traces her path from a Houston retreat center brochure to accreditation in 2011, and describes teaching weekly 30-minute TCC classes to adolescents on the Menninger Clinic psychiatric unit.

Diana Daffner recounts meeting Dr. Alan Dattner at her weekly sunset practice on Siesta Beach, where he described how Around the Platter Variation warmed his cold, constricted fingers and now helps his Raynaud's patients.

Darlene Karasik recounts three pregnant women wandering into her HMO-sponsored class, the medical release forms that followed, and her call for teachers, testimonials and outcome data to establish prenatal T'ai Chi Chih.

Gail Terriff describes teaching T'ai Chi Chih at four Edmonton sites serving people with mental health issues, from psychiatric hospital groups to a YMCA program whose participant evaluations she reports.

Becky Watkins taught T'ai Chi Chih at two conferences for grief professionals and bereaved parents, drawing on her son's death, and dolphins surfaced in Biscayne Bay during Push Pull.

A rundown of the new taichichih.org features: a chronological, hyperlinked "In The News" archive of TCC press and research, a blog of Justin's writings, comment threads, and integrated Facebook and Flickr feeds.

Anita Vestal closes out the 2007 to 2010 Student Reaction Questionnaire, reporting that 610 surveys from eleven teachers showed significant gains in energy, sleep, focus, balance and stress response, with creativity the sole exception.

Hannah Hedrick reviews a Respiratory Care pilot study of T'ai Chi for COPD patients, praising its 61-item bibliography and two T'ai Chi Chih citations, then previews the 2011 Ohio teacher conference at Sawmill Creek Resort.

Pat Flynn argues that T'ai Chi Chih teaches the graceful letting go we are never taught, citing UCLA insomnia research, University of Cincinnati heart findings and a Cousins Center rheumatoid arthritis study.

Kate Hollister, instructor for three UCLA studies, describes Dr. Michael Irwin's insomnia trials with older adults and breast cancer survivors and Dr. Helen Lavretsky's project on depression.

Anita Vestal describes the TCC Student Reaction Questionnaire, a 12-question survey given at first and last classes, with 298 returns analyzed by SPSS showing higher positive ratings and lower pain.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst argues that most routes to freedom, like taking a better paying job to clear debt, create new bondage, while T'ai Chi Chih turns attention inward, citing the UCLA shingles study.

Rhonda St. Martin, RN, introduces T'ai Chi Chih to nurse life care planners, citing the Journal of Gerontological Nursing balance study and the UCLA shingles immunity trial alongside her own experience since 1986.

Claire Whalen replaced dwindling eight-week beginner classes with weekend and one-day intensive formats at her convent retreat center, paired with a Harvard Health Letter report on UCLA's T cell study.

Sr. Patty Campbell resigns from public teaching after 13 years and a posture brace; Stephen Thompson credits Mississippi workshops with filling classes, and Lorraine Lepine seeks 1,000 student questionnaire responses.

Lorraine Lepine describes three teacher tools from the 2005 survey and 2007 Conference: an online Teacher Resource List, a 12-question student questionnaire being piloted, and guidelines for special populations.

Diana Wright interviews Dr. Jennifer Pike about UCLA's rheumatoid arthritis trial comparing TCC to relaxation therapy, followed by Judy Hendricks recruiting co-workers for a child-parent class and Tony Johansen's first class.

Anita Vestal describes a 12-question Student Reaction Questionnaire being piloted by a few teachers, given anonymously before the first class and at the last, and invites others to test it.

KG supplies nine talking points for teachers speaking to reporters, covering the 19 movements, the difference from T'ai Chi Ch'uan, Justin Stone's 1974 origins, and research from UCLA and Wisconsin.

Dorene Krause thanks Lorraine Lepine and the 90 responding teachers, announces where the 2005 Teacher Survey results are posted online, and passes along teaching tips for seniors, teens and students with physical challenges.

Rosalind Braga's article for Delta Kappa Gamma's international journal The Bulletin, recounting how a stress reduction flyer led her to TCC and to teaching seniors aged 60 to 90.

Jim Hecker distinguishes slow magic from fast magic, then recounts how teaching T'ai Chi Chih to thousands of men at Old Folsom Prison coincided with falling violence and a 94 percent successful parole rate.

Sher Dano reports the results of the National Council on Aging qigong and tai chi pilot: 349 participants at 18 sites, mean age 73, with significantly reduced perceived stress and plans for a more rigorous study.

Diana Welsh-Durkin and Debbie Cole summarize Sr. Alice Holden's open-floor conference discussion on spreading the UCLA, Wall Street Journal and Prevention findings to doctors, insurers such as New Mexico's Blue Cross, and graduate researchers.

A transcript of Victor Berg's half-hour appearance with Dr. Julia Bain on Albuquerque public-access Channel 16, where he defines chi, cites the UCLA immune study, and demonstrates Around the Platter.

Sher Dano describes being selected with Deanne Hodgson as one of about 20 facilitators in a 2004 National Council on Aging pilot bringing qigong, breath practice and self-massage to seniors.

Justin Stone, writing for a health organization, cites the zero percent recidivism among T'ai Chi Chih practitioners at Folsom Prison, a Wall Street Journal report on shingles immunity, his unbroken bones after a fall at Needles, and his own blood pressure.

Two letters, from Barbara Riley to Dr. Weil's wellness bulletin and from Kendelyn Beck to Time, asking both to name T'ai Chi Chih correctly in reporting the UCLA immune-response study of seniors.

Dan Page summarizes a UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute trial, published in Psychosomatic Medicine, in which 36 adults over 60 took 15 weeks of T'ai Chi Chih classes and saw shingles-suppressing immunity rise 50 percent.

Sarah Williams summarizes her master's thesis study in which twenty adults aged 20 to 39 were assigned to T'ai Chi Chih or walking for five weeks, with significant blood pressure drops in the TCC group.