The Vital Force Archive

Sherry Ventris signed up for her first class not knowing what she was getting into, and now starts each day with a practice she calls a quiet personal retreat and plans to keep for life.

Stu Goldman describes how COPD was caught early by his cardiologist, the two stents that followed his Prescott retreat, and the calm that has let him give up carrying an inhaler.

S. Ross could not sleep or settle before a daughter's wedding in Ocean City, New Jersey, and found that a 20- to 30-minute practice carried her calmly through the weekend.

Mary Ann Moran tracks her husband's sudden job loss, resumes sent across the country and a new job in a new city, threading movement names through the refrain stay focused, stay centered, stay positive.

Larry Kowalski, a 74-year-old retired Catholic priest who calls himself unathletic and self-conscious, describes three classes where slow demonstration, weekly review and tactful corrections left him relieved rather than taxed.

Stephen Thompson counters life in the fast lane by urging practitioners to step outside themselves and observe their own moving meditation, watching self-doubts, fears and desires arise and letting them go.

April Leffler collects her students' metaphors for T'ai Chi Chih: sun melting a snowball of stress, wind rippling a lake, and trains passing a porch while the mind travels, plus Desiree A.'s list of life's paired energies.

Judy Chancey traces Justin Stone's beginner instruction to focus on the soles of the feet from her first lessons to the rest position she used to steady herself while launching a business.

Joshewa describes how classes gifted to him and L'aura during her second pregnancy became a way of life in south Louisiana, crediting TCC with stress relief, emotional stability and stillness amid movement.

Phyllis Bagwell describes how years of clenching her jaw and hunching her shoulders against pain gave way after a T'ai Chi Chih class at the YMCA with Beth Preston.

Eric Braff found T'ai Chi Chih easy to pick up and more calming than sitting meditation after a busy day, naming Passing Clouds his favorite for its circularity and shifting weight.

Dianne Moody recounts leaving an exhausting corporate job at a personal low, finding her first class with Judy Hendricks, losing nearly 50 pounds, and preparing for November's teacher accreditation.

Carol Chamberlain began T'ai Chi Chih a year after her Parkinson's diagnosis, when she often needed a cane, and credits it with the stress management that keeps her tremors from worsening.

Jody and her husband tried yoga and a T'ai Chi class before finding Hannah's T'ai Chi Chih class at the community center, where he gained relief from chronic pain and better sleep.

Dana Diller compares T'ai Chi Chih to the dormant oil applied to pinyon pines in early spring to control the needle scale insect, controlling stresses that rob vigor.

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.

Carolyn and Dennis, one week into their first TCC lessons, began home hemodialysis and found that doing a few movements dissolved the nervousness and jitters of a difficult treatment day.

Kompalya Thunderbird recounts learning the nineteen movements and one pose with Neena Mitchell, and how a first six-week course replaced constant worry with peace, harmony and clarity beyond years of yoga.

Carolyn O'Donnell describes finding T'ai Chi Chih on a television segment in April 2010, taking beginner and Beyond Beginners classes with Sheila Leonard, and making morning practice part of her daily routine.

Marian Massman gathers written comments from students at the end of her Wisconsin classes and retreats, reporting eased shoulder tension, steadier balance after a stroke, lower blood sugar and first full nights of sleep.

Dorene Krause's poem traces her move from a cacophonous, spinning life to hearing the quiet inner ballad her body demanded she slow down and listen for.

Ann Rutherford taught all 19 movements in six consecutive two-hour days over a December break, surveying her students afterward and finding sore muscles, vivid dreams and unanimous preference for the intensive format.

Mark Moloney recounts a caseworker at a children's psychiatric inpatient facility who stayed centered through a shouted, threatening family conference, crediting the 40-minute T'ai Chi Chih class held that morning in the same room.

Peggy Koch read a newspaper article about T'ai Chi Chih in February 2010 and began classes; her husband Larry followed in January 2011 and found the movements stopped his anxiety attacks.

Sr. Antonia Cooper recounts visiting Judy Trethewy's twelve-year weekly class in Greystone Chapel at Old Folsom prison, where inmates call T'ai Chi Chih an instant vacation and describe finding internal freedom, balance and calm.

Christine Burel returned to a beginners' class after letting her practice lapse for four years, and describes how fifteen minutes of morning practice before work and children's appointments restored her sense of control.

A Herald Review feature by Diane Jones on Sierra Vista classes, with teacher Dan Richter, who began practising as a cancer patient, and student Gayle Dragoo, who set aside her oxygen tank and wheelchair.

Teresa Lisum, a fitness devotee and public school teacher of twenty years, describes how months of daily practice softened her hard-edged, athletic movements, and how sensations of energy first arrived through Daughter in the Valley.

Barb Petroski took her first T'ai Chi Chih class at a "Women in the Outdoors" event and found that four months of practice ended the nerve pain in her leg.

May Young Chin took up T'ai Chi Chih in early retirement for balance and coordination, and draws on her Chinese roots and Feng Shui's wind and water to explain why she keeps attending group classes.