The Vital Force Archive

Hannah Hedrick describes pairing pursed-lip breathing with the weight shift for students with COPD, modifying Light at the Top of the Head, and bringing TCC to Red Hat Society women, cancer and HIV/AIDS groups.

Sheila Leonard traces T'ai Chi Chih in Newfoundland from earlier local leaders to her own 300 students, built through free "Come and See" demonstration sessions at The Lantern Spirituality Centre.

Judy Tretheway's web log from Old Folsom records a cancelled program day, racial tension on the yard, a coming smoking ban, jammed chapel locks, and two inmates practising the whole set for the first time.

Margery Erickson describes a student in her spring class whose stiff, tense movements softened after she bought the video and practiced, replacing the electric neck massager she had used before work each day.

Five pyramid poems by students in Sharon Sirkus' T'ai Chi Chih class at U.M.B.C., including Stephanie Meier on relaxing away from her kids and Angela Carroll's moonchild seeing herself for the first time.

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.

Five pyramid poems from Lisa Thorburn, Kathy Grassel, Sharon Sirkis, Jillian Burcar and Christopher Griffin, on stress fading, Justin clapping time, blazing chi, bamboo bending in a storm, and masks that conceal truth.

Margery Erickson gathers sayings about change and flexibility alongside quoted passages from Connie Hyde, Lisa Renee France and Melinda Menke on letting go of emotion, bending like bamboo, and clearing negativity that blocks chi.

Carla Langdon credits her teacher Roger Hotalen with the calm that carried her through a job interview under trees, a cross-country move, and T'ai Chi Chih practiced in an airport restroom stall.

Karen Silva, after fifteen years of practice, describes finding her center through relationship break-ups and news of the war in Iraq, and accepting what she cannot fix.

April Leffler argues that the world's turmoil mirrors the cumulative inner landscape of billions of people, and offers attention to the soles of the feet and deep breathing as a way to slow down.

Leo Labonte writes to thank his teacher Janet Oussaty, describing lunchtime practice in nearby parks among birds and flowers, better coping through the day, and an end to his angina attacks.

Three beginning students, Zena, Nancy and Carol, describe gains in energy, posture, knee strength and sleep, with Carol practising the twenty movements along the shore of Lake Superior.

Lisa Renee France signed up for a T'ai Chi Chih course only to earn one CPA credit, then a hospital stay made Sharon Sirkis's lessons about bamboo, patience and a too-full plate suddenly matter.

Diana Vrba, wedged into a middle seat on a five and a half hour flight from Virginia, recalled Virginia Cepeda's teaching and practiced Rocking Motion entirely in her mind.

Hope Spangler gives thanks for the practice that carried her through the darkest period of her life, eased her fibromyalgia discomfort, and led her to accreditation and teaching.

Karen Silva, facing a 90-minute deep root cleaning at the dentist, put down her copy of the Vital Force and moved through the whole form mentally in the chair, surfacing so relaxed she missed the hygienist's question.

Janet Oussaty gathered about 100 weekly journals from her credit-bearing T'ai Chi Chih courses at Kean University and grouped the students' own words into themes of initial skepticism, reduced stress, self esteem and spiritual path.

Judy Hendricks describes practicing T'ai Chi Chih mentally during three weeks of hospital bed rest after her water broke at 6 1/2 months, and the resealed rupture and full-term birth of her daughter Anastasia that followed.

Jan Law kept up daily practice through a 7,000-mile, twelve-state road trip, using rest stops and the passenger seat, and felt the tingling and floaty lightness for the first time.

Jane Piepmeier, a first grade teacher living with migraines, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, describes how a brochure at a York mind/body clinic led her to Hope Spangler's class and daily morning practice.

Sr. Marie-Ann Main passes along letters from her Pietermaritzburg group, which she drives more than 70 miles from Durban to teach monthly, reporting looser joints, relief from 21 years of back pain, and lifted depression.

Janet M. Oussaty recounts a year of TCC expansion at Kean University, from a student-run practice group and credit courses to a 100-person session at the AAHPERD national convention in Cincinnati and a campus cable television interview.

Linda Braga expected one or two students at her fall class in San Leandro on September 11, 2001, and twenty-five came; midway through they lit a candle and kept silence for the dead.

Saralyn Garcia, a skeptical student taking the class for PE credit, gave up trying to feel chi and then felt heat and tingling during Daughter in the Valley, prompting her to cut back punishing work hours.

Lois Arrigotti thanks her trainer for a powerful week and the image of ripples and splashes, then offers a fill-in-the-blanks press release headlined "Reduce Stress with T'ai Chi Chih" for other new teachers to adapt.

Sr. Marie-Ann Main passes along comments from her Wednesday women's group in Durban, who describe T'ai Chi Chih as prayerful movement that revives burnout, plus a chance meeting with another TCC nun on retreat.

Judith Rivera took a community center class with her husband in January 2000 and now uses the Six Healing Sounds with children who have ADHD, plus a daily meditation habit grown from two minutes to twenty.

Catherine Millman writes to Justin Stone that after eighteen months of T'ai Chi Chih, a mother of four who was bedridden some 100 days a year has been sick only three.

Kimberly Hurst signed up for T'ai Chi Chih as an easy winter-session gym credit, skeptical of chi, until the hand-squeezing exercise produced warmth and tingling and her high-strung habits began to settle.