The Vital Force Archive

Laurie Jacobi, a wool textile artist sent to Kazakhstan as a US Embassy cultural envoy, taught T'ai Chi Chih each morning in a noisy Shymkent parking area and did Rocking Motion at the ruins of Otrar.

Nancy Werner-Azarski traces how being told the Pulling Taffy movements were difficult made them difficult, and how she caught herself repeating those words to her own students in Minnesota.

Dennis McCann, a hospital chaplain newly accredited by Pam Towne and Antonia, describes starting a class at Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, its Wellness Room setting, and the overlapping hour format for returning students.

Benita Goldstein asked her new class of retired teachers in Brooklyn Heights what they felt after practice, and heard that sciatica pain had vanished and a hard school day had lifted.

Linda Braga applies Dr William Glasser's retention percentages to TCC classes, arguing that partner practice, where students explore a movement together and then share questions with the group, produces active learners.

Sr. Antonia Cooper recounts giving the New Year homily at a small New Jersey Unitarian Universalist church, where all 60 members rose spontaneously to move with her, and urges teachers to offer free presentations.

Ev Hanson-Florin breaks the Anchor variation of Pulling Taffy into its four parts, then offers a teaching sequence: demonstrate, teach footwork and waist turns alone, then add the arms mirroring and back-to-class.

Chris Norkus draws on Norman Cousins, Bill Moyers and Jim Rohn's apple-a-day analogy to argue that TCC's cumulative circulation of energy builds health rather than repairing illness after the fact.

April Leffler had students in her first university T'ai Chi Chih course keep weekly journals, and quotes their entries on reduced stress, chi flow, easier asthma and sharing movements with family at Thanksgiving.

Johanna Runfalo answers a newcomer's question by walking through all nineteen movements and the Cosmic Consciousness Pose, noting the basics of upright spine, soft knees, concentration in the soles of the feet, and the t'an t'ien leading.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst counters frustration with Pulling Taffy by having students affirm their love for it, then teaches the small circular hip swivel that keeps the shoulders still and generates chi from the waist.

Donna McElhose teaches Pulling Taffy through the motions of making ice cream, scooping left at waist level, circling a topping on with the right hand, wiping the dish and serving it to a friend.

Amy Tyksinski gives a beginner's cue for Pulling Taffy: touch the leg that is about to move with the same-side hand, then keep that hand going, with the hands passing over the first leg.

Sue Bitney recounts an elderly Minneapolis student who arrived with a cane and oxygen tank on doctor's orders and, over three eight-week sessions, stood unaided for a full hour.

Caroline Guillot includes Justin Stone's T'ai Chi Chih: Joy Thru Movement in her class fee, assigning homework from it and quizzing students orally in the final session.

Carmen Brocklehurst plays the Justin Speaks on T'ai Chi Chih CD as beginners arrive, uses its confirming signs of flowing Chi to prompt discussion, and assigns teacher preparation students fifteen minutes of daily listening with a notebook.

Donna McElhose has her community college students hunt for articles on T'ai Chi Chih benefits at the start of the semester and again at its end, when their choices turn personal and emotional.

Sandy McAlister argues that teaching images like tracing a plate's edge or a bass drum should be dropped once a student knows the shape, since visualizations and energy-directing thoughts limit the Chi's natural flow.

Chris Norkus contrasts his 1920s-style board-breaking martial arts training, which left him with cracked skin and bruised joints, with circulating chi in T'ai Chi Chih, and offers Earl Nightingale's million-dollar body as a way to explain intrinsic energy to Western students.

Donna Aldous describes starting winter classes at the Mesa Spirit RV Resort, growing past 30 participants in two weeks, charging $2, opening seated with Justin Stone's CD and ordering DVDs.

Carol Nelson-Selby describes running a continuous drop-in class at a health club, arriving early to work with newcomers on weight shift, the t'an t'ien and physical limitations before the regulars arrive.

Nancy Lecraw describes five years of team teaching with Bobbie, from Tuesday morning planning sessions over tea to dividing new and review movements, working with seated students, and meeting program directors together.

Roberta Taggart breaks down the side-to-side weight shift in Carry the Ball to the Side, showing how leg patterning, waist turning and hip swivel connect, and how tension blocks them.

Lisa Otero's step-by-step approach to teaching the hip turn in Carry the Ball to the Side, from distinguishing hip from shoulder turns to the "six-shooter" trick and the elliptical swivel.

Stephen Thompson describes how beginners whose first awkward attempts reveal a mind-body disconnect can honor that feeling, letting the yearning for groundedness guide them toward perceiving their own chi.

Sr. Antonia Cooper describes a three-day retreat near south Philadelphia where the 19 movements were taught in three groupings by direction, up-down, side-to-side and forward-backward, rather than in order.

Vicki Schroeder describes playing Justin Stone's instructional DVD as students arrive, reading from the photo text and The Vital Force in every class, and listing his books in her syllabus.

Elissa Maguire reports on David Schulberg's conference discussion of teaching styles, where instructors agreed teachers must shift a classroom's ambience toward empty mind through silence, softness, flowing music and body-mind scans.

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.

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.