Student Comments

I consider The Way of Joy Chi Kung central to my spiritual practice, and Vicki Dello Joio a brilliant master teacher, spiritual companion, and friend. She is the embodiment of the Tao in her teaching, and she radiates the very soul of what she teaches. Besides all that, she has a fantastic sense of humor!

The five years I have studied with her have brought me sustained inner growth, satisfaction, and increasing health of body, mind, and spirit. Vicki treats every student as the divine being she/he is, and her knowledge and wisdom are vast. She combines theory and practice in a completely unique way, making each class a gestalt experience.

Monza Naff, Ph.D. — Executive Director, Inner Growth Services, Oakland, CA; author of "Healing the Womanheart and Exultation: A Poem Cycle in Celebration of the Seasons"

Vicki provides a safe, nurturing environment where one can not only learn the intricacies and beauty of an ancient martial art but also develop aspects of the inner self. For me, the two hours a week in class are a haven from my daily life, a time for inner searching and growth, a place where I learn not only forms but also a different concept of life, and from those two hours I emerge feeling centered and re-energized.

Carol Maes — Property Management and Thrift Shop Manager

I have taken classes from Vicki for over 8 years, and have benefited greatly over those years. For me, I came to take classes because I was in severe back and sciatica pain, and wanted to do something where I could "move" even just a little. Vicki's classes not only helped me in being more aware so that I could manage the pain easier, but she also provided me with an "opening" to Taoist teaching, and to the most wonderful and informative qigong forms.

I continue to take classes with Vicki because she has the ability to teach beginning and advanced students alike, and I continue to grow through her teaching in a way that is like no other teacher. Vicki listens with great wisdom, she responds with helpful and insightful ideas, and patiently allows each student to learn in their own timing.

Karin Kelly-Givens — Team Manager, Chevron Corp.

Taking Chi Kung from Vicki Dello Joio is one of the most empowering experiences I have in my life. Vicki has decades of training from masters in various forms of martial arts and an exceptional understanding of the mechanics of movement. I am in awe of her knowledge and intuitive awareness of how "chi" (the flow of energy in the body) affects our lives and our health.

In addition, the "Way of Joy" principles Vicki has developed and incorporates into her classes contain a kind of wisdom that I believe is both unique and rare. I am constantly surprised by the combination of her gentle, unassuming presence, the brilliance of the principles she shares, and her adaptation of them in very practical ways to the needs of her various students. Vicki's classes are always inclusive, even for people with physical disabilities.

I have learned to alter my own chi (energy flow) with dramatic results in both my personal and professional life. The power of the process is exponential. I can now do a few moments of Chi Kung (either using physical movement or mental envisioning) and enhance my confidence, clarity, and compassion, even in the face of difficult situations. I have a deep respect for Vicki. Her skill in modeling and teaching Chi Kung is inspirational.

Sharon Ellison — Consultant and author of "Taking the War Out of Our Words, The Art of Powerful Non-Defensive Communication"

Studying Chi Kung with Vicki has been a wonderful, ongoing experience. The way that she teaches Chi Kung makes it become something deeply intertwined in all aspects of my life, much more than just a class that I attend once a week. She is deeply committed to helping students learn how to access their own joy to use as a fuel in their lives.

As a teacher she is incredibly compassionate, constantly reframing student struggles into a more balanced, healing outlook. She works to help her students release their own unique expression through Chi Kung. The forms that she teaches are extremely rich and are constantly revealing new depths of learning even after years of study. The way she works with them keeps them fresh and exciting. Hurray!

Laurelin Remington-Wolf — Chiron Corp.

As for why studying Way of Joy with Vicki is meaningful to me....I have to divide it into two or maybe three parts. First, the forms themselves are profound, beautiful and rich, and powerful. I don't think I am particularly talented at physical things: for instance, to learn dances, or even to learn a taichi form--these things are not easy for me and take time.

However, in comparison, to learn the seasonal forms (Blossom in the Spring, Lotus, etc.) has seemed fairly easy, and the flowing forms not difficult. I attribute this not only to the quality of Vicki's teaching but to quality of the forms. They seem so "natural." Energy really moves that way, and it is not so difficult to surrender and let it move me. I love the forms! I love them also because of the part of "natural" that means being part of nature, the seasons, and so very very compatible with being in a woman's body. Doing them I am celebrating the natural forces that are moving without and within me. Wonderful! And I can learn from them how these energies work through my body, my emotions, my spirit. They help me to be healthier--perhaps because of the spirit of balance and harmony they engender. I love them also because they draw me on to new richness all the time: spirals, levels, new challenges, new things to appreciate.

Yet, as lovely as the forms are, in great part, they are what they are for me because of Vicki. I guess she has put them together, practiced and taught them, and lived them long years. To be able to study with Vicki is such a blessing! She really knows how to teach--through many different ways of reaching people in all the ways they learn (images, explanations, repetition, touch, demonstration, etc.)

Vicki is sensitive to how much people can process and how vulnerable learning can be, and yet doesn't let that stop the quest for learning and growing and doing what we can. (I know I need to be gently pushed sometimes!) But even those things to me are not what is so special. I love Vicki because she is a real person, a real human person struggling and being vulnerable and doing qigong and living and sharing. She is an example and an inspiration.

The third thing may arise from the second. I love the community Vicki creates. I love love love being with the other women, even if I am not the most demonstrative person. I love doing (and learning) qigong in such a supportive environment, in a community.

There may be a fourth thing: that is, it is wonderful that Vicki is in the process of writing a book, and that she is sharing her insights with her students as she goes along. In that book she can gather the fruit of her teaching and practice and thinking (and writing it will also enhances her teaching).

The ideas she's shared so far have been very useful--not just the barriers and boundaries concept, which is BIG, but also the thought that we use everything (or everything is fuel; we are what we eat and we are what we choose and what happens to us and everything; everything is a thread in a tapestry we are weaving). I often ponder these things.

Michele Chase — Chi Nei Tsang practitioner

Vicki, I have yet to find the words to say what your presence in my life has meant/means to me. Trust, healing, faith and my body are all things I have approached timidly, almost grudgingly. You, with your integrity and generosity and wisdom and humor, have known how to guide me into a much more loving realm. Thank you thank you thank you!

Lisa Berndt

In 1999-2000, I was able to walk only three minutes without pain in my lower legs. I had been enrolled in a special class at Alta Bates Hospital because of clogged arteries to my legs. I had been discouraged by lack of progress.

I enrolled in the Way of Joy in the Spring of 2000 and for twelve months have practiced this form every week for two hours and fifteen minutes before going to bed every night. I continued to walk on the treadmill at the Vascular Lab at Alta Bates. The only consistent change I made to my routine was The Way of Joy Chi Kung. Now I can walk for twenty minutes without pain, without a cane, and with a sense of joyous fulfillment.

Rhoda Curtis — age 83, Consultant, English as a Second/Foreign Language, Teacher Training

The Way of Joy Chi Kung has been a important tool in my life for both personal and spiritual growth. Vicki has an ability to help each student assess her or his own needs and match those needs with an appropriate Chi Kung form. This has helped to empower me to make the changes I need in my life.

Laurie Herron — Elementary School Teacher

Vicki is light! She lights the way for you to discover your chi - or energy within that keeps you balanced - giving you more energy to just be in the world. I found my chi to be both a powerful and subtle ally in grounding me and opening new ways to use chi for myself and with others. Vicki patiently leads you to discover and use your chi. She does so with great respect and loving-kindness. She is truly a Teacher.

Deborah Weinstein

The Quan Yin of martial arts, the Way of Joy offers me both keen insight and deep comfort. This practice of mindful movement cultivates compassion, which like the sword of Quan Yin cuts through illusion, preparing the way for clarity of intention and action. Vicki Dello Joio's Way of Joy Chi Kung teaches me to open myself to my own deepest wisdom, the whisper of my blood, click of my bones, rush and trickle of my own life force, or chi. I have learned to discern where my chi is stalled, where she flows, and how to sustain and nourish her. I listen closely for the lessons this body, in this time, in this place on the planet, is offering.

The Way of Joy is a community of people who love, nurture and nudge each other. We are independent, strong women and men who neither follow nor lead but stubbornly make our own anarchistic way through this conventional world. We laugh together often and loudly. We witness each other's brilliance: midwives to the unfolding of our own lives and work.

Lucinda Ramberg — Intellectual and Activist at Large

I have been observing teaching for 35 years and Vicki's approach is the best I've seen in my experience. These are the characteristics I notice when she teaches:

• She pays attention to each individual student.
• She greets students individually.
• She requests students to report their emotional as well as physical state. In turn she reports on her state also.
• She designs the lesson according to the needs of her students.
• She mixes compassion and humor as she teaches.
• She is flexible and easily admits to mistakes.
• She knows the material she is presenting us.
• She continually affirms the students.
• She is concerned with the aesthetic environment of the class.
• She corrects student mistakes with great compassion and understanding, thus not making the student feel inadequate.
• She talks us through our movements with a kind of inspiring, poetic, yet concrete use of language that encourages students to move in ways that transcend their belief in their own abilities.
• She remembers the history of her students concerns and ailments.
• She tells interesting stories for illustrative purposes when necessary.
• She has a teaching plan, short and long term.
• She makes each of her students feel special.

Kostas Bagakis — Philosophy Dept. SFSU

A few years ago, the Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Healer I was consulting for health, asked me about the history of the asthma that I was spraying chronically, six times a day, to control. I explained that it set up for me when I turned 40 and was getting progressively worse. He then asked me if I had any grief or loss that I was dealing with, because he said in healing circles it was known that grief and loss center in the lungs. "I really don't know," I answered as truthfully as I could at the time, "I will think about that." I left his office, went into my car, and thought it was a good time to have a little meditation on my lungs.

When I looked internally, I was shocked and horrified to see the Grand Canyon of grief and loss relating to my Mother's death when I was 16. It was overwhelmingly frightening to see the hugeness of these emotions lodged there. The next week he recommended various treatments, psychological therapy and Chi Kung

I found a Chi Kung class at the Jewish Community Center but I couldn't connect with the Chinese teacher and it wasn't a very satisfying experience. I was internally praying to the Goddesses for a Chi Kung teacher. It was thrilling for me when I was sitting in the mineral baths in Calistoga, chatting with a wise, older, friendly, energetically intelligent woman named Grayce, whose ancient wisdom was intensely familiar to me, when she shared that her daughter was a Chi Kung teacher!

This fortuitous moment grabbed my immediate attention, as I reflected upon the power of synchronicity. I enrolled in Vicki Dello Joio's "Way of Joy" Chi Kung Class, 2 years ago March and experienced the most important work of my life. This deep therapy has put me in tune with myself...I never paid any attention to my organs, or the authentic expression of my soul before I really worked with Vicki and my beautiful classmates.

Vicki taught us steadily and deliberately, slowly and serenely bringing us into the ways of joy, of tapping our own powerful energies, of working with the chi (energy) inside us and following its movement, of feeling the inner core of our being, and learning not to hide that, but to express it like a flower expresses fragrance, and of connecting ourselves with the seasons and the universe and all the external forces.

Within 6 months I noticed that I was spraying for my asthma ONCE A MONTH at the most! I was amazed. There was a concrete and immediate relief as I began to learn the flowing forms and to heal myself. This is only one of the myriad benefits I have experienced. Vicki is not only a Teacher...she is a Master, and I feel privileged to be studying with her. Her mastery is that she lives Chi Kung, and she masters "the example" of it...of using it personally, and of "living" it.

On Sept. 11th, she had us use different forms to soothe our souls, to address our grief and express it, to center our souls and ground our chi. She listens to her students and works with what comes from them, so there is an energy exchange that is not only sensitive, but profoundly beautiful. That is the connective force where she is so powerful. I know that The Way of Joy, and Chi Kung with Vicki is my life's work and I am eternally grateful to have found her.

Carol Sachal — Owner, three bed & breakfast establishments in San Francisco, Ca.

I am not an overly trusting person, I do not seek external sources for personal empowerment, and I recommend the Way of Joy Qigong. I searched for years to find a teacher who embodies the wisdom, philosophy, skills and knowledge in the meditative/martial arts and luckily found my way to Vicki Dello Joio and the Way of Joy Qigong program.

If you are looking for a teacher who embodies wisdom, ethics, humility, compassion, service to others, a high degree of skill combined with a great sense of humor then you know how rare they are, how hard to find. Most can teach you the moves, the forms, (in the martial aspects - to kick and punch), but how few teach the philosophy and honor the spirit of the art. The skills taught are centuries old, the methods are compassionate and joyful, the time I have given to this practice has become sacred space and allowed me to thrive as a human being. Qigong has given me inner flexibility, the ability to embrace change, and an inner stillness that is my 'rock of ages'.

What's else is to be gained? Physical flexibility, gentle growth toward fitness, increased health, and an abiding peace with wisdom. Qigong, when taught by a true master, empowers you to create an internal foundation for reaching ever higher in all aspects of your life.

What's the down side? A couple hours a week devoted to yourself, perhaps a little discipline to get there on Sunday afternoon, but, the rewards are worth it. If you wish to do just one great thing for yourself, do qigong. Do it for a month, a year, for a lifetime.

Seneca St. Cloud