The Vital Force Archive

Becky Watkins traveled from Louisiana to the 2009 conference at Lied Lodge, spent two hours spotting twenty-seven bird species with an ornithologist at Arbor Day Farm, and found gratitude the theme of her week.

Diana Reding recounts the group practice at the 2009 conference and how Justin's DVD changed her feeling for Pulling Taffy, where she now senses resistance across the t'an t'ien.

Pauline Quimson-Tong answers questions raised at the 2009 conference, naming Rocking Motion for grounding, seated practice to feel the t'an t'ien, Justin Stone's music, and demonstrating a movement wrongly before showing it correctly.

Pete Gregory's two poems: a Beverly Hillbillies-style ballad tracing Justin Stone from struggling T'ai Chi Ch'uan classes to Albuquerque, and a verse about arriving at the Nebraska conference and hearing Justin's voice.

Nancy Werner-Azarski recounts the small but energetic 2009 conference, where Anita's description of T'ai Chi Chih as a personal journey within a community, and a panel on spirituality, reshaped her thinking.

Diana Bahn recounts two falls, one crossing West 57th Street and one on the tennis court that strained her hamstring, and how acupuncture, physical therapy and a rebuilt daily practice brought Seijaku back within seven weeks.

Ann Rutherford, prompted by the Nebraska teacher conference, locates the yang elements of T'ai Chi Chih in grounding the chi, the hands descending at each close, and the substantial hand in Pulling Taffy.

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.

Dan Pienciak describes using Justin Stone's essay "The Cumulative Effects of T'ai Chi Chih" from Spiritual Odyssey to motivate senior students, and inviting them to report changes like dropped blood pressure medication and a discarded oxygen tank.

Ann Rutherford draws on Justin Stone's writings from the Photo Text, Zen Meditation and Gateway To Eastern Philosophy and Religion to show how teachers can guide students past the "small mind" toward heightened awareness.

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.

Donna McElhose describes the 2009 International T'ai Chi Chih Conference in Nebraska, organized by teachers from many areas rather than one region, with a scholarship raffle and a barbeque songfest.

Tony Johansen recounts Sandy McAlister's five-day Santa Barbara intensive, relocated after the Tea Fire destroyed Mount Calvary Retreat Center, using a cooking metaphor for how she chopped and diced the movements.

Beth Cameron recounts Antonia Cooper's April 2009 retreat in Albuquerque, where 28 students and teachers moved softly as one unit, fine tuning each movement amid laughter and warm acceptance.

Judy Hendricks hosted Carmen Brocklehurst's daylong Seijaku workshop in Albuquerque and returned to the practice with two bags of clothes to give away, plus refreshed detail on Carry the Ball to the Side and Bird Flaps Its Wings.

Dan Pienciak's report on a four-day Ringwood workshop for students preparing for accreditation, where work centered on a loose waist, wrists following the waist, and weight shifts felt like sand or water filling each leg.

Sheila Leonard's account of hosting Dan Pienciak's April 2009 workshop in St. John's, where returning students earned referral signatures for July training and one rediscovered the value of stillness she had dismissed as long pauses on the DVD.

Susan Kissinger hosted Antonia Cooper's April 2009 retreat for nine teachers and fourteen students near St. Louis, where a quiet voice guided review of all nineteen movements, grounding, weight shifting and stillness.

Amy Tyksinski attended Carmen Brocklehurst's weekend retreat in Albuquerque feeling her practice had gone internally sloppy, and brings back Carmen's quoted instruction on connecting with the Chi, mistaken softness, and conscious attention.

Teachers including Terry Slaney, Hannah Hedrick and Chris Norkus name what they valued at the San Francisco conference: breakout sessions on specific movements, group chi, hallway talk, and outreach to inactive teachers.

Darlene Karasik recounts a 2008 conference session where Ursula Smith, with luminescent jellyfish pulsing on the screen behind her, asked 115 teachers what essence means and how to convey it.

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.

Lucy Hocking, certified in the 1980s, returned to the 2008 teacher conference after a long absence and recalled the 1985 Asilomar gathering, where a distant piper played Amazing Grace during beach practice.

Donna McElhose spells out her idea of F-U-N at the 2008 conference: Friends coming together from afar, Uniting movements with grace, and Not Trying, simply being in the movement.

Larry Sava collects techniques for helping students feel their movements: focusing on the soles of the feet, dividing each foot into four parts, using the eight coins approach, and returning to the principles of circularity, continuity and polarity.

Linda Braga of Castro Valley lists ten virtues of T'ai Chi Chih, from relaxing the mind and circulating the Chi to balancing yin and yang and bringing longevity and serenity through regular practice.

Lorraine Lepine describes the online Teacher Resource list updated at the 2008 conference and announces Hannah Hedrick's "Guidelines for Teaching Students with COPD," the first of several population-specific guidelines.

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.

Judy Hendricks on Carmen Brocklehurst's Seijaku workshop amid June cottonwood snow, Connie Hyde on Sister Antonia Cooper's Albuquerque retreat, and Lois Arrigotti on World T'ai Chi Day in Golden Gate Park.