The Vital Force Archive

Donna McElhose asked her current students to write welcome letters to future beginners, and they describe bad knees and a seated class, being the only male in the room, and the daily practice that finally made the movements make sense.

Marcella Levie connects Marie Dotts's Zoom guidance about letting TCC do her with the Hebrew Letter Movements she teaches, tracing her path from a Siesta Key beach in 1991 toward accreditation.

After an exhausting three-hour Seijaku teaching practice, John Marquez walks to a nearby park, lies barefoot under a tree, and finds Justin Stone's phrase about serenity amid activity coming true.

John Marquez recalls his father telling him, as the first-born of his generation, to set an example, and describes how nearly three years of T'ai Chi Chih practice answered the skeptics around him.

Larry Tolbert moves through a Monday morning practice in a public grove, crows and playing children all around, and takes Justin Stone's line about the form coming not from but through him into his own poetry writing.

Allan B. describes how, after four months of daily T'ai Chi Chih, his post-practice sitting became a discipline he calls One. Perfect. Moment.; John Marquez adds how effortless movement brought joy.

John Marquez describes how a Seijaku class on Zoom with Dan Pienciak, and the oft-heard instruction to feel your feet on the floor, finally brought the timing of the weight shift into focus.

After ten years of T'ai Chi Chih, Mary H. Schultz took up Seijaku with Jungmin Lee and found that grounding her feet released the back tension and let the t'an t'ien lead.

Seven letters of thanks addressed to Justin Stone by new students, reporting reduced stress, restful sleep despite sleep apnea, stronger ankles, painless stair climbing, and relief from allergy-related asthma.

Oreann Kempadoo recounts becoming accredited in 2015 and struggling to introduce TCC in Rockland County until an adult learning center called, followed by testimonials from students including a woman recovering from a head injury and C-spine surgeries.

Robert Delano, diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson's Disease, tracked down his late mother's teacher Sheryl Adair and found that daily practice left him yinning and yanging while vacuuming.

Merle Freidin Smith began T'ai Chi Chih after a 1998 rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis, and practiced it mentally through 18 days in hospital after cervical fusion surgery, keeping her attention in the soles of her feet.

Two Widener University students describe what they found on taichichih.org beyond the classroom: photos of practice in public places worldwide, advice to keep practising on vacation, Justin Stone's quotations, and the health benefits reported by students, followed by student pyramid poems on silence.

Adabelle Rychtarik collected testimonials from her Greenville-area students at libraries, senior centers and a French creperie, who report better balance after hip replacement, tremor relief, improved sleep and giving up a cane.

Journal entries from April Leffler's PhysEd class at Widener University, where students describe feeling the t'an t'ien, easing seven years of anxiety and depression, and closing with Paige M.'s poem.

Kent Jarratt used the Six Healing Sounds while waiting in a car during a police sting to recover his stolen laptop, then visualized the whole practice after heart ablation surgery.

Adabelle Rychtarik's students in Simpsonville report what two years of practice changed: Sandra Johnson stands comfortably through church songs using the TCC stance, and Kathy Neely regained balance and arm mobility despite Parkinson's.

Weekly journal entries from April Leffler's college students Nav, Rebecca and Samantha, who describe getting out of their heads, grounding during finals stress, and feeling energy intensely in their hands.

Adabelle Rychtarik collected testimonials from her South Carolina students, who credit TCC with better balance, easier rising from low chairs, and calm during long hospital vigils with a loved one.

Mary Donaldson-Evans recounts how she and her husband, after Movin' to Motown and Chair Yoga failed to stick, were hooked by April Leffler's class, where movement names conjure New Jersey beach vacations.

Christine Weber, 66, found that completing the weight shift in Around the Platter surfaced the fear from a childhood fall down an earthen dam, and her teacher Lisa Otero told her to keep going.

Dotty draws on Justin Stone's own words to trace how chi circulates, balances and accumulates in the t'an t'ien, noting the principles of softness, continuity, grounding and moving from the center.

David Fryd came to T'ai Chi Chih at the Shoreview YMCA for his balance, stumbled through his first classes under Judy George, and kept returning until she began telling new students to follow him.

Art Loche returns to T'ai Chi Chih as a moving meditation, describing how the circularity of Pulling in the Energy, attention in the t'an t'ien and imagined ocean motion inspired his published sketch.

Matthew Shin came to T'ai Chi Chih as a skeptic seeking relief from back pain, and describes how daily practice untangled his overcommitment, improved his sleep and ended his coffee habit.

Stella and Imran, who met traveling in Thailand, stayed a month with Anita Vestal in mountainous Costa Rica before their wedding and learned T'ai Chi Chih in daily morning sessions with her.

Annette McNeil recounts a multi-day TCC Intensive where gentle corrections fixed her habit of leaning back and failing to fold the back leg, and where the bubbling spring and t'an t'ien were renewed for her.

David Parrish describes the final day of an Intensive with Sandy McAlister, where he noticed the difference between trying to do T'ai Chi Chih right and letting it happen; a set of Pyramid Poems follows.

Donna McElhose describes restructuring her intermediate college class with five minutes of silent sitting, a wordless 45-minute practice and a closing meditation, followed by nine students' written accounts.

Jan Kirch, a twelve-year student of Donna McElhose, practiced alone at the hour her class met and felt unusual energy in her arms and fingers, later learning the class had been told to focus on the upper body.