The Vital Force Archive

Susan Evans's class laughed when she called the Six Healing Sounds her favorite movement, having heard her say the same of nearly every move, and a former student confessed to doing likewise.

A two-panel cartoon by Vic Viereck of Cedar Grove, New Jersey, pairs the claim that Seijaku is like being struck by lightning with the reply that it's good to be grounded.

A countdown of ten inducements to the 1998 Teachers' Conference, from green chile and the Talent Show to moonrise over the Sandias, Justin's new Spiritual Odyssey book, and learning the Jing.

Paula Favorito passes along a Suburban Town News notice for a T'ai Chi Chih course at Holy Name Hospital, where a typo promises twenty simple non-marital movements.

Jean Katus of Ft. Yates sent in a local program guide photo of Madagascar's sifaka lemur, whose two-legged locomotion and playful habits look remarkably like a TCC movement.

Judy Jones recounts a lunchtime practice on the grass at Evergreen Hospital's courtyard where a large black dog galloped through the group into the pond during Joyous Breath.

Richard J. Briar's story from Sacred Stories For Remembrance portrays Bo Yin Ra, the tiny San Francisco fortune cookie seller whose cryptic answers, odd quotations and favorite fortune, "This is it," dissolved every question into laughter.

Kathy Grassel takes apart "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" line by line, finding in it an argument for gentleness, going with the current rather than against it, and four repetitions of merrily.

Vicki Brodie casts T'ai Chi Chih as computer specifications, listing Regular Daily Practice as the operating system, a slowed baud rate, Chi downloaded during the Resting Pose and memory extended by storage in the T'an T'ien.

Hope Ridley recounts two class moments that made her smile: students veering left in unison when reminded about equal weight in Cosmic Consciousness Pose, and the whole class turning sideways when she did.

Linda Braga sat for early-morning breath counting on her parents' Iowa porch after the Chicago conference, until a nip on her bare toes turned out to be a chipmunk.

Richard Brier continues his comic allegory of Chi Lanka, meeting Rip Van Stone in the Taffy Forest, relieving Masters Yink and Yank at the pulley, and posing atop Mt. Chi.

Jean Katus passes along her sister's goofy puns drawn in a Wisconsin kitchen, including "T'ai Chili," "T'ai Kiwi" and a "T'ai Chickin" flapping her wings around the platter.

Janet Yannacone attended a second conference Tea Ceremony expecting last year's reverent quiet, and instead found a room of stifled laughter that taught her holding back joy hurts as much as holding back tears.

Steve Ridley recounts a brief exchange from one of his public classes, in which his detailed instruction for overlapping forearms in Pulling Taffy drew the protest that students have only two arms.

Three short items: Lucy Hocking's doctor unwittingly prescribes heel-ball-toe rocking for her sprained ankle, Roxann Post's mother mishears T'ai Chi on the phone, and a ten-year-old student adds the "A's".

Jeanne Jacobs of Arlington, Washington plays on the syllable "sum," from dim sum as barely perceived chi to summit as transcendent chi, with intermittent practice as "some-times."

A roundup of the talent show at the Minnesota conference, where Vicki Brodie, Barbara Lefforge and friends sang TCC parodies, Jim Celmayster offered "If I Were a T'ai Chi Man," and Linda McKenzie led the closing chant.

Diana Celmayster passes along the lyrics her husband Jim wrote minutes before a conference evening of self entertainment, a T'ai Chi Chih parody of "If I Were a Rich Man" naming Around the Platter, the pulley and Seijaku.

A one-line exchange collected at conference, in which a question about whether Seijaku's resistance is mostly mind or body gets the deadpan answer 60-40 going left, 40-60 going right.

Justin Stone's three tongue-in-cheek laws of daily life: airport departures always from the most distant gate, parking spaces always across the street, and illness or car trouble striking on three-day holidays.

Barbara Boom retells a fable in which an old cat tells a kitten chasing its tail that happiness runs away when pursued and follows when ignored, closing with a line about approval seeking.

Art Herman spins a fairy tale in which T'ai Chi Chih Land wakes to a rocking motion at daybreak, children run to the circus and the taffy machine, and everyone sleeps happily in cosmic consciousness pose.

A Princeton Packet description of T'ai Chi claiming it "improves book circulation" was caught as a newsbreak by The New Yorker, with a note of attention to librarians.

Saskia Davis lists inner peace as a contagious condition, with symptoms including loss of interest in judging others, frequent attacks of smiling, and an incurable inability to worry.

Richard travels the land of Chi Lanka, passing gates named Rocking Motion, Bird Flaps Its Wings and Bass Drum, and ordering a Stoneburger Supreme from a waiter named Just-In.