The Vital Force Archive
Forty years of The Vital Force (1985-2025), the journal of the T’ai Chi Chih community. Search for a word, a teacher, a movement or a place, or browse by category and topic.
August 1988 (Conference Issue)
The August 1988 Conference issue centers on the Menlo Park gathering of nearly 60 teachers, with Corinn Codye reporting on unaccredited instructors and a proposed universal logo. Justin Stone tells teachers that a shadow chased all day is caught only by standing still at noon. Sharon Melvin, Renee Wilson and Carmen Brocklehurst outline teacher preparation courses, and Rosalind Cook shares a t’an t’ien handout.
Teacher news: Theda Gillespie and Hannah Hedrick teaching at a Mexican health resort, Carmen Brocklehurst leading INTA mornings weeks after abdominal surgery, Harriet Henderson drawing 200 daily at Asilomar, and Joseph Pagano demonstrating in a Carmel restaurant atrium.
Steve Ridley offers a single sentence maxim: regular and correct practice of T'ai Chi Chih will enlighten and liberate the sincere practitioner who keeps at it.
Donna Shaffer leads a TCC workshop at a Bear Valley music camp, while Liz Salada reports nearly 30 students, half of them men, practising outdoors beside Lake Elizabeth in Fremont, where the foothill horizon sharpens their Daughter on the Mountaintop.
In a letter to Jean Katus after a Naples workshop, David Belz reported a blood pressure reading of 110/78, down 20 points, and an electric surge of energy while practising Push Pull.
David Belz
Ft. Myers, Florida
Sandy thanks the 60 teachers who attended the conference and names committee members Lois Mahaney, Liz Salada, Cheryl Hamblin and Linda Braga, while announcing the August 1989 Albuquerque gathering.
Corinn Codye reports from the August gathering of nearly 60 teachers in Menlo Park, covering unaccredited instructors, a proposed universal logo and pamphlet, fluttering hands, teacher drop-outs and new regional meetings.
Course outlines from Sharon Melvin, Renee Wilson and Carmen Brocklehurst, shared at the conference, detailing prerequisites, mock demonstrations, apprentice teaching, costs and the preparation that readies candidates for accreditation.
Justin Stone notes that teachers say they read the Vital Force immediately, points out that printing and mailing cost money, and asks readers to send $10 for the next four issues.
Justin Stone agreed to schedule another Seijaku certification course if he receives 20 written letters of definite intent from teachers not yet Seijaku-accredited, with his Pacific Grove address given.
Two passages from the Tao Te Ching, on acting without interfering or clinging to achievements, and on the softest thing in the universe overcoming the hardest.
Rosalind Cook of Victoria BC, accredited in May 1988, distributed this class handout at the August teachers conference, guiding students to press a finger two inches below the navel and let that single point of awareness fill the abdomen and pelvis.
Justin Stone's remarks at the teacher conference: chase your shadow all day and never catch it, but stand still at noon and it merges with the body.