The Vital Force Archive

Steve Ridley recalls the East-West Journal advertisement that led him to T'ai Chi Chih in 1975, when he was a yogi teaching by day and playing jazz at night, and on to Jim Burns and Justin Stone.

A thirteen-segment television series filmed with Carmen Brocklehurst and Justin Stone premieres on Albuquerque's PBS station KNME in October, and teachers are urged to have students request it locally.

Carmen Brocklehurst counts more than 78 T'ai Chi Chih teachers in Albuquerque, where the practice began at the University of New Mexico and now reaches hospitals, corporations, senior centers, churches and trade fairs.

Suni McHenry chalked a Musashi quotation about emptiness and Being on the board at the Minneapolis Conference, and an unnamed reader added a two-line reply beneath it.

Diana Daffner's litany, offered at a 1992 conference, names what teachers actually do: reintroduce students to their own presence, hold open a space of Love, and soften into stillness within motion alongside them.

Jean Katus recounts how Justin Stone conceived Good Karma Publishing in 1988 to publish two new books, and how she learned printing, computers and asking for help while running it.

Drawn from Steve Ridley's foreword to Climb the Joyous Mountain, an appreciation of Justin Stone as a non-preaching teacher who lives his teaching, and of joy as our natural state.

Excerpts from Steve Ridley's foreword to T'ai Chi Chih! Joy Thru Movement, honoring Justin Stone as a teacher who embodies the practice and urges students to "Practice, practice, practice!"

Justin Stone, in four sentences reprinted from the Summer 1988 issue, calls life the uncovering of Joy and names manifesting who and what we really are as Love.

Justin Stone, in excerpts from earlier issues, insists teachers deserve good pay yet T'ai Chi Chih must never be run as a business, and urges sincere practice over quick surface results.

Justin Stone traces T'ai Chi Chih from two warm-up movements shown to him by Professor Huang through the 1975 Los Angeles radio interview that filled fifteen classes a week, the first Teachers' Training Courses, the founding of The Vital Force, naming Steve Ridley as head, and the development of Seijaku.

Justin Stone, quoted from T'ai Chi Chih! Joy Thru Movement, defines the Japanese word 'seijaku' as serenity in the midst of activity, achieved by holding an unchanging center during disturbance.

Carmen Brocklehurst recalls first meeting T'ai Chi Chih through her teacher Helen Brungardt Pope, the calm it brought her class, and the career change that made her a full-time teacher.

Constance Hyde of Cedar Crest writes briefly that teaching imparts T'ai Chi Chih from the source, letting the center emanate in a natural flow and freeing one into grace.

Justin Stone's 1984 letter to teachers, reprinted, welcoming the new journal, congratulating Corinn and Teen, warning against deviations in the Teaching, and describing chi as both prana and prajna.

Lois Mahaney traces The Vital Force from Corinn Codye and Christeen Benson's 1984 Summer Solstice first issue through Satori Resources and Good Karma Publishing to its 1991 subscriber-supported booklet format.