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 2009
The August 2009 issue centers on awareness, with Justin Stone naming softness and continuity the essence of the practice and Sr. Antonia Cooper arguing that T’ai Chi Chih’s future cannot be planned or commercialized. Sandy McAlister makes the case for dropping teaching images once a student knows the shape, and Pam Towne walks through circularity movement by movement.
Justin Stone names softness and continuity the essence of T'ai Chi Chih, contrasting the oak and the bamboo, and traces how accumulated Chi reshapes posture, thinking, meridian flow and contentment.
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.
Larry Bloom, a former public company executive and student of one year, argues that TCC can counter corporate toxicity, listing benefits like clearer thinking and better communication while honoring Justin's warning against commercializing the practice.
Larry Bloom
Sandy Springs, Georgia
In a letter of thanks to her teacher Sr. Francis, Gaey Prior recalls nearly quitting after the first class's group hug because of childhood abuse, and describes waking three years later longing to practice outdoors.
Gaey Prior
Harare, Zimbabwe, So. Africa
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.