The Vital Force Archive

Sr. Antonia Cooper traces Justin Stone's fondness for Paul Reps' line "How grateful I am with no thing to be grateful for" through Spiritual Odyssey, and links gratitude to the coming Lied Lodge conference.

Cleo Roemele recounts how teacher accreditation ended her sense of pretending, and how a friend's counsel convinced her to attend the Nebraska conference despite having few students to teach this year.

Dan Pienciak recounts Pam Towne's four-day April intensive in Ringwood, likening the participants' growing softness to a perennial that blooms only once rooted, plus another attendee's discovery that trust underlies effortless movement.

Sandy McAlister describes T'ai Chi Chih as a mantra of the body, wordless repetition with attention held low at the t'an t'ien or the soles of the feet, opening into peace and gratitude noticed only afterward.

Furman Riley, a new teacher, recounts the second annual T'ai Chi Chih teacher symposium, where Sandy McAlister led movement refinement and teachers traded aids, problem solving and community wisdom.

Barbara Clark recounts her second annual teachers' weekend at Lonnie's by the ocean, where the yinning and yanging sea, group softness and insights from Antonia and Dan enhanced her practice.

Pam Towne explains why Justin Stone always refused re-certification for T'ai Chi Chih teachers, trusting teachers' teh, and lists conferences, audits, intensives and symposiums that keep skills fresh.

Dennis McCann, a hospital chaplain newly accredited by Pam Towne and Antonia, describes starting a class at Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, its Wellness Room setting, and the overlapping hour format for returning students.

Diana Bahn's account of the second T'ai Chi Chih Teacher Symposium, led by Sandy McAlister and organized by Alba Cordasco, where 22 teachers swapped handouts, teaching tips and critique over 2 1/2 days.

Jerry Johnson recalls waking at 4am in a luxury oceanfront suite at the Westin Maui, miserable and talking to the lobby parrots, and traces how humility and T'ai Chi Chih taught him real gratitude.

Linda Watson hid her hand under her leg at Pam Towne's teacher meeting during a Santa Barbara retreat, having sworn never to teach again after retiring drained, until someone said "Never say never."

Susan Kissinger's account of Sandy McAlister's April 2010 intensive in St Louis, where 13 students and eight teachers from seven states gathered, and of her own softening since her first class in 1996.

Marcella Box recounts the three-hour retreat Roberta Taggart led on the last Sunday in May for 30 Portland-area beginners, longtime students and teachers, reviewing the movements and flowing from the center.

May Young Chin took up T'ai Chi Chih in early retirement for balance and coordination, and draws on her Chinese roots and Feng Shui's wind and water to explain why she keeps attending group classes.

Neal Roy joins Steve Marsh, Jim Shorr and thirteen others in Portland's Chinese Garden, where watching hips rise and fall during Pulling Taffy Perpetual Motion sharpens his own movement.

Karin Yacullo recounts signing up for T'ai Chi Chih because it was something new, then repeating the beginner class as she came to see it as a moving meditation worth working at.

Jim Shorr details the Pulling Taffy refinements he picked up at Carmen Brocklehurst's Albuquerque spring retreat, then describes the Portland outdoor practice circles where one new refinement opens each session.

Nelson Weaver, a retired Air Force and corporate Type A personality, describes taking stock at 62, signing up for Donna McElhose's beginning class, and celebrating a 149 Day Gong.

Star Studonivic, recovering from cancer surgeries, chemo and Bell's Palsy, found the chi she thought dormant reawakening at the Portland retreat, prompted by a snow leopard message left on her seat.

Nancy Lawrence took up T'ai Chi Chih a year earlier after personal tragedies and because it cost so little, and describes chi feeling as large as a basketball during Daughter on the Mountain Top.

Diana Daffner recalls her husband Richard using Pulling Taffy's Perpetual Motion to stay warm during their subzero 1991 Bemidji teacher training, and their fifteen years of sunset beach practice in Florida.

Richard Dye, a self-described rationalist who lives in his head, describes blundering into T'ai Chi Chih after a T'ai Chi Ch'uan class time didn't fit, and finding relief in Justin Stone's statement that no beliefs are needed.

Justin Stone questions how the words of Zen Masters acquire their authority, doubting that famous sayings can supply a way of living, and closes with another handful of 20th Century Psalms.

Holly Sanders offers a short New Year meditation drawn from Pulling Taffy Variation #3, Perpetual Motion, equating letting go with surrender, forgiveness, acceptance and love, and asking for Grace.

Terry Slaney recounts Justin Stone's reassurance that she was doing fine, then traces the flow through Basic Pulling Taffy, the Anchor, Wrist Circles and Perpetual Motion.

Laurie Jacobi, a wool textile artist sent to Kazakhstan as a US Embassy cultural envoy, taught T'ai Chi Chih each morning in a noisy Shymkent parking area and did Rocking Motion at the ruins of Otrar.

Anita Vestal offers the prayer of gratitude she repeats for the oil-threatened Gulf of Mexico, and describes counting her nine repetitions by shifting her glance from one tall tree to the next.

Alice Holden traces T'ai Chi Chih in San Antonio from a single teacher in 1992 through two teacher trainings, a weekly library group, the 2002 conference, and classes reaching teenagers, translators and Guatemala.

Deb Bertelsen describes Pulling Taffy: Perpetual Motion as ocean waves and willow branches, a rhythm that grounds her, releases judgment and perfection, and renews her gratitude each day.

Susan Quinn describes returning from a Zen sesshin where she used the 3:00pm body practice period to move through T'ai Chi Chih outdoors among ancient oaks, balancing sitting stillness with gentle doing.