The Vital Force Archive

Dana Diller, a skeptic with a science background, took a community college T'ai Chi Chih class on her doctor's advice and watched her systolic blood pressure drop 15 to 18 points after practice.

Karan Lee compiled closing comments from participants in Pam Towne's November 2011 Seijaku accreditation weekend in Aston, on internal resistance, release, grounding and the unexpected lightness they carried home.

Aphorisms from Justin Stone on ambition and envy, the Chi that can neither begin nor end, the Life Force springing from bare rocks, and Chao Chou's traveler carrying nothing.

Stu Goldman describes how COPD was caught early by his cardiologist, the two stents that followed his Prescott retreat, and the calm that has let him give up carrying an inhaler.

Bill Moore describes how efforting to achieve Justin Stone's 'holding fast' can obscure Seijaku's underlying softness, and credits Pam Towne, Ann Rutherford and Dan Pienciak's 2011 Ohio conference presentation and accreditation course.

Larry Bloom describes his pre-dawn practice at the living room windows, watching his reflection multiply and lighten, a spider abandon its web, and the sun arrive as he assumes the Cosmic Consciousness pose.

Jon and Barbie Fortune describe six months of weekly practice in the Portland Rose Test Garden and how letting go carried over into clarity, planning and creative vision in their international correspondence chess games.

Dorene Krause's short poem on Seijaku moves from seeking stillness and encountering resistance to staying grounded, flowing from the center, and ending with the instruction to breathe and release.

April Leffler collects metaphors written by her Spring 2012 Widener University students, who compare T'ai Chi Chih to a heartbeat, storm clouds releasing rain, invisible air carrying chi, and an ocean wave lifting stress away.

S. Ross could not sleep or settle before a daughter's wedding in Ocean City, New Jersey, and found that a 20- to 30-minute practice carried her calmly through the weekend.

Dan Pienciak plays on Justin Stone's name in a word-collage of his teachings, from feet solid on the ground to the effort of no effort, followed by ten Pyramid Poems written to Justin by readers.

Pete Gregory hears Justin Stone's "practice, practice, practice" as both a teacher's instruction and a friend's plea, linking regular practice to circulating and grounding the Chi and to empirical knowing, or Chih.

Carol Spicer pictures each cell of the body gently holding hands as a vessel of Chi, describing how noticing tenseness begins transformation and the t'an t'ien replenishes energy without effort.

Judy Hendricks describes teaching T'ai Chi Chih to over 80 kindergarten through fifth graders in an after-care program, emphasizing grounding, Six Healing Sounds, Zen stories, and one reluctant girl's turnaround.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst thanks the TCC community for the messages of love sent to New Mexico after Justin's death, and quotes a summer student who feels close to him through his DVD.

Phyllis Pohle, laid off from corporate America in 2008 and now studying Healing Touch and life coaching, names her next point of focus after a group practice challenge: feeling the t'an t'ien as the center of every movement.

Stephen Ryter describes the 6:45 a.m. T'ai Chi Chih class he teaches to Blue Cross of Idaho employees, from a November sunrise over the foothills to the closing Cosmic Consciousness Pose.

Nancy Goff-Laipple credits regular practice with teacher Hope Spangler for steadier balance after breaking her right ankle twice, two avoided falls, energy in her palms, and a quieter mind.

Joan Hutchison, diagnosed with spinal stenosis in 2009 and unable to walk, describes how intense physical therapy helped her avoid surgery and how T'ai Chi Chih became the one exercise she can still do.

Students and teachers from Humboldt to Las Cruces send short messages after Justin Stone's death, recalling accreditation week meetings, dedicated morning practices, healing from scoliosis, and a line from Spiritual Odyssey about letting go.

Sherry Ventris signed up for her first class not knowing what she was getting into, and now starts each day with a practice she calls a quiet personal retreat and plans to keep for life.

Gail Terriff recounts her November 2010 trip to Albuquerque, meeting Justin Stone at an intensive, sitting in his home meditation space, and hearing him urge teachers to practice daily; followed by Pyramid Poems honoring him.

Kathleen Yochum and Steve Cox found traditional T'ai Chi too complicated to perform well, and describe how T'ai Chi Chih's simple repetitive movements brought centeredness without the tension of recalling what comes next.

Justin Stone pairs Professor Huang's account of Yin and Yang with the story of Lynette pushing away a Sacher torte in Laurel Canyon, then turns to yoga's circular time and the Yoga Sutras.

Joe Michaud's poem watches a woman practising in silence, her liquid smoothness and unspent strength drawing onlookers into the flow until the dance dances the woman.

Star Riparetti, accredited in 1990 but practicing only intermittently, signed up for the Santa Barbara teacher retreat three days before leading a group to Machu Picchu, and found her movements and her sense of community restored.

Joe Michaud's poem sets moment-to-moment dying and reviving beside Master Chang's butterfly dream and two fish chasing tails, followed by five Pyramid Poems written in thanks to Justin Stone.

Linda Watson recounts Justin Stone's visit to a November 2010 intensive in Albuquerque, where he arrived frail behind a walker, watched the students move, then trotted back through the classroom grinning like Coyote.

Sr. Antonia Cooper sets down the revelations Justin Stone entrusted to her and shared at the Portland conference, among them countless universes, time as illusion and gratitude, with Pyramid Poems appended.

Judy Tretheway's poem finds a hollowed, charred stump inviting Cosmic Consciousness Pose outdoors, followed by Pyramid Poems on silence from Jerry Granock, Sheryl Adair, Joyce Shar, Dora Derzon and Dianne Moody.