The Vital Force Archive
Eighteen years of The Vital Force (2007-2025), 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 2012
The August 2012 issue carries the community’s remembrances following Justin Stone’s death, among them Carmen Brocklehurst’s thanks for the messages sent to New Mexico, Sr. Antonia Cooper’s account of the revelations he entrusted to her, and Linda Watson’s story of his visit to an Albuquerque intensive. Reports from Seijaku trainings by Ann Rutherford and Karan Lee follow.
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.
Kathleen Yochum and Steve Cox
Eagle, Idaho
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.
Justin Stone
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.
Joe Michaud
Iowa City, Iowa
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.
Star Riparetti
Santa Barbara, California
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.
Joe Michaud
Iowa City, Iowa
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.
Linda Watson
Westminster, California