The Vital Force Archive

Carmen L. Brocklehurst takes up Ramana Maharshi's question "Who am I?", which Justin Stone often raised, and argues that only the silence of deep TCC practice, not rules about right and wrong, yields the answer.

Judy George recounts how softness in T'ai Chi Chih let her feel stored painful memories, and how Marie Dotts' conference talk on habit energies led her class to stand in new spots and enter in silence.

Brock Brocklehurst sets out in verse what Seijaku and Fast Track feel like from the inside, from different breathing and occasional frustration to getting lost in Pulling Taffy and laughing about it.

Linda Jones recounts how her motive for seeking accreditation shifted from keeping her own daily practice alive after a move to a TCC-free area, to wanting to teach for others' benefit.

Doug Harned, asked to contribute and finding nothing to say about T'ai Chi Chih, instead tells how a Facebook ode to a mango drew the reply "God is a mango," closing with a Paul Reps poem.

Newly accredited teacher Linda Jones describes a single sweat-soaked practice on a soft oriental rug where every foot placement felt right, the weight shifts stayed smooth, and her arms rose above her head without strain.

Sandy McAlister cites Justin Stone's insistence that no breathing technique belongs in T'ai Chi Chih, describes a class experiment in matching breath to movement that students found distracting, and notes her own exhalation as she sinks into stillness.

Linda Jones left a faucet running overnight while filling her patio fishpond, flooding the patio and killing the fish, and turned the loss into a lesson in impermanence, mindfulness and releasing guilt.

Daniel Pienciak traces grounding from his Polish surname, which names where trunk meets roots, to Justin Stone's instruction to keep awareness in the soles of the feet, taught through Joyous Breath from the first class.

Dixie Adeniran describes the five phases of student teaching under Lisa Otero, from awkward unprepared presentations to leading whole classes while Otero was away for a month.

Julie Heryet recounts how a stray thought about teaching in prison led her to cold-call Judy Tretheway, who happened to teach inside Folsom State Prison and had prayed for an assistant.

Richard Bethke, a college student closing out his course journal, admits he probably will not keep practicing T'ai Chi Chih, yet credits the class with opening him to unfamiliar things.

Jayne Kennelly recounts how her body collapsed under grief after her father's death in 2009, and how years of classes with Joe Apt and Monica Campbell brought softness, balance and freedom from pain.

Stacey Moore poses a string of questions about how we know what to do next and why some days fall apart, answering that consistent T'ai Chi Chih and Seijaku practice teaches her to breathe, trust and let go.

Hope Spangler's 15-week for-credit college course moves outdoors to a campus sculpture garden waterfall, where honeybees and a metallic green hummingbird come to drink as the class practices.

Dr. Pauline Quimson taught T'ai Chi Chih to government groups, NGOs and farming communities in the Philippines, including seventy girls healing from sexual exploitation who reported peace, deep sleep and the beginning of forgiveness.

Jackson Rains credits his 35-pound weight loss not to T'ai Chi Chih directly but to the walking, calorie tracking and body awareness he took up after a hospital stay left him too weak to teach eight classes.

Joyce K. Veerkamp recounts the April appointment that found a mass in her mid-section, the surgery to remove it while family and friends practiced TCC nearby, and her unexpectedly painless six-week recovery.

Jackson Rains points to the retiring Baby Boomers, once drawn to Transcendental Meditation and the Age of Aquarius, as a ready audience, citing his YMCA class growing from 20 students to over 30.

Host April Leffler gathers comments from candidates and auditing teachers at the May 2014 accreditation with trainer Daniel Pienciak, including two pyramid poems and Jack Weaver's account of struggling to absorb tweaks.

Denise Emanuel Clemen recounts the divorce that wrecked her life in 2007, her skeptical first T'ai Chi Chih class at an Oxnard gym, and practicing in her living room after her partner Dan died of lung cancer in hospice care there.

Sharon Sirkis ends her college T'ai Chi Chih course with a show and tell circle, where students bring laundry detergent, a construction level, Pringles and a near empty cigarette pack to explain what they gained.

Marcy Burns opens with Dorothy Day on loneliness and love, then describes her twice-weekly Oxnard practice group with Lisa Otero, its steady core members, its breakthroughs, and the wider Ventura County gatherings.

Justin Stone's booklet excerpt gives the keys to four movements, including cocked wrists in Daughter on the Mountain Top, when the weight settles back in Daughter in the Valley, the sideways step in Carry the Ball to the Side, and the 60/40 hand emphasis in Push Pull.

Justin Stone recounts four encounters: Suzuki Roshi offering a hot bath and the line "The moon gives light, too," a student's question about reincarnation answered with a tree, Lynette Wooliver and the Sachertorte, and Swami Ramdas in court.

Justin Stone reads his Zen teacher's statement on the vertical and horizontal, Saigo and Daigo, warning that an experience of oneness must be integrated back into ordinary life.

Jeneth Rundle, a new teacher and stem cell donor for her brother dying of multiple myeloma, recounts the disabled veteran and her caregiving sister who walked into class and healed her.

Marie Dotts traces how April Leffler's Prajna exercise at conference, a voluntary hospice layoff and unemployment insurance let her release habit energies and build her teaching practice.

Linda Braga recounts the 2011 virus that led to a suspected lung cancer diagnosis, and credits 25 years of TCC meditation for the serene mind she kept as scans, an oncologist and an unexplained shrinking mass followed.

Deb Bertelsen recounts how Marie Dotts' conference talk on habit energies and April Leffler's presentation on Prajna, followed by her father's sudden death, led her to leave a 17-year job.