The Vital Force Archive

Vickie Brodie's pyramid poem catalogues what she notices during morning practice: shadows and light, cars whizzing by, a bird calling, feet on the ground and chi flowing freely as a new day begins.

Four single-panel and strip cartoons joke about Bird Flaps Its Wings, a pun on Justin Stone's name chiselled in stone, floating in very heavy air, and students told to empty their minds while remembering the next move.

Ed Altman's presentation at Shepherd's Centers of America headquarters in Kansas City led the cross-denominational aging-services network to plan T'ai Chi Chih at nearly 100 centers, starting with Justin Stone's videotape.

Susan Evans's class laughed when she called the Six Healing Sounds her favorite movement, having heard her say the same of nearly every move, and a former student confessed to doing likewise.

Linda Braga recounts a Sunday visit to Green Gulch Zen Center where several T'ai Chi Chih teachers took turns standing inside a five-foot bronze bell and chanted as it sounded.

A countdown of holiday practice opportunities, from shopping lines and traffic jams to the moments before the extended family arrives and the morning after the party.

Richard Detert describes the formless flood of energy he encountered after a 45 minute practice and relaxation in the week following his 1998 accreditation, and the feeling that returned to his chest after heart surgery.

Richard Brier, four years into teaching, advises students to find a teacher they respect and then practice daily through the resistant first month, until the movements themselves become the living teacher.

Ed Altman calmed a willful stallion named Michael on a summer trail ride by grounding chi through his feet, moving from the T'an T'ien and repeating the Violet Light technique from Seijaku.

Carrie Kinsey of Concord credits the experienced teachers near her with carrying her through her first year and a half of teaching, and suggests visiting one another's classes or writing to The Vital Force.

Sharon Sirkis, teaching seated TCC at an adult day care center, mistook a silent member for cognitively impaired, then stayed through lunch as he wept about his fear of a psychiatric institution.

Pyramid poems by Mark Moloney of St. Louis, plus short verses from Doug Harned on the four seasons and Karin Harned on living for this day rather than what is gone.

Three students write in: Anne Alley Smith on her teacher's assignment to be kind to herself, Donnamarie Biddle on staying well while nursing her flu-stricken family, and Frances Miller on easing fibromyalgia pain.

Eileen Evans of Oakland wrote this poem after her first T'ai Chi Chih lesson, tracing yin and yang around her circle, the bubbling spring beneath her feet and a gold thread lifting her thoughts.

News from two teachers: Florence Germain-Robin opened a Vitality Center in France with three classes and about twenty students, none of them men, and Gail Collins described assisting Sr. Phyllis Ann Reis at a Franciscan Spiritual Center in Minnesota.

Justin Stone explains "Chi Posteriori" accumulated through practice, the Turiya state he teaches only to a few privately, and the young ashram yogi whose nightly emissions ceased after a 1:00 a.m. practice.

Ralph Garn reports on the October 24 gathering Sr. Antonia Cooper hosted at Villa Maria, where teachers practised outdoors, ate a pot-luck and began planning the year 2000 conference.

Carmen Brocklehurst surveys T'ai Chi Chih's reach in 1998: teachers in 42 states and abroad, HMO prescriptions, corporate classes, nursing CEUs, Folsom Prison teacher training and the PBS series.

A Pyramid Poetry meditation on standing still like an elm, breathing through every pore, hearing dewdrops fall, and remaining unmoved as wind, tide and storm clouds rise.

Ed Altman describes how unwavering attention paired with absolute softness lets chi flow unhindered, using a large bird soaring on a breeze, listening but not flapping, as the model of attitude in practice.

Amy Hackenberg reports on Ed Altman's one-day intensive for forty-three teachers and students, with notes on low back heels, forward/back Rocking Motion and the weight shift in the Taffy variations, plus Mark Moloney's account.

Cass Redmon of Watsonville, California offers a three-line haiku in which a hummingbird alights on a feeder, its tiny feet grasping, and the resulting stillness blesses the watchers.

Participants including Dan Pienciak, Victoria Vercelletto and John Buffington thank Ed Altman for his teaching at a New Jersey Seijaku accreditation course and one-day Teacher Renewal, praising his precision about resistance, grounding chi and lingering in softness.

Six teachers write in: Gordon Wade on Canadian exchange rates, Meridith Wilson thanking the scholarship fund that sent her to conference, Theda Gillespie moving to New Zealand, and Sr. Antonia Cooper's New Jersey accreditation waiting list.

Five pyramid poems written at the October Seijaku accreditation course, by Ed Altman, John Buffington, Mary Griffin, Dan Pienciak and Maureen Skelly, on knowing who you are and letting go.

Doug Harned describes his October visit to James Hecker's classes at Folsom, where over 200 inmates practise weekly, followed by Justin Stone's note crediting Ed Altman for accrediting Hecker at his own expense.

Dale Buchanan hosted a six-candidate teacher training taught by Ed Altman, with Sharon Sirkis auditing, plus candidate accounts of practicing on the Great Falls Park overlook, grounding chi and Rocking Motion finally clicking.

Mark Moloney reports on three students in his St. Louis adult education classes whose knee swelling after surgery, Lupus pain and chronic arthritic neck and shoulder pain eased within weeks.

Fourteen teachers were accredited at the June 1998 Albuquerque training, whose daytime format felt like a retreat, with Ann Rutherford and Jeanne Marlowe describing a week that reshaped what they thought they knew.