The Vital Force Archive

Catherine Millman writes to Justin Stone that after eighteen months of T'ai Chi Chih, a mother of four who was bedridden some 100 days a year has been sick only three.

Cabaret singer Grace O'Connor recounts performing her show at the 2000 Teachers' Conference in New Jersey, and credits two years of T'ai Chi Chih for the stamina that let her record 14 songs in two days.

Noel Altman lays out a six-point plan for readying a teacher candidate, from two years of daily practice and one-on-one correction to repeating her classes, studying Justin Stone's books and tapes, and leading movements in front of others.

Craig Bowens, serving 25 years to life at Folsom, writes to Ed Altman about how three years of practice replaced the fear behind his violence and why he wants to teach other inmates.

Sharon Sirkis recounts declining to put a student forward for teacher training after poor habits from a badly done video persisted, drawing on her sixteen years teaching karate about corrections, ego and readiness.

Donna McElhose describes the eight-week beginner and intermediate T'ai Chi Chih courses she teaches for credit at the College of Lake County, including written tests, video taping, student projects and 100-day practice charts.

Bitsy LeBlanc thanks Ed Altman for his conduct of the June 2000 San Antonio teacher accreditation, describing what auditing taught her about humility, releasing ego, and using time attentively.

In a letter to the editor, Donnis Minx describes using Justin Stone's video on a big-screen TV at a Shepherd's Center presentation, where one man noticed the practitioners' complete lack of tension.

Donna McElhose audited the July 2000 Berkeley Teacher Training Course and found candidates arriving unprepared, still learning basics, and urges their teachers to audit the course themselves first.

Stephanie Bass compares her former high-salary job that subsidized her weekly class with her current self-employment, where teaching T'ai Chi Chih now supports the work, and concludes it makes no difference.

Anne Perkins hosts Ed Altman's day-long intensive at Mercy Center retreat house on October 7, 2000, with 53 participants, balloons, a potluck supper, and Virginia Shilson's grateful account.

Margery Erickson follows up on her efforts at a public school, describing how seven of her 15 special needs students learned all the movements and how one of them led the class.

Jean Markey hosted her first teacher training course in October 2000, auditing all week as eleven candidates were accredited, five of them her own students, with Ed correcting leaning and weight shift; April Leffler adds a short note on letting go.

Kimberly Hurst signed up for T'ai Chi Chih as an easy winter-session gym credit, skeptical of chi, until the hand-squeezing exercise produced warmth and tingling and her high-strung habits began to settle.

Rhonda St. Martin reports on the October teacher training at the Albuquerque TCC Center, where Ed Altman led seventeen candidates, Justin Stone visited daily, and three candidates received deferred accreditation.

Five light moments from Sharon Sirkis and Ed Altman, including a senior's "big belly" horsepower, a hubcap that interrupted the Six Healing Sounds outdoors at UMBC, and fireworks after teacher training.

Ann Rutherford recounts what Justin Stone and Ed Altman taught at the Conference: extraneous movement and leading with the shoulders cut off the vital force, and spiritual life must match daily conduct.

Five pyramid poems by John Payette, Carolyn Powell and Nancy Jo Bleier, on clouds, a spider's web, stars, passing boats and time, in the form Justin Stone originated.

Lyn Welch, whose first teacher training had been a disaster, describes gathering courage to attend her first teachers' conference, where the morning group practice became a revelation she likens to a bubbling spring.

Jan Arrott recounts Justin Stone's blunt verdict that rhythmical background music turns practice into dance, and describes how his own TCC recording kept conference practitioners awake to continuity.

Jan Arrott takes the conference word "swivel" and tests it in practice, using a corkscrew image to hold the T'an T'ien facing forward while the waist turns of itself.

Sr. Mary Reynolds, speaking for the Sisters' round table at Conference 2000, explains why so many Sisters teach TCC in retreat and spirituality centers as preparation for centering prayer.

Justin Stone draws on his book Metaphysics of Wall Street to argue that talk therapy cannot break addictive habits, while TCC practice changes the metabolism and the ground habits grow from, as one prison is discovering.

Bill Mishler recounts how Justin Stone and Ed Altman's talk on prajna opened into a felt experience during the Saturday photo session, when his eyes lifted from the assembled teachers to the convent cemetery's rows of white crosses.

Ed Altman compares glimpsing moonlight on a St. Louis lake from a descending plane to the moment a rough edge surfaces in practice, and argues that struggle, not complacency, carries students deeper.

Noel Altman recounts her conference roundtable on intermediate classes and describes her own Kaiser Permanente curriculum: movements sorted by weight shift, paired peer feedback with worksheets, and a closing Six Healing Sounds circle.

Marty Henry, a student preparing for teacher training with mentor Rich Race, describes the doubt that halted her self-imposed summer deadline and the patience, letting go and trust that followed.

Nancy Vermond reports Hannah Hedrick's conference roundtable on teaching T'ai Chi Chih in chest-high water of 90 to 100 degrees, using ankle or waist weights to stay grounded.