The Vital Force Archive
Forty years of The Vital Force (1985-2025), 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.
February 2010
The February 2010 issue prints excerpts from Justin Stone’s 20th Century Psalms and his piece on Cosmic Rhythm, with Judy Hendricks recounting his gratitude during a hospital and rehab stay. Ev Hanson-Florin and Amy Tyksinski break down the Anchor variation of Pulling Taffy, Pam Towne describes preparing a New Zealand candidate by Skype, and Steph Winter shares her daily practice blog.
Dorene Krause writes from her sitting rock along a windy mountain road, breathing in sunlight, rain and falling leaves while sensing newly accredited teachers' self-doubt blow away into clarity and stillness.
Dorene Krause
Midland Park, NJ
Lisa Otero describes how returning to her own teacher's classes and retreats, and rewatching Justin Stone's DVD and textbook each year, keeps her from doing empty movements by rote.
Lisa Otero
Oxnard, CA
Guy Kent recounts International T'ai Chi Chih Day in Albuquerque, where 15 new teachers were accredited, practice filled the New Mexico TCC Center, and a potluck honored Justin Stone's 93rd birthday.
Guy Kent
Albuquerque, NM
Lauren Elaine Marble recounts declining immediate surgery for thyroid cancer in 2008, leaning on daily practice, Tuesday group practice with Justin Stone in Albuquerque, and a retreat with Antonia where the Six Healing Sounds convinced her she would heal.
Lauren Elaine Marble
Los Ranchos, NM
Justin Stone traces the term Cosmic Rhythm to a meeting at Albuquerque's PBS station, then to plum blossoms in February snow, Indian kalpas, and the circularity felt through regular practice.
Justin Stone [Transcribed from the 1995 T’ai Chi Chih Teacher Conference in Denver
CO]
Two poems by Judy Tretheway written out of her teaching at Folsom Prison: one on travelling partners whose ripples do the travelling, the other on unlocking a door with movement.
Judy Tretheway
Sacramento, CA
A 79-year-old student of Jane Weiner danced four sets without tiring after one pool lesson, and a Tulsa student recounts the mother-and-daughters story she invented to remember the movement order.
Sr. Antonia Cooper recounts giving the New Year homily at a small New Jersey Unitarian Universalist church, where all 60 members rose spontaneously to move with her, and urges teachers to offer free presentations.
Sr. Antonia Cooper
OSF, North Plainfield, NJ
April Leffler had students in her first university T'ai Chi Chih course keep weekly journals, and quotes their entries on reduced stress, chi flow, easier asthma and sharing movements with family at Thanksgiving.
April Leffler
Prospect Park, PA