The Vital Force Archive

Maryjean Owens took a summer break from group class and practiced alone at dusk in a secluded park with her Maltese, Babette, opera in her ear buds, before returning to the group and starting Seijaku.

Carol Spicer practised by candlelight during a Northeast storm and power outage, picturing the flame's steady center as love, followed by Debbie Cole's pyramid poems written after the conference.

Valerie Jennings began T'ai Chi Chih after a hysterectomy for cancer, practiced sitting and later in her hospital bed through congestive heart failure and a pacemaker, and sewed scarves showing the movements.

Bobbie and Andy Anderson assign pyramid poetry and a blank practice calendar marked with smiley faces to keep students practising during their breaks away from class.

Carolyn O'Donnell, told years earlier she would lose all her teeth to gum disease, reports x-rays showing a marked increase in jawbone density that amazed her periodontist and hygienist.

Stephen Thompson, who fell ill during the 2012 teacher conference, found some of the presentations he missed archived online, among them Sara Nelson's talk on approaching health professionals and students with physical problems.

Michele Dapelo's short poem sets seeking against finding, right against left, and learning against unlearning, arriving at the true no effort as simply being.

Donna McElhose, left waiting three hours in a hospital cubicle for a delayed procedure, wrapped her IV lines around her wrists and practiced TCC in her gown while nurses looked on; Pyramid Poems on silence follow.

Rickie Wilson credits twelve years of T'ai Chi Chih with friendships, a 30-point drop in blood pressure, and mental practice that carried her through acute pancreatitis surgery and a failed dental anesthetic.

An excerpt from Justin Stone's Meditation for Healing gives the four bedtime affirmations of the Nei Kung and the healing heat that follows, followed by pyramid poems from fourteen practitioners.

Sheila Leonard collects brief student comments: Harriet practising mentally through transatlantic turbulence, Trish sleeping better by week three, Sue's seasonal low lifting in the fog, and Mary's joints and balance.

Pyramid poems on silence and on Justin Stone from Jeneth Rundle, Joyce Veerkamp and others, plus Sharon Sirkis on a student hearing "sushi" in the Six Healing Sounds and Terry Slaney on volunteering at a cancer resource center.

Stu Goldman puts out a call for T'ai Chi Chih instructors to relocate to Southeastern Florida's Gold Coast, where one teacher serves a 300-mile span of five and a half million people.

Henry Smith was referred to a hospital T'ai Chi Chih class for work-related anxiety after two emergency room visits, and now pairs weekly floatation tank sessions with near-daily Seijaku; Pyramid Poems follow.

Judy Hendricks recalls Justin Stone through his books and paintings, from his answer to a schoolboy's question about Daughter on the Mountaintop to his advice to meditate every day.

Aphorisms from Justin Stone on giving instead of worrying, the Life Force bursting from bare rock, Hakuin's enlightenment, the lavender skies of Kyoto, and why each death is also a birth.

Justin Stone retells two Zen stories about death and Chao Chou's instruction to throw out emptiness, then turns to yoga as a science, the Gayatri Mantra and remaking oneself by changing tendencies.

Amy Tyksinski describes teaching T'ai Chi Chih as a high school PE option in Albuquerque, quoting students who moved from calling it ridiculous to writing a Plato paper in an hour.

Hannah Hedrick asks fellow teachers for written guidance on three refinements raised at the 2012 Portland conference: trembling hands, sinking into pause position, and natural pelvic movement when yinning and yanging.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst recalls the awkwardness of first learning T'ai Chi Chih, when the back heel rose too high and effort replaced flow, and names sincerity and infinite love as the way through.

Linda Braga recaps the roundtable discussions at the 2011 T'ai Chi Chih conference, listing eight teaching strategies from educational research and the classroom problems teachers brought to the table.

Dorene Krause's poem traces a life spun too fast until her body demanded she slow down and breathe, letting her hear the quiet inner song she had written herself.

Maureen Purves recalls teaching a weekend T'ai Chi Chih course in an Edmonton river valley recreation center, where a Chinese family on snowshoes stopped outside the glass walls to watch.

Writing after Hurricane Sandy and the Newtown shootings, Sr Antonia Cooper traces how faithful practice heals habit energies and brings the inner peace Justin Stone promised, with five Pyramid Poems appended.

Matthew van der Giessen recounts Justin Stone telling him at an Albuquerque Intensive, "that's not T'ai Chi Chih," then minutes later, "you just have to learn to relax."

Sandy McAlister describes the phrases she is trying in a new eight-week series, asking students to feel the weight settle evenly into both feet and to flow back to rest between sets.

Gail Terriff describes teaching T'ai Chi Chih at four Edmonton sites serving people with mental health issues, from psychiatric hospital groups to a YMCA program whose participant evaluations she reports.

Dan Pienciak recounts cancelling a seaside Intensive as Hurricane Sandy approached, losing power through two storms, and how three days without practice left him angry until he returned to TCC.

Jackson Rains, teaching both beginner and long-established classes, contrasts the physical gains of new students with the deeper meditation and social connection older groups find, including one student's one-year anniversary declaration.