The Vital Force Archive

Carmen Brocklehurst links everyday acts of kindness, including a boy who unbuckled his seat belt to save a cat, to the wholeness felt when a group ends a movement together and Justin asked, "Did you feel that?"

Joanne Howell recaps the Second Saturday discussion of Sandy McAlister's four practice types - formal, working, play and tailored - with teachers' examples of connected forms, imagery and staying true to Justin Stone's original.

Rebecca Paulson opened her fall and winter classes in Colorado by comparing TCC to the life of trees: rooted grounding, a heart center, dropping leaves before snow, and winter dormancy as self-care.

Linda Jones teaches seated TCC to beginners and to chemotherapy patients who regained feeling in their fingertips, yet finds mental practice, with its complete weight shifts, the most powerful of all.

Sandy McAlister questions Justin Stone's phrase "graceful conclusion," recalls how he ended repetitions with a downward thud, and asks teachers who studied with him to respond in the next issue.

John Marquez builds a pyramid poem from the firm resting position outward to friendship, morning reading of centuries-past wisdom, self-responsibility, and students absorbing Justin's teachings until teacher and student merge.

Pam Towne offers a New Year self-check on how you move, using a mirror or cell phone video to test softness, continuity, weight shift, polarity of the palms and focus in the t'an t'ien.

Sue Bitney said yes to teaching outdoors at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in September 2020, and when fifty students asked to learn every movement, she began walking them through all nineteen in a single thirty-minute session.

April Leffler describes how allowing space under the armpits, rather than letting the upper arms hang, dropped her shoulders and freed the Chi, and how she taught it using the Goldilocks Method.

Daniel Pienciak describes experimenting with faster, smaller movements and fewer repetitions, citing Justin Stone's Photo Text encouragement to build a personal program and test different speeds.

Amy Tyksinski uses Around the Platter Variation to teach polarity between the palms, suggesting the base of the palms come slightly closer to activate the wrist meridians and awaken felt Chi.

Jan Walker asks the private TCC teacher Facebook group why polarity matters, and Chris McLain, Jessica Lewis, Hannah Hedrick and Barbara Kristoff answer with quiet minds, universal principles and Randolph Stone's polarity therapy.

Sak's paired poems, TCC Feet and TCC Hands, trace rocking from heel to toe, stepping side to side, palms gathering and letting go, and the healing sounds Ho, Hu, Szu, Hsu, Hsi, Chui.

Sharon Sirkis reprints four classroom jokes from December 2000, including a senior worried his big belly would stall the waist's engine and a hubcap that became the Seventh Healing Sound.

Linda Prosche travels to Hilo for two weeks with her former teacher Hannah Hedrick, whose question about "Freedom Quotient" leads her to examine the decades-old habits, likened to Pele's hair, standing between her and effortless practice.

Patty Stupca, inspired by Kay Rydeen's visual aid, walks readers through a word puzzle moving from DOG SHOWS to GOD SHOWS to GOOD SHOWS as four levels of TCC practice.

Lynne Roberts presented T'ai Chi Chih at an annual Parkinson's Summit conference, leading Kaiser Permanente providers, hospital staff, caregivers and Parkinson's teams in Push Pull, standing or seated.

Caroline Guilott recounts her 1999 Albuquerque accreditation, Justin Stone telling her "Higher dear, higher" and "There is nothing to do," and the roadside open house that began it all.

In this chapter from his reissued book, Justin Stone argues that Yoga and Buddhism are three-tiered paths, tracing sila, dhyana-samadhi and the prajna wisdom that enlightened the illiterate woodcutter Huineng.

Monica Motyka Ganzer noticed, while adding dated margin notes to her copy of Spiritual Odyssey, that her once-alarming handwriting had become fluid and even, evidence that peace was no longer something she controlled.

Justin Stone maps Patanjali's Raja Yoga into three parts and eight steps, argues that morality is only the stairway to the bridge, and explains how erasing habit energies leads to detachment.

Patty Stupca asks what comes after regular T'ai Chi Chih and Seijaku practice brings peace, and answers that the goal is nothing: return to the present and find gratitude.

Amy Tyksinski describes the "Flowing River Moments" she offers her high school class, then prints students' own written reflections on self-love, the effort of no effort, polarity and balance.

Linda Robinson recounts her 1999 accreditation in Albuquerque, the presentation to bereaved students that grew from her daughter's death, and the sitting period she adds after each class.

Dora Wiemann, accredited in 1989, recounts losing her fear of public speaking and teaching wrong, Justin calling out "You're doing arm exercises, dear," and his bookshelf question about awareness.

Patty Stupca reports the January Second Saturday discussion of seated practice, including Kay Rydeen's caution to rock from the sitz bones rather than the lower lumbar spine, and chair placement for unsteady students.