The Vital Force Archive

Judy Tretheway reports that her Thursday class at Old Folsom resumed after a three-month suspension, with an invitation to teach at New Folsom and six new practice groups starting on six yards at Avenal State Prison.

Amelia Kaminski credits a retreat in Edmonton led by Carmen, who quoted Justin Stone and explained the movements in ways that finally made sense after years of frustration.

Barbara Riley describes 13 years of teaching at Rossmoor, an over-55 community in Walnut Creek, where longtime students stay fit and each class closes with a five-minute seated meditation.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst describes the visit of Sri Dadubhai, an Indian holy man whose ashram funds eye operations and schooling, to an evening of meditation and reading with Justin Stone.

Nellie B. Stahl, a student of Barbara Riley, describes how moving from weekly class to the full daily practice on February 1, plus short walks, let her doctor reduce her blood pressure medication.

Anne Doering rewrites the 23rd Psalm as her own story, thanking the Albuquerque teachers and students who share chi with her in Spruce Park each Tuesday despite her failing memory and brain surgery.

Caroline Guilott reports from the Houston intensive at the Dominican Sisters, where Sandy McAlister taught thirteen students and teachers about releasing the knees and wrists, and some learned their signature could wait.

A collection of classroom laughs gathered from Sharon Sirkus, Nancy Lecraw and Bobbie Weichman, Kathy Grassel and Rodney Anderson, including a whole class bowing by mistake and juvenile detention students riffing on Working the Pulley.

Five pyramid poems from Lisa Thorburn, Kathy Grassel, Sharon Sirkis, Jillian Burcar and Christopher Griffin, on stress fading, Justin clapping time, blazing chi, bamboo bending in a storm, and masks that conceal truth.

Marking the journal's twentieth year, the July 2004 issue reprints Justin Stone's letter to teachers from the Summer Solstice 1984 first issue, on harmonizing Kidney yin and Heart yang and keeping the practice pure.

Laura Maria Celis describes being pierced by light that rises through the soles of her feet and opens her energy channels, in a poem she first wrote in Spanish during an intensive.

Marise Burger holds a mini-plunger at the navel to show how the t'an t'ien moves us, with the pelvis pictured as a basin of precious fluid not to be spilled.

Debbie Cole recounts the annual New Jersey shore teachers' gathering, where participants from Newfoundland to Missouri swapped teaching tips, from lace-edged plungers to squishing beach balls, and practised trust in the tight parking lot.

Ann Rutherford reports Justin Stone's standard at the May 2004 Albuquerque Intensive: a teacher should never recommend a student out of fondness, since teacher training teaches teaching, not moving.

Justin Stone names loneliness as America's biggest problem, contrasting Eastern family and clan life with four-car households, big-city elevator nods, and the lost sociability of the Carmel post office.

Moira Holland, ill since 1998 and off steroids, attended a four-day Albuquerque intensive, where aching feet, a borrowed foot massage, and a shower-time Bass Drum convinced her the Chi had become her teacher.

Lucia Veteran writes to Justin Stone asking whether the Six Healing Sounds should be whispered or crisp, and whether Passing Clouds has a 60/40 hand emphasis; Justin answers both and welcomes good change.

Evan Hammond recounts nearly quitting the Albuquerque Intensive after Justin's corrections felt harsh, and how dinner with fellow students, softened hands and a quote on the Center whiteboard changed him.

Linda Braga honors Bay Area teacher Lois Mahaney, who kept the TCC database for 15 years, mailed the Vital Force, designed the Ou Mie Shu bird shirts, and retired in her mid-80s.

Evan B. Hammond traces his life from bio-cosmic infancy through clock-trained childhood to forty, when years shrank to months, and imagines his lifetimes compressed into a single photograph of consciousness.

Sandy McAlister describes her shy Mormon childhood, her ski-bum years, the gentle exercise and seated T'ai Chi Chih she teaches in convalescent homes and senior centers for two school districts, her Nepal and Africa trips, and her fifth year of Sierra Club hiking-and-practice weeks.

Margo Carpenter recounts the April weekend when Carmen Brocklehurst led Alberta and Saskatchewan students through every movement, teaching them to feel full and hollow movements, let the waist lead, and store energy at the t'an t'ien.

Judy Hendrichs recounts teaching child-parent classes of six- to twelve-year-olds, using yin/yang floor markers, drawing breaks, surprise gifts and endless repetition of yinning and yanging.

Lois Broome recounts the April 2004 retreat in St. Albert, Alberta, where Carmen's image-streaming approach to feeling energy in each movement took her deeper than she thought possible.

Sher Dano recounts a student telling her, after class, how her family gathered at her dying mother's hospital bed and did Rocking Motion, the mother's favorite movement, as she slipped away.

Lois Broome, who says she never writes poetry or shares her inner feelings, offers a pyramid poem on the circle of practice that calms the mind, deepens awareness and brings balance.

Linda Braga recounts the rooms she has taught in, from a smoke-soaked library space and a dizzying geometric carpet to a windowless country club court she privately nicknamed Cell block 7.

Participants at the Edmonton retreat led by Carmen Brocklehurst and Brock offer brief thank-you notes, crediting Carmen with helping them feel the Chi and praising Margo Carpenter's organizing.