The Vital Force Archive

Jean Stone, a student from Ft. Mohave, sends thanks after her first retreat, praising the warmth of the group, Justin's generosity and Sandy McAlister's organizing.

Steve Ridley supplies a form letter that accredited teachers can hand to anyone teaching T'ai Chi Chih without certification, asking them to stop until they complete the week-long training course.

Two newspaper write-ups: the Milpitas Post quoted a skeptical senior in Susan Hudgen's class who now reports less stress, and Al Stanbridge of the San Mateo Times visited Hope Ridley's Foster City class.

Steve Ridley describes healing as a self-responsible action, arguing that the Self is Consciousness-Energy and that T'ai Chi Chih conditions the mind-body vessel to receive it more fully.

Chris McLain recounts being urged by Steve Ridley to write to Justin Stone after her 1985 accreditation, and the Green Gulch meditation retreat, where rain on the yurt and hooting owls merged with the practice.

Patrick Lenard's newsletter clipping invites the community to 12-step meetings at the Isla Vista Recovery Center, and reports his own 1992 teacher accreditation and planned further training in San Francisco.

Press coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle and Contra Costa Times reported t'ai chi's gentle motion as arthritis therapy, including Patricia Yu's ROM Dance used in occupational therapy at a Madison hospital.

Eleven readers write in with praise for The Vital Force, thanking the editors for the new Table of Contents and the maps added to the Teacher Directory.

Justin Stone retells a brief exchange in which a Chinese Ch'an master answers a monk's question about where he will go after death with "Straight to Hell!" and explains why.

Patrick Lenard of Isla Vista sends a poem written from his "mind stuff" while practising T'ai Chi Chih on the ocean side cliffs, crediting TCC with rekindling dormant creativity.

Steve offers a two-sentence statement on meditation as the chance to shed what he calls limitation consciousness and rest, self-complete, as immortal beings.

Connie Hyde of Cedar Crest, New Mexico, argues ahead of the Chicago Teachers Conference that Justin and Steve's guidance in reviewing every movement is vital, and urges teachers to send the coordinators feedback.

Steve Ridley pairs pyramid poems with commentary arguing that a spiritual teacher should be utilized rather than worshipped, and that realization means seeing there is nothing to realize.

Joanne Sultar traced students' foot positions onto large paper bags so those struggling with the stance could take a made-to-order guide home, and lays out her hour-and-a-half class schedule.

Loretta Shiver's account of Steve Ridley's April 17 meditation workshop, alternating indoor sitting with TCC practice outdoors in the New Mexico sunshine, and why a working mother needs such days.

Carmen Brocklehurst recounts Justin Stone's whirlwind move back to Albuquerque at 76, placing a deposit on a home hours after landing, with a Seijaku course and meditation class already booked.

Richard Brier continues his comic allegory of Chi Lanka, meeting Rip Van Stone in the Taffy Forest, relieving Masters Yink and Yank at the pulley, and posing atop Mt. Chi.

Viola Moriarty of Denver notices that her students who show up consistently gain more than those who perform the movements well, and finds teaching sharpens her own learning.

Steve offers three brief practice suggestions: adjust the body continually for refined lightness, root solidly into the ground with open ease, and abide in the freshness of present presence.

Verse thirty-seven of the Hua Hu Ching, in Brian Walker's translation, describes the superior person who sees a tree as root, soil and sun together, and takes responsibility for the energy she manifests.

Esther Kieffer leads four and five year olds with disabilities in Rocking Motion each morning to Daniel Kobialka music, ending with a minute of silence in the dark before the school day begins.

Ralph Garn's pyramid poem describes time ceasing as chi flows through the instrument of man, with halos of multi-color, desire coming to an end, and a lifetime's glimpse inward.

Michael W. Merriman traces how a 1991 T'ai Chi Chih/Meditation workshop led him to teacher certification with Steve the following year, and what a return workshop in Denver gave him.

Steve Ridley's brief meditation on spiritual growth as a willing cycle of death and rebirth, arguing that we need no effort to grow, only a releasing of what formerly was.

Pam Towne describes tutoring a 9th grader failing algebra with a half hour of T'ai Chi Chih before each hour of math, after which he earned the top final exam score among his teacher's six classes.

Gary Halden describes using a large acupuncture chart in demonstrations and beginning classes, explaining meridians, blockages and the yinning and yanging of the legs as self-acupuncture that circulates chi.

Steve's brief pyramid poem offers a single instruction for whatever arises, to love it and bless it, and holds that practicing this remembrance lets purification proceed toward freedom.

Steve Ridley offers two short pyramid poems, one on free beings fabricating limitation scenarios cloaked in thought-bodies, the other naming balance and harmonious living as the art of letting go.

Connie Hyde visits Carmen's weekly Children's T'ai Chi Chih class, where a girl without her fee is welcomed in and half an hour of coaxing and praise has the children trusting what they know.

Sandy McAlister reports on the March 21 Seijaku accreditation course, where sixteen teachers completed training and fifteen accredited teachers audited, and names every participant alongside Justin's expanding Maximum Chi Program.