The Vital Force Archive

Lynne Blackford describes her year teaching T'ai Chi Chih at the Missoula senior center, starting as a volunteer before students chose to pay a dollar, plus weekend workshops at Unity churches.

J. J. Barbour recounts how a compound fracture at nineteen, surgical shoes and a leg-shortening operation left his right leg curved and painful, until years of T'ai Chi Chih straightened it.

Steve Ridley's pyramid poem casts mind-body unity as tuning for a concert with the Larger Life, the practitioner a mute chime waiting on the Spirit-wind to give it voice.

Four short poems by Cliff Tabor, Steve Ridley and student Gwen Cameron, moving from paradox and surfing life's waves to the simplicity of butterflies among white blossoms.

Jean Katus of Fargo recounts how photographs taken of her Lakota singing group at a high school program showed blue lightning bolts over each singer, echoing Justin Stone's stories of light captured on film.

Justin Stone names three steps on the Way: accord with Impermanence, discover who and what we are beyond it, then return to the Marketplace to work with people.

Sharon Slater's pyramid poem follows the flood tide filling lagoons and the ebb returning boats to the flats, calling the endless tidal exchange Push-pull, Push-pull.

In two short aphorisms dated October 1991, Steve Ridley describes life force as continually working to restore harmony, and every life form as transforming endlessly while remaining imperishable in Essence.

Letters from Steve, Constance Hyde, Jeanne Jacobs and Vickie Brodie praising the journal, Bryan's article on emotional release, and the movement principles that improved Brodie's chi flow.

David J. Belz writes to Justin from Fort Myers about a massage therapist student with whom he scanned for heat radiating from blocked chi, inches from the body, after practice.

Three passages from Justin Stone, drawn partly from Evolution Through Chi and 20th Century Psalms, on Zen's wordless transmission, Gopi Krishna on consciousness, and the Life Force bursting from bare rocks.

Steve Ridley compares the chi of T'ai Chi Chih to water poured into differently shaped vessels, with each repetitive movement pattern shaping and directing energy much as Hatha Yoga postures do.

Virginia Shilson suggests teachers pass along a line from Justin Stone's Meditation for Healing, that each person is his or her own best healing source, alongside the idea that daily practice sends healing vibrations outward.

Pam Towne keeps copies of the T'ai Chi Chih book, Justin's video and the "Justin Stone Speaks" cassette on a table at every class, and explains when she introduces each to students.

Sharon Slater's pyramid poem likens chi to a river running through the soul, its springs bubbling upward under pressure, its channels diverging and converging before giving voice to the ocean of life.

Virginia Shilson quotes the ancient Yoga Vasistha on the moon revealing itself without effort, arguing that T'ai Chi Chih rests on universal principles found in many worthwhile practices.

Dyanna Chowka describes "Shen Emerging," a set of 54 cards she made bearing the Tao symbol and T'ai Chi phrases, which students draw and hold in mind during class.

Steve Ridley argues that slowness alone is not enough: without the principles correctly enacted, practice turns sluggish and dense, where it should be light as cloud and rooted as a tree.

Steve Ridley contrasts practicing T'ai Chi Chih only when flu symptoms appear with daily chi balancing that builds reserve forces, citing Justin's reminder that the practice is cumulative.

Gary Halden's fourteen-point checklist, from loose wrists to total weight shift, which he has students use in pairs to correct each other and post at home for solo practice.

Steve Ridley argues that "relaxed intensity" and full awareness in each movement produce stronger chi flow than absentminded muscle memory, citing two translations of The Song of the Thirteen Postures on mind-body unity.

Sr. Alice Holden describes building St. Louis classes from scratch, with Lisette Tingesdahl's prenatal course, Barbara Lefforge's booth at Chevron's Wellness Fair and Barbara Joy's UC Santa Barbara staff workshop.

Quotes at length from Jeanne Jacobs' six-column article "T'ai Chi Chih--The balancing act of the '90s" in Seattle's THE NEW TIMES, on daily practice, inner balance and the Vital Force.

Steve Ridley offers a short theme for contemplation, describing Nature as the shadow-projection of a Creative Mind continuum, with inner and outer causes feeding each other under the universal life power he names Spirit.

Susan Hudgens describes her first months as a newly accredited teacher, assisting Donna Shaffer's demonstrations and then negotiating fees, scheduling and promotion to land a TCC class at a Fremont health club.

Steve Ridley writes on karma as patterns we neutralize and transcend through stages of awakening, calling for the abandonment of both hope and hopelessness so life can breathe unobstructed.

Steve Ridley's pyramid poem casts the mind as a factory of phantoms and attachment-expectations, and finds that unceasing fresh observation dissolves them to reveal that we are already Love and complete.

Jo Rigg describes hiking three miles to the top of Bear Butte, the sacred Sioux and Cheyenne mountain in South Dakota, and practising T'ai Chi Chih among the prayer ribbons there.

Steve Ridley describes how consistent practice refines the Chi and weakens life-negating habit tendencies, naming the deepest samskara as the delusive assumption of separateness from the Supreme Ultimate.

Justin Stone recommends Paul Reps' ten minutes of quiet 'receiving', known in Japan as shikan taza, praises Steve Ridley's poems, and recalls a walk when everything sang Creation's glory.