The Vital Force Archive

Justin Stone names TEH, or Inner Sincerity, as the basis of T'ai Chi Chih, credits teachers' sincerity for its growth, and warns against careless interviews that call the practice exercise.

Susan Patterson recounts years of struggling to find reliable rental space in San Diego before leasing her own studio in 1995, and concludes a studio is not needed to build a teacher family.

Corine Reeber takes an Oriental Painting class and finds the teacher's insistence on posture, focus and patient repetition mirrors T'ai Chi Chih, including a warning about students who impose their own style too soon.

Mark Jones likens T'ai Chi Chih to the star-filled night sky over his rural New Mexico home, then draws on Swami Muktananda's writing on nerve purification to explain periods of difficulty during accelerated practice.

Sandy McAlister relays student Joanne Ramirez's account of postponing surgery for a torn cartilage in her left knee, and after eighteen months of practice walking, climbing stairs and dancing again without pain.

Richard Brier describes teaching Rocking Motion, Bird Flaps Its Wings and the basic stance to ten people in the early stages of Alzheimer's, and how the program director went home energized rather than exhausted.

Alberta E. Osborne describes waking with tingling in her right leg and numbness in both feet, and how improvement began after her second T'ai Chi Chih class, leaving her 85 percent better.

Richard Brier's pyramid poem of repeated thanks for gifts, grace, time and space, ending with the image of the empty cup and a single request to rejoice evermore.

Lee Campbell reports a student who left her first TCC class pain free and, after six months of daily panic attacks, had none since, rocking many times a day and videotaping herself to check her movements.

Roberta Taggart offers five pointers for new or physically limited students to avoid delayed-onset muscle soreness: staying at 70% of capacity, adding practice time gradually, practising daily, warming up and breathing naturally.

A 15th century poem by Kabir advising the reader to skip the excursion to the garden, since the thousand-petalled flower inside the body is itself a place to sit.

Ann Doering recounts a two and a half week study trip to Hangzhou for Chinese medicine, chi gong and T'ai Chi, where she demonstrated T'ai Chi Chih for her Chinese teacher.

Lee Campbell gave back issues of The Vital Force to a Buddhist monk studying toward accreditation, and notes the Joy Thru Movement ad in The Empty Vessel and her gift of the book to Qi editor Michael Tse.

Justin Stone draws on the Buddhist Abidhamma's count of sixty-odd joyous states of consciousness against only three miserable ones, asking why people rush toward craving, anger and delusion instead of the joyous Way.

Sister Francis A. Kay fell six steps from a cabin ladder during a Kentucky retreat, fracturing a thoracic vertebra, and found the joyous movements more healing than her prescribed therapeutic exercises.

Newly accredited in spring 1996, Mark Jones offers the write-up he gives students, defining T'ai Chi Chih as a Chi Kung discipline, explaining Chi and the Great Yin and Yang, and urging daily practice for fun.

A short pyramid poem of spring, with a magenta sky, bare twigs, birds in winged procession and plum blossoms on the branches bearing witness to cyclical splendor.

Vickie Brodie's pyramid poem catalogues a backyard in spring: goldfinches at the birdbath, mourning doves on the fence, snapdragons in bloom, and air that is neither hot nor cold.

R. Taggart's account of Sandy McAlister and Lois Mahaney appearing on Transitions, a local senior-issues TV program, where six students from Casa Sandoval Retirement Community performed ten minutes of seated TCC on air.

Adria Neumann's pyramid poem names T'ai Chi Chih as swirling silent strength, bubbling springs beneath the feet, and inner music waking joy's pervasive response.

Carmen Brocklehurst links a feel-good movie's many winners to Zen master Dogen pouring half a ladle back into the stream, drawing the principle that what we acknowledge is ours forever.

Torie Fiore describes the Divine Unity that encompassed ALL before the Beginning, and the sacred moments when judgments are suspended and one feels united with all of life.

Readers including Jan Martindale, Beverly McFarland, Timothy Stuetz and Hope Ridley thank the Vital Force staff for their balanced coverage of a difficult season and honor Steve Ridley after his resignation.

Paula Favorito passes along a Suburban Town News notice for a T'ai Chi Chih course at Holy Name Hospital, where a typo promises twenty simple non-marital movements.

A profile of teacher candidate Sue Inteman, a student of Marjorie Peltier who uses T'ai Chi Chih in recovering from left facial paralysis and presented research on TCC and stress reduction to Hospice of Wake County.

A tribute to Leona B. Dees, who taught T'ai Chi Chih at the Albuquerque center and two senior centers, staffed the center as a volunteer, and built an early TCC website with her husband Marion.

Jean Katus of Ft. Yates sent in a local program guide photo of Madagascar's sifaka lemur, whose two-legged locomotion and playful habits look remarkably like a TCC movement.

A state-by-state roundup: seated TCC on local TV at Casa Sandoval, Marianne Merritt's classes for California prison staff and inmates, a University of Cincinnati research grant, hospital wellness and community college classes, and an April Seijaku retreat.

R. Taggart and Liz Salada report on the City of Hayward naming Lois Mahaney a STAR volunteer in October 1996, cataloguing her work as longtime Vital Force editor, Resource Correspondent, Teachers' Directory compiler and host of Sunday Practice in the Park.

Justin Stone recounts his first day and night in the Himalayas: a missed meeting at Hardwar, a boy dancing in the rain atop a bullock cart, a tiger warning in the forest, and a Holy man led away after unsupervised Kundalini practice.