The Vital Force Archive

Newly accredited teacher Trish Winger writes to Justin Stone from a 41-foot sailboat, recounting how Joanna Foltz taught her in the Bahamas and asking about stance width, the title "Master," Chi Kung, and ADD children.

Robert Maddox, a student of Sharon Sirkis, describes sitting on the hardwood floor after practice and seeing a kaleidoscope of light persist with open eyes, surrounding his classmates like auras.

Viktoria Vercelletto writes to thank the teachers who answered her questions at her first conference, and credits Carmen with a yinning and yanging correction that ended her knee pain.

Marjorie Dutchik's short pyramid poem, written at a Vermont Elderhostel while studying with Meara Joy Norice, pictures butterflies gathering for T'ai Chi Chih and teaching grace and flow.

Ann Rutherford reports on the November Seijaku accreditation weekend with Justin Stone and Ed Altman, where 19 candidates and 24 auditors worked with resistance and softness, and 50 people celebrated Justin's 83rd birthday.

Two short poems that stop just shy of pyramid form: Pat Huseby watches a full moon rise over the trees, and Ellen Greyson finds peace in branches silhouetted against the sky.

Elizabeth Tyler recounts the one-day intensive she and Jerry Jonnson hosted for Ed Altman on December 4, 1999, where 20 Portland-area teachers and students refined movements and heard Ed's teachings on softness, silence and letting go.

Rose Champlin's pyramid poem sets an autumn garden of pumpkins, mums and marigolds alongside her own shadow moving through Daughter on the Mountaintop and Daughter in the Valley.

Margery Erickson signed up 70 support staff at her intermediate unit before administrators shut the class down, so she folded T'ai Chi Chih into the health curriculum for her life skills students instead.

Paula Ahles set lyrics to "Somewhere over the Rainbow" for her fellow candidates at the 1999 Maryvale teacher accreditation course, working in the stack of coins, the weight shift and letting the chi flow.

VirginiaLee Cepeda describes how Ann Vidmar, who has multiple sclerosis, came to class with a walker, then a cane, and eventually walked in with no aid; Vidmar adds her own thanks.

An acrostic pyramid poem by Lillian Menard, written as a student at an Elderhostel in Vermont, naming her Catholic background, her dispelled fears, and her thanks for balance and peace.

Janet M. Oussaty describes winning approval for a one-credit T'ai Chi Chih course at Kean University, from curriculum committees to flyers, plus the class format, grading by journals and presentations, and a parallel non-credit offering.

Viereck's cartoon urges a turtle to get out of its shell and attend the T'ai Chi Chih Teachers Conference in Morristown, New Jersey, July 20-23, 2000.

Richard Brier reprints the promotional letter he sends to people in the healing professions, citing his 1980 certification by Justin Stone, 2,000 students aged 7 to 93, and benefits from blood pressure control to shared group harmony.

Eight classroom mishearings and comebacks collected from Viola Bens, Sharon Sirkis and Pat Huseby, including silly putty mistaken for chewing gum and a student stuck on the two girls on the mountain.

Catherine Grace Dalton attended Justin Stone's meditation retreat in Albuquerque as a complete beginner, nervous about sitting 35 to 45 minutes, and on the second day felt a radiating warmth dissolve her body's boundaries.

Six Pyramid Poems, the form Justin Stone originated and described in Climb the Joyous Mountain, from Linda Tolentino, Sharon Sirkis, Trish Winger, Jan Linthorst, Eric Imbody and Ann Daly.

Ed Altman reports 1999 accreditation results and deferred candidates, new trainings in Canada and San Antonio, the Folsom Prison program, and a proposed annual Joy Thru Movement day on Justin's birthday.

Susan Kissinger describes helping her sixth grade daughter hunt for the perfect number after 28, and how the answer arriving effortlessly showed her the same clarity appearing in her teaching.

Five springtime Pyramid Poems by Sharon Sirkis, Noel Altman, Richard Worth, Eric Imbody and Linda Tolentino fill the March cover, printed on winter-colored paper, in the form Justin Stone originated.

Justin Stone traces Patanjali's vritti into vashanas and samskaras, arguing that deep meditation and T'ai Chi Chih can erase harmful habit energies and addictions, closing with a verse from 20th Century Psalms.

In a letter to Justin Stone, Elaine Unzicker credits the Chicago teacher certification, Ed Altman's grounding corrections and Justin's pamphlet on diet with guiding her through newly discovered food allergies and a health challenge.

In a letter to Justin Stone, Bill Mishler describes having his accreditation deferred at the Chicago course, shifting his focus from the certificate to learning under Ed Altman, and driving home to Cleveland in a state of wordless openness.

A short thank-you letter from Paula Ahles, accredited in October 1999, to teacher trainer Ed Altman, praising his relentless dedication to the purity of T'ai Chi Chih.

Sharon Sirkis, auditing a teacher training at Mahwah, found an algae-covered pond at Ramapo Nature Park and threw stones into it, recognizing her own stuckness, fear of success and self-sabotage in the closing green.

Lyn Welch reports growing classes at a hospital and with survivor and MS groups, then describes running her whole TCC practice mentally during an hour-long EEG and puzzling the doctor with unusually even brain waves.

Christeen McLain traces 22 years of practice since 1978, from recognizing alpha brain waves within moments of Around the Platter to Justin Stone's sword-like comments cutting through habit energies.

In a letter to editor Noel, Sr. Viola Bens praises the journal and recalls Justin's "Flow Softly" prompting her to notice she was trying harder than her struggling student.

Carmen Brocklehurst describes presenting T'ai Chi Chih to 150 state employees at the New Mexico Governor's Conference and then to her granddaughter's junior high honors literature class, where students felt the chi immediately.