The Vital Force Archive

Jessica Skolnik, a college student of Sharon Sirkis, recounts walking away from a near-fatal car accident, losing her migraines, and practicing barefoot in a Connecticut park while on tour with a band.

Robert E. Rollin, a student of Judy George, recounts a night of bronchitis when mentally picturing the TCC movements relaxed him enough to stop his coughing spasms and sleep.

Reports from the first Day of "Joy Thru Movement" on Justin Stone's birthday: Bernice Piotrowski on demonstrations at the Edmonton Public Library, Dan Pienciak on twenty New Jersey teachers at Sister Antonia Cooper's Villa Maria, plus Bismarck and a 96-year-old seated practitioner in Maryland.

Marty McLaren writes to thank her teacher Margery Erickson, describing how a back injury two summers after class prompted her to dust off the video tape and resume practice.

Linda Braga recounts the final Bay Area mailing party for the Vital Force on December 3, naming the editors and volunteers who stuffed and labeled issues before the journal moved to Albuquerque.

Mpho Mosinyi, a student of Sharon Sirkis, doubted his teacher's claims about chi until one Sunday morning practice session, after which nightly movements replaced the sleeping tablets he had relied on.

Editor Noel Altman thanks the Bay Area teachers, editors, staff and mailing volunteers whose 17 years of service kept The Vital Force in continuous publication, mostly from the East Bay.

Catherine McNair, a student of Neena Mitchell, started T'ai Chi Chih in October 2000 and cancelled the breast reduction surgery she had been saving for after her chronic upper back pain disappeared.

Jeanne Marlowe recounts a year of teaching that took her practice to a mountaintop above the Aegean Sea and to a six-day raft trip down the Colorado River, where she led a riverside practice.

Judith Rivera took a community center class with her husband in January 2000 and now uses the Six Healing Sounds with children who have ADHD, plus a daily meditation habit grown from two minutes to twenty.

Glenda Blackburn taught T'ai Chi Chih to 20 nurses earning continuing education units aboard Carnival's "Paradise," teaching each morning at sea alongside Journeys of Wisdom's Inner Achievement Methods seminars.

Three untitled poems: Donald Bohrer's lines on bending before the wind, flowing with softness and continuity and being led by the T'an T'ien, and Noel Altman's catalogue of stiffness.

A photo of Tom Tolentino and his students moving through Around the Platter in a Southern California park, where his Saturday morning class runs as a walk-in, join-in session.

Alex Rovang, a student of Donna McElhose, traces a life from the awkwardness of birth through growing softness, thinking in the feet and staying centered, toward a hoped-for graceful conclusion.

Jean Katus taught weekly TCC classes at a residential drug and alcohol treatment center for Native American adolescents, structuring sessions in three parts and gathering honest anonymous drawings and written responses from residents.

Beverly Weil's poem addresses a white butterfly whose fluttering wings are propelled by the softness of light and a song beyond time, drawing the watcher into the dance.

Guadalupe Buchwald describes the second year of the T'ai Chi Chih program she and Lynn Shaw-Ringham run at William Head prison, where constant turnover forced a rolling intake and students wanted to become gentle giants.

Eight classroom jokes and slips collected from Donnis Minx, Sharon Sirkis and Mary Ann Johnson, including a student's misspelled "biginner," a sneeze that turned the Six Healing Sounds into "Ho, Hu, Achoo," and a Pulling Taffy centipede.

Letters from readers including Sr. Marie-Ann Main in Durban on teaching adults after years with children, Eddie Roberts on his unstoppable Pyramid Poems, and Hope Spangler on her October accreditation week in Columbia, Pennsylvania.

Ann Sollars, the only accredited teacher in Idaho, writes from Pocatello about teaching old friends in Blackfoot and invitations to present at Idaho State University, including a T'ai Chi Ch'uan professor's intermediate class.

Six Pyramid Poems from students and teachers including Terri Lease, Doug Harned, Lucky Sikora and Eddie Roberts, on anger, dark stars, inner storms and the joy of coursing chi.

Justin Stone describes the Saturday night meditation group that meets at his house and warns its readers not to apply the non-attachment demanded of yogis and monks to ordinary family life.

Sr. Marie-Ann Main passes along comments from her Wednesday women's group in Durban, who describe T'ai Chi Chih as prayerful movement that revives burnout, plus a chance meeting with another TCC nun on retreat.

Ed Altman describes moving with Noel to Albuquerque to be near Justin Stone, crediting Justin's persistent hard questions, and argues that awakening comes from diligent practice rather than sudden enlightenment.

April Leffler lists the insights that came to her during Teacher Accreditation week: honoring painful awareness as a gift, letting bubbles of responsibility return to the Light, and burning away what is not needed with the laser of attention.

Noel Altman describes two kinds of ego, defensive and conceited, and how Justin Stone's blunt corrections, Tuesday practices in Albuquerque, and his meditation teaching push her toward letting go of self.

Sr. Margaret M. Costello, disabled by a stiff leg since age fourteen and a self-described perfectionist, describes how the October 2000 Teacher Training Course broke open the frozen feeling below her waist.

Noel Altman likens T'ai Chi Chih to termites eating away the walls, then the weight-bearing beams, of the house of the Self, until nothing is left to cling to but air.

Roseann Heinrich thanks Ed Altman for his teaching at the Columbia, PA teacher training, praising how he balanced learning with fun, noticed mistakes at the right moment, and let students be themselves.

Kathy Grassel reviews Justin Stone's two-volume audiotape set of Zen and Eastern tales, from Hakuin and Nasrudin to Justin's own travels and the little red book on the I Ching.