The Vital Force Archive

Caroline Guillot recalls Justin Stone answering her request for corrections with "T'ai Chi Chih is all continuous," and her own Rocking Motion in a crowded airport, soft, rooted, and briefly silent.

Benita Goldstein, a three-year practitioner, describes arriving at her first teacher intensive weighed down by fear, falling ill on the second night, then waking the next morning to returning health and joy.

Peter Gregory quit a 30-year restaurant job, moved in with his aging parents in northwestern Indiana, and endured car repairs, cancelled classes and cold shoulders before a newspaper health feature brought 75 inquiries.

Jan Block thanks the 2009 Nebraska teacher conference for deepening her teaching of "why" as well as "how," describes adding intermediate and advanced classes, and recounts practicing TCC after airport security pat-downs.

Patricia Strand describes the morning practice beside her lake, in soft rain and chickadee song, when she finally understood Justin's phrase "TCC is doing TCC," followed by Pyramid Poems from five writers.

Justin Stone welcomes teachers to the conference, warning that those isolated from other teachers drift into strange habits, and hoping one day every accredited teacher will attend.

Benita Goldstein asked her new class of retired teachers in Brooklyn Heights what they felt after practice, and heard that sciatica pain had vanished and a hard school day had lifted.

Sky Young-Wick and the 2010 Conference Team invite teachers to the August teacher conference at Arbor Day Farm in Nebraska City, with registration deadlines, scholarship contacts, and a raffle funding future scholarships.

Marcella Box recounts how noisy high school retreatants who kept March teacher training candidates awake at St. Damiano sent an apology letter, then joined the group for evening prayer and Push Pull.

Passages selected from each chapter of Justin Stone's Climb the Joyous Mountain, from the frozen moonlight outside a Zen temple to a Maharaj who skipped meals when meditation ran deep, with an editor's note on the Facebook group reading it.

Kathleen Bente describes practicing T'ai Chi Chih with her sister on Tuesdays at their father's house while he rested on a bench with a cookie, watching them, after dementia and their mother's death left him needing constant care.

Brock Brocklehurst runs through everyday uses of the word grounded, from grounded children to grounded airplanes to grounded electrical outlets, and finds the completed circuit that lets chi flow in practice.

Sr. Antonia Cooper lists the spring retreats she led and collects one-word impressions and insights from the 35 participants at Kanuga, many of them about moving from the t'an t'ien.

Tudor Oprea admits he cannot keep Justin Stone's instruction to practise every day, and describes how inner turmoil and fatigue interrupt him, yet T'ai Chi Chih waits without judgment for his return.

Sandy McAlister describes two teacher training candidates who transformed during the course: one a lifelong family caretaker who awakened to her own Being, the other whose tense shoulders finally released.

Larry Bloom compares an unwarmed mind to a stiff muscle, describing how his morning T'ai Chi Chih practice loosens rigid thinking, slows a racing mind, and makes tedious tasks pleasant; Pyramid Poems follow.

Pam Towne describes what awaits a candidate at the six-day accreditation course: emptying an already full cup, receiving feedback from the trainer and auditing teachers, and the friendships and love energy that remain afterward.

An anonymous student, weak and dizzy after drinking colonoscopy prep and close to calling 911, practised half a form, finished getting ready, completed it, and felt clear and energized.

After watching a group practice at the New Mexico T'ai Chi Chih Center, Dora Derzon argues that many students mistake softness for no feeling, when softness is a by-product of letting the t'an t'ien move you.

Marilyn Morrison, a body worker who has taught yoga and Qigong and studied T'ai Chi, calls TCC revolutionary and finds in Rocking Motion the toe-to-heel shift that balances energetic and physical awareness.

Judy Hendricks found that straightening her arms in Rocking Motion, corrected at Carmen Brocklehurst's retreat, unblocked the Chi, and reading Richard Schiffman's book on Sri Ramakrishna deepened her daily joy.

Vicki Schroeder co-hosted with Stan Corwin a two-day retreat with Antonia Cooper at Kanuga Conference Center, and watched 13 teachers and 20 students from 10 states soften, ground and recommit.

Mary Ruiz offers three short meditations: Chi circling the t'an t'ien during Pulling Taffy Wrist Circles, the gift of yourself waiting to be unwrapped, and gratitude flowing through the feet into the earth.

Mary White compares a balky software installation that kept demanding a reboot to her own repeating habits, describing how T'ai Chi Chih gently cleared the clutter and changed how she related to her three grown sons; several Pyramid Poems follow.

Justin Stone calls T'ai Chi Chih "the effort of no effort," explaining that the movements are not meant to build muscle but to circulate the Chi, and urging teachers to shape and encourage their students' practice.

Justin Stone corrects the common errors in Pulling Taffy: the upturned hand must travel horizontally from the opposite elbow, both feet stay flat, and the weight shifts only with the pulling hand.

Justin Stone offers a series of aphorisms from 20th Century Psalms, on identifying with the tree rather than the leaves, karma as energy in activity, habit as the enemy of old age, and the jazz musician's attempt to express the inexpressible.

Amy Tyksinski explains how coming up on the balls of the feet in Wrist Circles sends energy from the soles over the head and back down, and why tightening fingers signal blocked chi.

Carmen Brocklehurst recalls Justin Stone visiting a Tuesday morning teacher practice and saying he saw softness in the wrists but not looseness, advising the attitude of someone with nothing left to lose.

Linda Braga applies Dr William Glasser's retention percentages to TCC classes, arguing that partner practice, where students explore a movement together and then share questions with the group, produces active learners.