The Vital Force Archive

Rachel V. Alvarado of Crown Point, diagnosed with Lupus 43 years ago, credits a year of daily T'ai Chi Chih with improved joint flexibility, better bone density and her doctor discontinuing three medications.

Donna Aldous describes reading Justin Stone's photo textbook and circulating copies of The Vital Force in class, then passes on end-of-series comments from students on Push Pull, connectedness and wholeness.

Four pyramid poems by Gary Swanson, Mary Purnell, Christina Wilson and Mary Meier move from dreaming and waking to breath, timelessness, the restless thinking mind, and body and spirit made one.

Peggy Koch read a newspaper article about T'ai Chi Chih in February 2010 and began classes; her husband Larry followed in January 2011 and found the movements stopped his anxiety attacks.

Deanna Shapiro learned T'ai Chi Chih at a senior center in Charlotte, Vermont, and with no teachers in her state she gets her TCC fix during twice-yearly visits to Albuquerque.

Excerpts from Justin Stone's "The Impersonal" assert that the Life Force has no beginning, end or individuality, that only transformation exists, and that ambition, envy and the refusal of impermanence cause suffering.

Barbara Pence offers a rhyming poem announcing that Northwest Indiana is not just cows and corn now that T'ai Chi Chih has arrived, pitching it to anyone short on balance or energy.

Rebecca Laughhunn took a class with Jean Katus in 2010, bought the DVD, practiced daily through the summer, and lost ten pounds along with gaining energy and peace.

Linda Braga taught a crowded Hayward class where half the students spoke only Chinese, using gestures, one-on-one silent demonstration and the Six Healing Sounds to teach without shared words.

Theresa Brown's rhyming verse traces her first eight awkward weeks of class through nine months of weekly sessions and park practices, with thanks to her instructor Pete Gregory.

Donna Dittmer, 73, took up T'ai Chi Chih after serious surgery left her with problematic breathing, and felt the energy in the first movements her class learned with Bev Chandley.