The Vital Force Archive

Carmen L. Brocklehurst recalls Justin Stone's refusal to write instructions for Seijaku, his direction to teach it only to the best students, and a teacher who sank into deep meditation at a conference introduction.

Linda Braga describes a November ceremony in San Leandro where fourteen students in their 80s and 90s received gold-sealed certificates for years of consistent attendance, and offers the template to other teachers.

Sheryl Adair chased waterfalls for years before a visiting hiker discovered a big one hidden behind the rhododendrons on her own mountain lot, and helped cut a trail to it.

Christine Weber, 66, found that completing the weight shift in Around the Platter surfaced the fear from a childhood fall down an earthen dam, and her teacher Lisa Otero told her to keep going.

Sandy McAlister reports survey results from 120 teachers and 50 students, with 99 teachers favoring alternating the teacher conference with a T'ai Chi Chih Community Conference starting summer 2017.

Dotty draws on Justin Stone's own words to trace how chi circulates, balances and accumulates in the t'an t'ien, noting the principles of softness, continuity, grounding and moving from the center.

Daniel Pienciak details how setting up the feet before each movement keeps the pelvis still and the back upright, and how a heel placed too far forward ruins the weight shift; followed by Pyramid Poems.

Mary Donaldson-Evans recounts how she and her husband, after Movin' to Motown and Chair Yoga failed to stick, were hooked by April Leffler's class, where movement names conjure New Jersey beach vacations.

Roseann Heinrich, co-hosting the 2016 Teacher Conference with Lucinda Kutsko, recalls her first conference in 2001 and lists the Seattle sights she plans to visit with her daughter.

Seven participants at Pam Towne's August 2015 Seijaku accreditation in North Carolina describe grounding, yin and yang balance, and the refrain "holding fast and letting go," including Bruce Eisenmenger's account of his wife's cancer diagnosis two days after returning home.

Hannah Hedrick describes the slippage in her 20-year-old artificial hip, and the physical therapist who evaluated T'ai Chi Chih's weight shifting, approved both directions and asked to refer patients to her classes.

April Leffler compiles notes from the October 2015 Philadelphia Intensive, including Fran Alexander's poem "Grey Ghost," Bruce Lee calling Sandy McAlister's teaching magical, and Sharon Sirkis finding a sign misspelled "T'ai Chi Chai."

Jim Shorr takes up the phrase "the flow" from Sandy McAllister's teacher newsletter, quoting the Dalai Lama by way of Howard Cutler, and describes the peace that arrived after years of practice.

Stu Goldman rebuts the adage that those who cannot do teach, describing his use of humor, props and mirroring, and urging teachers to notice what works and build a consistent personal style.

Donna Aldous collects her Mesa, Arizona students' comments on balance, grounding and practising with shoulder bursitis, then describes how a Vital Force article changed her view of Cosmic Consciousness Pose.

Kathy Starrick recounts her talk at a holistic nursing conference on building resilience, covering stress management, the Lavretsky depression and Irwin sleep studies, and grounding through the soles of the feet.

Dixie Adeniran's substitute teacher fell through at the last minute, and her twenty-four senior center students formed the circle-within-a-circle on their own and practiced without her.

Roseann Heinrich wonders what it would be like to be a rock in the moment, then recounts a whirlwind year of travel, deck repairs and shrinking retirement accounts steadied by daily TCC, yoga and Zumba.

Justin Stone's aphorisms on breath, the vibration before sound and the "thoughtless state," plus stories of a chanting mendicant, hat-stealing monkeys, Swami Krishnanand, and a woman bound to her chair.

Justin Stone argues there is no such thing as higher consciousness, only Consciousness obscured by habit-energies and the dusts, illustrated by clouds over the sun and the Zen mirror.

A note on Analysis of Variance results from 610 T'ai Chi Chih students who self assessed at their first class and again weeks later at the last, with contact details for Dr. Anita Vestal.

Lisa Stroyan, a teacher candidate in Northern Colorado, describes her teacher Marie's advice to make her movements smaller and ground longer, and how each correction turned out to require softening rather than more doing.

Driving home from a Heightened Awareness T'ai Chi Chih event, Michael Dapelo questions whether his full participation is too self-focused, and concludes the practice is self-centered in a way that makes him other-centered.

Lisa M. Otero explains why Justin Stone opposed a formal continuing education requirement, then describes how seven teachers in her community meet monthly for silent practice and member-led presentations.

Linda Braga remembers Mini, a retired library worker who joined her class as a beginner, kept practising through chemotherapy for a rare blood cancer, and was honoured in a memorial class where students sensed spirits filling the room.