The Vital Force Archive

Daniel Pienciak found that a year of teaching on Zoom demanded keener focus and heightened awareness, and argues that according with impermanence, rather than clinging to the familiar, moves practice forward.

Laura Star practices at dawn in a stone-ringed circle of desert sand near Tucson, joined by doves and coyotes, then trades cacti for birch trees and loons up north.

Jeneth Rundle expected Zoom teaching to fail and found it joyful, tracing how that surprise exposed a hidden belief that the Chi could not reach students remotely.

George Zimmerman remembers Nicole, who kept a daily T'ai Chi Chih practice through eleven years with ALS, moving without her wheelchair for three years and later practising the movements in imagination alone.

Bill Nakao takes up continuity between movements, citing Justin Stone's "It is all continuous, dear" and the thread running from Rocking Motion to the close, and asks practitioners to attend to the pauses at rest position.

Rita Otis recalls a rafting trip where a retired man shouted with delight at feeling the energy ball, and describes wanting that bubbling joy rather than a correctly done form.