The Vital Force Archive

John Marquez's pyramid poems on darkness, gratitude and silence are paired with anonymous workshop comments, including one widow who found faith in herself after losing her husband of 48 years.

Excerpts from Justin Stone's Spiritual Odyssey on attenuating the pleasure principle, enlightenment hidden behind habit energies like clouds over the sun, why softness cannot be forced, and his 75th birthday verses.

Jessica Lewis passes on a disabled Army veteran's account of going medication-free since 2018 and keeping his temper with his teenage son, then records her own sensations after their one-on-one Seijaku session.

Sue Kenney frames T'ai Chi Chih as a web of relationships: with her aging self, with fellow practitioners, with a Sacramento parish's Wednesday Taize service, and with George Manning's class at HOPE Cooperative.

Judy Kistler describes the TCC International Foundation's redesigned website at taichichihfoundation.org, which added teacher conference registration, scholarship and grant details with teacher testimonials, and a Donate page with fund options.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst takes Justin Stone's 2005 remark that time is the maker of delusion and asks whether the Chi is in the movement or always present, comparing students' joyful faces to a baby reaching for something unseen in its crib.

Lisa Stroyan details how she, Doriane Tippet and Belize-based Zoom anchor Beverly Miles run a simultaneous in-person and online class, from webcam setup and lighting to the surprising arrangement of students standing behind the teachers.

Victor J. Dougherty recalls watching a technician degauss a cathode ray tube TV at the RCA Service Center in 1988, and finds in those slow circles an image of recalibrating chi.

JB describes how an intuition arriving during Rocking Motion reminded her that TCC itself holds the patience she needed while her partner faced repeated hospitalizations for severe emphysema.

Paul Ciske recalls the breeze he felt between his hands at a cardiac rehab demonstration, his 1991 accreditation with Steve Ridley, reversing his arms in Working the Pulley, and the veil lifting in a Hong Kong park.

Beverly J. Miles describes a year of practising Seijaku and arrives at the questions she still cannot answer, about holding the breath during hold fast, alternating sides in the Joy Song, and which movements are omitted.

Sandy McAlister recounts how her breath settles naturally as she sinks into stillness, citing Justin's insistence that no breathing technique be coupled with T'ai Chi Chih, and a class experiment that found regulated breathing distracting.

Sharon Sirkis Columbia collects three teaching mishaps, including a retirement community student whose hearing aid batteries died mid-class and a college student who decided Pulling in the Energy causes heart attacks.

Daniel Pienciak builds on Justin Stone's instruction to focus on the soles of the feet, distinguishing merely bending the knees from surrendering all bodyweight to the feet so the upper body genuinely relaxes.

Pam Towne led seven teachers through a Zoom Seijaku accreditation in February, with participants Yuko Voss, Patty Stupca, Michelle Sarubbi and Sally Sherwin describing grounding, healing and beginner's mind.

Christina Tillotson traces her first TCC practice in a grassy circle at Asilomar in 1983, her 1993 accreditation, and a newer Encinitas Senior Center student who said this omnipresent energy would have replaced her hippie-days substances.

Amy Tyksinski invites undecided teachers to the July 25-28 Albuquerque conference marking 50 years of T'ai Chi Chih, noting deferred payment until June and the theme "There is Only One Thing Going On."

Kathy Grassel recounts being one of the "November Nine" accredited in 1994, her 2005 interview with an unanswerable Justin Stone, Saturday meditations at his house, and the day stiffening the back leg changed her practice.

Aphorisms Justin Stone collected in Spiritual Odyssey, insisting T'ai Chi Chih is not exercise but movement from the center, alongside Paul Reps on vinegar, Bodhidharma's vast emptiness, and posture as character.

Lauren Marble recalls the 1988 Albuquerque workshop where Justin Stone taught heightened awareness, the Satipatthana mindfulness exercise, the reciprocal nature of mind and chi, and his choice to leave the Himalayas and be a 'big hermit'.

June Calende describes a weekly hour at the senior center: shoes off, chairs against the wall, Debby counting reps barely audibly, nineteen movements done beside an east window of trembling leaves and a kettle pond.

Terry Gay Puckett was practicing Around the Platter on her deck when a large cat appeared balancing along a twelve-foot fence, teaching her to move slowly and attend to the soles of her feet.