The Vital Force Archive

Daniel Pienciak traces how incomplete weight shifts left him wobbling and leaning in Perpetual Motion Taffy, and how finishing the knee bend, hip and heel placement corrected it for him and his students.

Anita Vestal recounts ten years of offering free Spanish-language classes in rural Costa Rica, where clubs supplied transportation and space, and calls for Foundation grants and a new video of TCC worldwide.

Pam Towne uses Passing Clouds as a reminder to let thoughts drift by without following them, keeping the head facing forward while the waist turns, and describes extended repetitions as moving meditation.

Beverly J. Miles recounts an eight-day trip to Corozal, Belize, where visiting teachers held morning and bayside practices, opened The T'an Tien platform, and won Mayor Rigo Vellos's pledge to promote TCC.

Carol Love recalls the phrases her teacher Marie Dotts repeats in class, including "You can't do bad T'ai Chi Chih" and the advice to move just the arms or just the feet.

Dorian Tippet recounts a boat trip up a snake-like Belizean river to the Maya ruins of Lamanai, past crocodile warnings, herons and Mennonite fishermen, arriving late to two carved stone temples.

Terry Jennings passes along Elizabeth Tyler's teaching image of the pelvic area as a fruit bowl that spills if you rock too far forward or back, plus her own Rocking Motion one-liners.

Lorraine Lepine recounts a small group of T'ai Chi Chih teachers gathering in Belize, where twice-daily practice, jungle, ocean and Beverly's community combined into what she calls the most delicious Chi dish.

Gregory Berg notices how seldom the body moves sideways in daily life, from supermarket aisles to the Pecos River, then follows that thought into Carry the Ball to the Side, where the margin becomes the new center.

April Leffler recounts practicing T'ai Chi Chih abroad, from the 2003 Banff teacher conference to workshops in England and Italy and supporting Beverly Miles, Belize's only teacher, at her new open-air platform.

Steven Huskey teaches a weekly 45-minute seated class for brain injury survivors, emphasizing weight shift felt through the sit bones, upright torso, and compact hand movements in the side-to-side movements.

Lisa Stroyan recounts a week of twice-daily practice in Corozal, including a session at the Santa Rita Mayan reserve, and Mayor Vellos calling T'ai Chi Chih a healing art.

Christian Gunning, accredited in November 2024, traces 25 years of practice from Athens, Georgia through a midlife reckoning to the Colorado accreditation week with Sandy McAlister, where a long-carried sense of not deserving to be lifted.

Kathy Grassel interviews Tyler, a retired Episcopal and Byzantine Rite priest leaving her Albuquerque gym class for Chicago, on how the Tao Teh Ching, yin and yang, and bodily worship shaped his three years of practice.

Steven Huskey, accredited in November 2024, sets out what his accreditation week gave him in an acrostic spelling T'ai Chi Chih, from grounding and coaching students to establishing new classes and camaraderie.

Guy Kent announces the TCC Association's move to a larger Osuna Road center in Albuquerque, recalling the counsel that Chi follows community and the first center's 1995 opening.

Accredited in November 2024, Joan Sheehan describes the intention she set during accreditation week, the absorbed attention she now brings to mashing potatoes, and the clarity of practising at the Poudre River.

Darlene Benton, who learned T'ai Chi Chih largely from Carmen Brocklehurst's YouTube videos, finally visited the Albuquerque center, toured Justin Stone's artwork and books with Guy and Carmen, and bought his "Joy" notecards.

Two excerpts from Justin Stone's Spiritual Odyssey equate energy with wisdom and describe Prana's physical work, citing Krishnamurti, Gopi Krishna and Rinzai, plus Paul Reps' ten minutes of quiet receiving.

Vanessa Petterson, accredited in December 2022, describes building two Village Hall classes despite weak marketing skills, the laughter and loving kindness at each class ending, and her growing confidence as a teacher.

Sharon Sirkis collects four TCC laughs, from a plumber who found waterfall music anything but soothing to a teacher candidate joking about the KGB over an autographed brochure.

Marie Dotts traces her grounding from the soles of her feet to the t'an t'ien and the vertical core, describing how a level pelvic floor and slower pace deepened her root.

Transcribed from Justin Stone's spoken word CD, two talks recount a Roshi telling a lawyer to remove his overcoat, poems by Tagore and Tenko-san on the question of who you are, and a monk who kept rescuing a biting scorpion.

Laurie Jacobi, quoting Waysun Liao and teacher trainer April Leffler on thinking, works out how to cage the monkey mind by turning attention to feeling the weight shift millimeter by millimeter.

Laurin McDonald and Adam Lacey describe how a breakout session at Mindfulness Now's 20th anniversary conference in Birmingham drew twelve therapists, four of whom are now Zoom students heading toward accreditation.

Bonnie LeBlanc describes how four Cape Cod teachers sustain a TCC community through Sunday Zoom practice reaching Ireland and Florida, library and church drop-ins, weekly teacher workshops and regular coffee hours.

Adam Lacey describes a year of bringing T'ai Chi Chih into Banbury primary schools, with five-minute videos for teachers and shorter films for families, and asks North American teachers for guidance.

JJ Johnson describes how instructor Marie Dotts located the Bubbling Spring point below the ball of the foot, and how rooting the weighted leg before stepping out changed the start of every movement.

Jessica Lewis recounts how a painful condition in three right toes converted her from dismissing seated TCC as "TCC light," and argues for starting all students, especially veterans, in a chair and adding seated training to accreditation week.

Dorene Krause invites the reader into a moment of ordinary silence, breathing into the soles of the feet, releasing the heaviness of the heart and letting stillness calm the mind.