The Vital Force Archive

Pam Towne defines Seijaku as stillness in the midst of activity, recounts learning it from Justin Stone in Menlo Park in 1986, and lists the practice requirements for students and teachers seeking accreditation.

Lucy Hocking, certified in the 1980s, returned to the 2008 teacher conference after a long absence and recalled the 1985 Asilomar gathering, where a distant piper played Amazing Grace during beach practice.

Linda Brause traces her lifelong attachment to freedom, from a rural childhood running through grass to the class she took just for herself, where TCC gave that feeling back.

Donna McElhose spells out her idea of F-U-N at the 2008 conference: Friends coming together from afar, Uniting movements with grace, and Not Trying, simply being in the movement.

Mary J. Case recounts a year of accreditation, first classes and her first conference, and how Carmen Brocklehurst's September retreat, attended with her husband and student, finally let her feel the Chi.

Larry Sava collects techniques for helping students feel their movements: focusing on the soles of the feet, dividing each foot into four parts, using the eight coins approach, and returning to the principles of circularity, continuity and polarity.

Suzanne Roady-Ross, a longtime English teacher who had come to live almost entirely in her head, describes how Athene Mantle's instruction to stop thinking and start feeling eventually took hold.

Linda Braga of Castro Valley lists ten virtues of T'ai Chi Chih, from relaxing the mind and circulating the Chi to balancing yin and yang and bringing longevity and serenity through regular practice.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst argues that most routes to freedom, like taking a better paying job to clear debt, create new bondage, while T'ai Chi Chih turns attention inward, citing the UCLA shingles study.

Lorraine Lepine describes the online Teacher Resource list updated at the 2008 conference and announces Hannah Hedrick's "Guidelines for Teaching Students with COPD," the first of several population-specific guidelines.

Justin Stone names impatience as an ego problem that peaks in city traffic, contrasting twitching drivers at red lights with his friend Sri Dadubhai, who meditates by staring into the distance.

Margery Erickson recounts losing her father, her daughter and her first husband before age 26, and how daily T'ai Chi Chih practice later became an eraser clearing each day's slate.

Anita Vestal describes the TCC Student Reaction Questionnaire, a 12-question survey given at first and last classes, with 298 returns analyzed by SPSS showing higher positive ratings and lower pain.

Editor KG asks readers to submit articles rather than wait to be phoned, announces a question-based theme format starting November 2009, and warns that the journal needs 100 new subscribers within two issues.

Judy Tretheway answers why she has taught inside a prison for ten years, naming the pull of the men's sincerity, the push of spiritual forces, and the pride that once sent her into therapy.

Bo Waddell, five months into T'ai Chi Chih at age 63, writes from a three-day retreat about learning in class that Chi likes to play, recognizing a childhood companion.

Pete Gregory describes how Justin Stone's presence persists at practitioner gatherings, walks through the hand and weight pattern of Daughter in the Valley, and argues that a movement altered from Justin's teaching can no longer be called T'ai Chi Chih.

Judy Tretheway's poem contrasts her own freedom sitting beside a flowing river with those behind bars waiting for a chance, then asks whether her dependence on the river limits her too.

Richard Case, a few months into practice, names three reasons beginners' fingers stay still - fear of palsy, faking it and iron control - and describes how focusing on the soles of his feet at Carmen's retreat let the flutter come on its own.

Caroline Guilott recalls learning Daughter in the Valley wrongly and Victor Berg's exasperation before her training, then walks step by step through the shifts, the circular hands and the energy felt between the palms.

Harvey Barry Jacobs, a physician serving a wrongful life sentence, recounts finding Judy Tretheway's T'ai Chi Chih class in the Folsom chapel and teaching healthy living to 600 inmates.

Four months into her practice, Kathleen Bente writes to her teacher Dorene about the benefits she passes on to her patients, the new students joining the beginner's class, her newly purchased Seijaku DVD, and the habit energies that have shifted.

Judith Schwartz walks step by step through Daughter in the Valley as companion to Daughter on the Mountaintop, stressing the in-between stage when both feet are flat and both knees bent.

Barbara Riley asked her students whether freedom exists within a practice so precisely designed, and their answers pointed to wu-wei, quieted chattering minds, and Folsom inmates who feel free only in class.

Carol E. Lieberman watched silent women moving in San Francisco parks for years before a friend, Jim Eagle, became a teacher; nine months into classes at a Unitarian church, she can sit still for ten minutes.

Terrie Denisen walks through Daughter in the Valley step by step, from the first sinking and weight shift to the palms floating down, with attention to polarity, soft wrists and elbows that stay low.

Vicki Schroeder describes playing Justin Stone's instructional DVD as students arrive, reading from the photo text and The Vital Force in every class, and listing his books in her syllabus.

Amy Tyksinski's teaching notes on Daughter in the Valley: keep substance between the palms, point the fingers down then up, stop the hands under the chin, and feel the swirling rather than imagine it.

Sheila Leonard describes showing Justin's 2000 DVD in the second class so students can "meet Justin," using the KNME-TV interviews with returning students, and keeping books and journals on her table to borrow.

Lynne Roberts teaches Daughter in the Valley alongside Daughter on the Mountaintop as one whole, describes the peace and freedom from stress they bring, and offers an "M" memory trick for students.