The Vital Force Archive

Sandy McAlister counts the ripple from Linda Braga's TCC presentation to 200 people at a six-thousand-person conference, and urges students who plan to teach after retirement to start now, one class at a time.

Nancy Werner-Azarski recounts the small but energetic 2009 conference, where Anita's description of T'ai Chi Chih as a personal journey within a community, and a panel on spirituality, reshaped her thinking.

Pam Towne gathers testimonials from her six-week Southern California Seijaku class, including reports of eased arthritis pain, more energy with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and Justin Stone's 1989 remark about health and strength.

Diana Bahn recounts two falls, one crossing West 57th Street and one on the tennis court that strained her hamstring, and how acupuncture, physical therapy and a rebuilt daily practice brought Seijaku back within seven weeks.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst counters frustration with Pulling Taffy by having students affirm their love for it, then teaches the small circular hip swivel that keeps the shoulders still and generates chi from the waist.

Ann Rutherford, prompted by the Nebraska teacher conference, locates the yang elements of T'ai Chi Chih in grounding the chi, the hands descending at each close, and the substantial hand in Pulling Taffy.

Jean Katus shifted her emphasis in Pulling Taffy from the tan t'ien to the side movements, picturing a fine filament from the center and recalling Justin's marionette image.

Caroline Guillot includes Justin Stone's T'ai Chi Chih: Joy Thru Movement in her class fee, assigning homework from it and quizzing students orally in the final session.

Donna McElhose teaches Pulling Taffy through the motions of making ice cream, scooping left at waist level, circling a topping on with the right hand, wiping the dish and serving it to a friend.

Carmen Brocklehurst plays the Justin Speaks on T'ai Chi Chih CD as beginners arrive, uses its confirming signs of flowing Chi to prompt discussion, and assigns teacher preparation students fifteen minutes of daily listening with a notebook.

Justin Stone answers his editors' constant requests for copy, notes his articles may lean spiritual as he enters his nineties, and recalls the former head of T'ai Chi Chih who quit over his insistence that the practice is a service to humanity.

Amy Tyksinski gives a beginner's cue for Pulling Taffy: touch the leg that is about to move with the same-side hand, then keep that hand going, with the hands passing over the first leg.

Dan Pienciak describes using Justin Stone's essay "The Cumulative Effects of T'ai Chi Chih" from Spiritual Odyssey to motivate senior students, and inviting them to report changes like dropped blood pressure medication and a discarded oxygen tank.

TaiChiChih.org announces a social media outreach campaign using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, plus a planned TCC blog and e-newsletter, and asks teachers and students to contribute videos and testimonials.

Caroline Guillot names the circularity of the waist and the ellipse traced by the t'an t'ien as what she loves in Pulling Taffy, a movement she managed even with her arm in a cast.

Ann Rutherford draws on Justin Stone's writings from the Photo Text, Zen Meditation and Gateway To Eastern Philosophy and Religion to show how teachers can guide students past the "small mind" toward heightened awareness.

KG asks readers weighing year-end charitable giving to make a tax-deductible donation supporting The Vital Force and taichichih.org outreach, with the issue's contents and upcoming submission deadlines and themes listed.

Karen Dingwell-McCarthy describes her five-year, intuitive path to accreditation, the terror that gripped her in the three months beforehand, and the gratifying week that proved her fears unfounded.

Donna McElhose has her community college students hunt for articles on T'ai Chi Chih benefits at the start of the semester and again at its end, when their choices turn personal and emotional.

Judy Chancey recalls Justin Stone saying over tuna salad at Carmen Brocklehurst's Fall Retreat that life has always provided what he needed, and traces that to a Kyoto chess game.

Sue Bitney recounts an elderly Minneapolis student who arrived with a cane and oxygen tank on doctor's orders and, over three eight-week sessions, stood unaided for a full hour.

Donna McElhose describes the 2009 International T'ai Chi Chih Conference in Nebraska, organized by teachers from many areas rather than one region, with a scholarship raffle and a barbeque songfest.

Neal Roy describes meeting Justin Stone for the first time at a Fall retreat in Albuquerque with Carmen Brocklehurst, and the explosion of heat that rose through his body.

David Stone credits a morning practice with getting him through a painful couples counseling session where he disclosed troubling secrets, and thanks his teacher Steve Marsh for support after Iraq and entering a recovery program.

Becky Watkins traveled from Louisiana to the 2009 conference at Lied Lodge, spent two hours spotting twenty-seven bird species with an ornithologist at Arbor Day Farm, and found gratitude the theme of her week.

Stephen Thompson describes the state of flow in daily T'ai Chi Chih practice, where effortless movement, regulated breath and fluid time give way to a meta-state of oneness with Chi.

B.J. Day, a beginner in her twenties who considered herself clumsy and without balance, practised Rocking Motion while waiting for the shower to warm and recalled the Six Healing Sounds inside it.

Diana Reding recounts the group practice at the 2009 conference and how Justin's DVD changed her feeling for Pulling Taffy, where she now senses resistance across the t'an t'ien.

Mark Moloney writes that mystics' word maps are hard to swallow until one's own despair is mastered, followed by Pyramid Poems from CG and MW on chi, fear and sharing.

Terry Engelhart recounts the years after his wife's death from cancer in 2001, when faith, a Special Forces friend's blunt intervention, a quiche mispronunciation and T'ai Chi Chih kept him from suicide.